7 Key Cybersecurity Metrics And KPIs Your Business Should Be Measuring

Having robust cybersecurity measures for your business is essential. You need to ensure that your customers’ business data and private information are safe from potential hackers and attackers. If your clients can trust your online environment, especially for online stores, you can potentially level up your sales.

However, to achieve this, you need a team of professionals with excellent expertise in cybersecurity. It could be an in-house team, or you can hire professionals from cybersecurity managed services. In this case, professional, ethical hackers who know how black hat hackers think would be most appropriate. With their hacking knowledge, they can perform cybersecurity penetration testing services on your website, wireless connections, and network to identify possible penetration vulnerabilities. In addition, you need to track key metrics and KPIs that indicate your online security level. Mitigate any indicators of security breach and loopholes with immediate effect.

Here are some of the essential cybersecurity metrics and KPIs that your team may help you to track:

1. Preparedness Level

The level of preparedness can be a function of the number of business devices that are up to date and fully patched. To improve your business’s cybersecurity, you need to undertake CIS security controls such as vulnerability management and vulnerability scans. These controls help reduce the chance of vulnerability exploits significantly.

2. Unknown Gadgets On Internal Network

For better network security, you need to establish a policy that restricts the use of unregistered devices on your internet. Moreover, suppose any of your employees want to use a personal device such as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. In that case, it should be well-secured so that your network doesn’t suffer network vulnerabilities. In addition, your employees might introduce malware or other security risks through personal devices. On top of that, poorly configured Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets may be a doorway for cyberattacks.

To help your employees be on their guard, develop a cybersecurity culture by sensitizing them. To begin with, you may encourage them to install antiviruses on their devices. Your network security experts should deploy network intrusion detection systems that block unregistered devices. Any staff who wishes to use another gadget apart from office devices should let the IT department assign it an IP address.

3. Intrusion Attempts

When hackers target your business, they’ll try all they can to bypass all network security measures. This unauthorized access is called intrusion. To know if there were intrusion attempts in your business network, you should check your firewall logs to collect the intelligence information. This means that if your business doesn’t have a firewall, which is an extra cybersecurity layer, you need to introduce one.

4. Mean Time To Detect (MTTD)

Mean-time-to-detect is a measuring metric that helps you monitor how long it takes for a security threat to be noticed. It can be a function of the kind of technology you’ve deployed in your organization to detect possible security threats. To match modern hacking technology, you must stop using legacy systems and adopt up-to-date systems. The longer it takes to discover a security threat, the higher the chances of a successful cyberattack.

5. Mean Time To Resolve (MTTR)

It refers to your security team’s time taken to resolve a launched attack, depending on its nature. It can take your team a short time if it’s a minor attack. On the other hand, if it’s a major attack, like a denial of service (DOS), it may take your technical team a while. A DOS can log everyone out of the network, complicating the resolution measures. To quickly resolve an attack, you need to ensure that you have top-notch professionals in your team. Alternatively, you can hire managed services from cybersecurity service providers.

6. First Party Security Ratings

It’s generally believed that the easiest way to relay metrics to a non-technical team is by security ratings. You have to use an easy-to-understand score. Some of the aspects that you can focus on during security ratings are email spoofing, risk of man-in-the-middle attacks, social engineering, phishing risk, data leaks, among others. From the data collected, you should identify the security metrics that require attention.

7. Patching Cadence

This metric looks at the time it takes to apply security patches on security loopholes. Between releasing a patch and implementing it, it can pose a security threat to your business. It’s believed that attacks like WannaCry and ransomware use this time-lapse.

Final Thoughts

If you’re committed to a safe online work environment for your business, implementing a robust cybersecurity strategy should be among your top priorities. On top of that, you need a good plan and key metrics that help you track your cybersecurity strength, as indicated in this article.