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  • Support
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  • Products
    PRODUCTS
    • Security Ratings
      Identify security strengths across ten risk factors.
    • Security Data
      Get actionable, data-based insights.
    • Security Assessments
      Automate security questionnaire exchange.
    • Attack Surface Intelligence
      NEW
      On-demand contextualized global threat intelligence.
    • Automatic Vendor Detection
      Uncover your third and fourth party vendors.
    • Cyber Risk Quantification
      Translate cyber risk into financial impact.
    • Reporting Center
      Streamline cyber risk reporting.
    • SecurityScorecard Marketplace
      Discover and deploy pre-built integrations.
    SERVICES
    • Active Security Services
      Test your security controls.
    • Cyber Risk Intelligence
      Partner to obtain meaningful threat intelligence.
    • Digital Forensics & Incident Response
      Prepare to respond to any threat.
    • Third-Party Risk Management
      Reduce risk across your vendor ecosystem.
    BUY NOW
    • Compare All Plans
      Choose a plan that's right for your business.
    • Try Free Account
      Make informed decisions with confidence.
    • Buy Pro Now
      Add automated event responses.
    • Buy Business Now
      Expand on Pro with vendor management and integrations.
    • Request Enterprise Demo
      See the capabilities of an enterprise plan in action.
    icon__SSClogoMark icon__SSClogoMark

    Understand and reduce risk with SecurityScorecard.

    Free account sign up
  • Solutions
    BY USE CASE
    • Compliance
    • Cyber Insurance
    • Digital Forensics
    • Due Diligence
    • Enterprise Cyber Risk
    • Executive-Level Reporting
    • Incident Response
    • Regulatory Oversight
    • Third-Party Risk
    BY INDUSTRY
    • Enterprise
    • Financial Services
    • Government
    • Healthcare
    • Insurance
    • Retail & Consumer
    • Technology
    Help your organization calculate its risk
    View All Solutions
  • Customers
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    • Customer Overview
      Trusted by companies of all industries and sizes.
    • Peer Reviews
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      Receive award-winning customer service.
    • Support
      Get your questions answered by our experts.
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    • SecurityScorecard Connect
      Engage in fun, educational, and rewarding activities.
    • Connect Login
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    icon__SSClogoMark icon__SSClogoMark
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    Free account sign up
  • Partners

    Partner Program Overview

    Partner with SecurityScorecard and leverage our global cybersecurity ratings leadership to expand your solution, deliver more value, and win new business.

    Learn more
    • Locate a Partner
      Access our industry-leading partner network.
    • Value-Added Resellers
      Enter new markets, deliver more value, and get rewarded.
    • Managed Service Providers
      Meet customer needs with cybersecurity ratings.
    • ISAC Partner Program
      Learn more about the industries we support and ISAC member benefits.
    • Technology Alliances
      Access innovative solutions from leading providers.
    • SCORE Portal Login
      Use the SCORE Partner Program to grow your business.
    • SecurityScorecard Marketplace
      Find a trusted solution that extends your SecurityScorecard experience.

    Understand and reduce risk with SecurityScorecard.

    Free account sign up
  • Resources
    RESOURCES
    • Resource Center
      Explore our cybersecurity ebooks, data sheets, webinars, and more.
    • SecurityScorecard Blog
      Read the latest blog posts published weekly.
    • Research & Insights Center
      Access our research on the latest industry trends and sector developments.
    • SecurityScorecard Academy
      NEW
      Complete certification courses and earn industry-recognized badges.
    TOOLS AND DOCUMENTATION
    • Free Security Rating
      Get your free ratings report with customized security score.
    • Product Release Notes
      Visit our support portal for the latest release notes.
    • Free Account Signup
      Start monitoring your cybersecurity posture today.
    • Chrome Extension
      NEW
      Show the security rating of websites you visit.
    • Assessments ROI Calculator
      Calculate the ROI of automating questionnaires.
    Trust begins with transparency. Take a look at the data that drives our ratings.
    Learn more
  • Company

    Working at SecurityScorecard

    Committed to promoting diversity, inclusion, and collaboration–and having fun while doing it.

