What are security ratings?
Security ratings are an independent, quantifiable assessment of an organization's cybersecurity risk posture. Factors such as vulnerability assessment of attacker-exposed digital assets and industry standards influence these ratings, helping businesses identify security weaknesses, prioritize security investments, and communicate trust. Monitoring security ratings can positively impact cyber resilience.
If you’re analyzing the IT risk associated with a supplier, then a security rating service may be what you need. However, even for management of third-party risk, security professionals are generally not enthusiastic about security ratings services that offer simple scorecard-like functionality.
Many chief information security officers (CISOs) are dissatisfied with the over-simplified scorecard approach and the fact that the scoring is not based on in-depth security analysis.
In fact, a leading global advisory firm released a 2020 report on these ratings services that shows that only 18% of security leaders in the U.S. find security ratings valuable for third-party management. The highest rating was from India, where a mere 25% find these rating services add value.
If your goal goes beyond a security rating for a vendor for procurement purposes — managing your attack surface or evaluating the security posture of your own organization, your subsidiaries, or a merger and acquisition (M&A) target — using a cybersecurity rating dashboard solution is an even riskier choice.