Cybersecurity Posture

How to monitor vendors’ cybersecurity posture

As trends toward outsourcing and remote workforces continue to reshape the business landscape, monitoring the cybersecurity posture of your vendors is more critical than ever. A surprising number of companies, however, rely on annual or biannual surveys to determine third-party cybersecurity posture. In addition to being potentially biased and subjective, these surveys can be outdated within hours of completion. Continuous monitoring is a far more helpful approach but can be challenging to implement without the right tools.

Bitsight offers an answer – an automated, continuous monitoring solution that delivers daily risk and cybersecurity metrics that allow you to proactively identify the cybersecurity posture of vendors to better manage risk throughout your ecosystem.

Evaluating cybersecurity posture

There are four key risk indicators that can help to determine a vendor’s cybersecurity posture.

1. Compromised systems

From botnet infections and spam propagation to malware servers and exploited machines, compromised systems are evidence of successful cyberattacks and an indication of potential future breaches.

2. Diligence

Determining whether a third-party has taken steps to prevent an attack can indicate whether the organization has a strong cyber risk strategy and risk management practices in place.

3. User behavior

User behavior that may expose credentials and employees who use peer-to-peer filesharing protocols may make their organization more susceptible to malware infections.

4. Data breaches

An organization’s history of breaches for which it was at fault is a strong indicator of its cybersecurity posture.

Measuring cybersecurity posture with Bitsight

Bitsight is the world’s most widely adopted Security Ratings solution. Providing a data-driven, dynamic measurement of an organization’s cybersecurity performance, Bitsight enables you to quickly determine a vendor’s cybersecurity posture and to make faster, more strategic management decisions about vendor relationships.

Bitsight Security Ratings are daily ratings derived from objective, verifiable information. Similar to the approach developed by the credit ratings industry, Bitsight Security Ratings are based on the analysis of externally observable data. Bitsight continuously measures the four critical indicators – compromised systems, diligence, user behavior, and data breaches – to deliver a real-time, evidence-based cyber risk assessment.

Benefits of security ratings for cybersecurity posture

Bitsight Security Ratings provide the data and intelligence that drives several use cases.

By generating security ratings that measure the cybersecurity posture of third-party vendors, Bitsight offers significant advantages to your organization.

Easier evaluation

Bitsight Security Ratings help to summarize the risk in vendor relationships and communicate technical details in easily understood terms to make more informed decisions about partnering with other businesses.

Faster onboarding

By enabling you to determine a vendor’s cybersecurity posture and associated risk, Bitsight Security Ratings make it possible to bring vendors on board faster and to take advantage of the services and value they offer.

Reduced risk

By understanding the cyber risk related to each vendor and aligning it with your organization’s risk tolerance levels, you can make data-driven decisions that prioritize resources to reduce risk efficiently across your portfolio.

Why Choose Bitsight?

An industry-leading solution

Bitsight is the world’s leading provider of cyber risk intelligence, transforming how security leaders manage and mitigate risk. Leveraging the most comprehensive external data and analytics, Bitsight empowers organizations to make confident, data-backed decisions and equips security and compliance teams from over 3,300 organizations across 70+ countries with the tools to proactively detect exposures and take immediate action to protect their enterprises and supply chains. Bitsight customers include 38% of Fortune 500 companies, 4 of the top 5 investment banks, and 180+ government agencies and quasi-governmental authorities, including U.S. and global financial regulators.

Extensive visibility

Bitsight operates one of the largest risk datasets in the world. Leveraging over 10 years of experience collecting, attributing, and assessing risk across millions of entities, we combine the power of AI with the curation of technical researchers to unlock an unparalleled view of your organization. Bitsight offers more complete visibility into important risk areas such as botnets, mobile apps, IoT systems, and more. Our cyber data collection and scanning capabilities include:

• 40 million+ monitored entities
• 540 billion+ cyber events in our data lake
• 4 billion+ routable IP addresses 
• 500 million+ domains monitored
• 400 billion+ events ingested daily
• 12+ months of historical data

Superior analytics

Bitsight offers a full analytics suite that addresses the challenges of peer comparison, digital risk exposure, and future performance.

Ratings validation

Bitsight is the only rating solution with third-party validation of correlation to breach from AIR Worldwide and IHS Markit.

Quantifiable outcomes

Bitsight drives proven ROI with significant operational efficiency and risk reduction outcomes.

Prioritization of risk vectors

Bitsight incorporates the criticality of risk vectors in to calculation of Security Ratings, highlighting risk in a more diversified way to ensure the most critical assets and vulnerabilities are ranked higher.

FAQs: What is Cybersecurity Posture?