Your organization may be using a  cybersecurity rating to assess your risk exposure, including that of your third parties. Much like a credit score, the rating represents a number that is easy to understand and communicate. Essentially, the score answers two key questions: 

 1. How well is your company doing from a cybersecurity perspective? 

 2. What is the likelihood of your company getting breached within the next twelve months? 

But not all ratings are created equally, and you’re current cybersecurity rating might not be a good representation of your risk exposure. 

Here are 4 reasons your current cybersecurity risk rating may not be accurate: 

1. It’s heavily reliant on OSINT data – First-generation ratings based on open-source intelligence (OSINT) information, use data pulled from different open source providers. These have limitations on risk insights, not to mention that they are typically 30 days old when surfaced. OSINT-based assessments are only a component of a true measure of risk and can offer a false sense of security. 

2. There’s no internal risk insights – Performing internal assessments is an important component of security analysis. It’s never just about what hackers can see from the outside, but how they can move within an organization. There are myriad internal security functions that must be factored in to arrive at an accurate rating. For example, you may have internal resources with insecure ports open for communication. Or, you may have security flaws that haven’t been patched in a while. There is no way to gain that visibility with many security ratings solutions because they’re not publicly accessible. 

3. You can’t accurately classify your assets – Assets must be classified based on the type of data on which it is stored, processed, or transmitted. Cybersecurity rating solutions shouldn’t just group every security issue equally across all assets, especially if you’re trying to help organizations flag and prioritize risk findings in the right order; it would defeat the purpose. But unfortunately, many solutions do just that.  

4. You can’t customize your risk model – Most security ratings are put into a one-sized-fits-all risk model, despite having a unique IT infrastructure. You should have the ability to configure risk assessment models that best fit your risk impact visibility, where you can select specific data attributes that are most concerning to your organization’s risk appetite and adjust the impact it should have against your risk score.   

Learn how FortifyData has solved these issues with our next-generation Integrated Cybersecurity Risk Management and Ratings Platform in the whitepaper, The Evolution of Cybersecurity Ratings and How They Boost Risk Visibility. 

Or, see the difference with a free and accurate Cyber Risk Assessment.