Mitigating Risk With Cloud Security Metrics
As the volume of attacks on cloud services continues to rise, CISOs and their teams need clear metrics for monitoring, assessing, and mitigating risk. However, a lack of visibility makes it challenging to track cybersecurity and cloud security metrics effectively. As your organization relies more heavily on cloud services and your workforce becomes increasingly remote, getting a clear view of your attack surface is more complex than ever. Without continuous visibility into all your assets in the cloud, it’s difficult to establish meaningful cloud security metrics and achieve superior cybersecurity protection.
Bitsight can help. Bitsight Attack Surface Analytics lets you shine a light on your attack surface as it expands to the cloud and remote environments. Bitsight gives your security team continuous, broad visibility and context into your attack surface in the cloud and across hosting providers, so you can better monitor the most effective cloud security metrics and understand the risk profile of all your cloud-hosted assets.
Nine Security Metrics To Watch
Monitoring risk and improving security performance in the cloud and throughout your digital ecosystem begins with monitoring the right cloud and cyber risk metrics. Specific, quantifiable metrics can help you build a security program that thoroughly addresses the external, internal, and supply chain threats.
To monitor external threats, you’ll want to watch metrics like:
- The number of botnet infections per device over a period of time. This metric forces you to examine how many and what kind of botnets have infiltrated your network, and whether botnets are installing malware or performing data exfiltration.
- The number of unpatched known vulnerabilities. This metric can help to ensure that you’re adequately patching your own network, or if risks are left unpatched for dangerous amounts of time.
- The number of properly configured SSL certificates. Monitoring this metric can help you determine whether your SSL certificates meet the accepted level of security and whether servers are properly configured.
To monitor for internal threats, it’s helpful to track metrics like:
- The frequency with which employee access is reassessed. Waiting to reassess employees for prolonged periods of time could be a cause for concern and cause phishing attempts and improper access to go undetected.
- The amount of peer-to-peer filesharing activity. The number of files that have been shared or downloaded through unauthorized technologies is typically a good measure of security posture.
- The percentage of “super users.” Higher numbers of super users – employees that have broad access to data within the organization – may increase your chances of an insider-based attack.
To track threats within your supply chain, you can monitor metrics such as:
- The number of open ports. Monitoring open ports over a period of time can help you understand whether third-party vendors are leaving channels exposed to bad actors using unencrypted channels.
- The percentage of third-party software that is scanned for vulnerabilities before deployment. If this metric is less than 100%, your corporate network could be at risk.
- The percentage of vendors whose cybersecurity effectiveness is continuously monitored. Continuous monitoring solutions help you keep an eye on third-party risk in the weeks and months between questionnaires, audits, and penetration tests, and sometimes take the place of these manual assessments altogether.