    Join our team
    • About Us
      SecurityScorecard is the global leader in cybersecurity ratings.
    • Leadership
      Meet the team that is making the world a safer place.
    • Press
      Explore our most recent press releases and coverage.
    • Events
      Join us at any of these upcoming industry events.
    • Policy Insights
      Raising the bar on cybersecurity with security ratings.
    • Careers
      APPLY TODAY
      Come join the SecurityScorecard team!
    • Contact Us
      Contact us with any questions, concerns, or thoughts.
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Request a demo
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SecurityScorecard 10 Risk Factors Explained

11/02/2020

Increasingly, organizations understand both the financial impact and information security posture value associated with cybersecurity ratings. At SecurityScorecard, we believe that trust begins with transparency. In keeping with this commitment to transparency, SecurityScorecard ensures that our ten risk factors are explained in an easy-to-understand manner that enables business and IT leaders to create meaningful conversations around cybersecurity risk and compliance

Understand the cyberhealth of your ecosystem across 10 risk factors.

Application Security

Detecting common website application vulnerabilities.

The Web Application Vulnerability module uses incoming threat intelligence from known exploitable conditions identified via: whitehat CVE databases, blackhat exploit databases, and sensitive findings indexed by major search engines. The module ingests data from multiple public data sets, third party feeds, and an internal proprietary indexing and aggregation engine. The score determines the likelihood of an upcoming web application breach and checks for any existing defacement code. The presence of vulnerable applications, outdated versions, and active defacements are used to calculate the overall grade.

Cubit Score

Proprietary algorithms checking for implementation of common security best practices.

This proprietary module measures a variety of security issues that a company might have. For example, we check public threat intelligence databases for IP addresses that have been flagged. These misconfigurations may have high exploitability and could cause significant harm to the privacy of your data and infrastructure.

DNS Health

Detecting DNS insecure configurations and vulnerabilities.

This module measures the health and configuration of a company’s DNS settings. It validates that no malicious events occurred in the passive DNS history of the company’s network. It also helps validate that mail servers have the proper protection in place to avoid spoofing. It also helps verify that DNS servers are configured correctly.

Endpoint Security

Measuring security level of employee workstations.

The Endpoint Security Module tracks identification points that are extracted from metadata related to the operating system, web browser, and related active plugins. The information gathered allows companies to identify outdated versions of these data points which can lead to client-side exploitation attacks.

Hacker Chatter

Monitoring hacker sites for chatter about your company.

The SecurityScorecard Hacker Chatter module is an automated collection and aggregation system for the analysis of multiple streams of underground hacker chatter. Forums, IRC, social networks, and other public repositories of hacker community discussions are continuously monitored, collected, and aggregated in order to locate mentions of business names and websites. The Hacker Chatter score is an informational indicator ranking that is ranked based on the number of indicators that appear within the collection sensors.

IP Reputation

Detecting suspicious activity, such as malware or spam, within your company network.

The IP Reputation and Malware Exposure module makes use of the SecurityScorecard sinkhole infrastructure as well as a blend of OSINT malware feeds, and third-party threat intelligence data-sharing partnerships. The SecurityScorecard sinkhole system ingests millions of malware signals from commandeered Command and Control (C2) infrastructures globally from all over the world. The incoming data is processed and attributed to corporate enterprises. The quantity and duration of malware infections are used as the determining factor for calculating the Malware Exposure Key Threat Indicator.

Network Security

Detecting insecure network settings.

The Network Security module checks public datasets for evidence of high risk or insecure open ports within the company network. Insecure ports can often be exploited to allow an attacker to circumvent the login process or obtain elevated access to the system. If misconfigured, the open port can act as the entry point between a hacker’s workstation and your internal network.

Information Leak

Potentially confidential company information that may have been inadvertently leaked.

This Information Leak module makes use of chatter monitoring and deep web monitoring capabilities to identify compromised credentials being circulated by hackers. These come in the form of bulk data breaches announced publicly as well as smaller breaches, and smaller exchanges between hackers.

Patching Cadence

Out of date company assets which may contain vulnerabilities or risks.

The Patching Cadence module analyzes how quickly a company reacts to vulnerabilities to measure patching practices. We look at the rate at which it takes a company to remediate and apply patches compared to peers.

Social Engineering

Measuring company awareness to a social engineering or phishing attack.

The SecurityScorecard Social Engineering Module is used to determine the potential susceptibility of an organization to a targeted social engineering attack. The Social Engineering module ingests data from social networks and public data breaches and blends proprietary analysis methods. The Social Engineering Score is an informational indicator calculated based on the number of indicators that appear in SecurityScorecard collection sensors.

How we measure scores

An organization’s overall Total Score is based on a weighted average of the individual factor scores.

SecurityScorecard gives each factor a “weight,” or value of importance that reflects how important that particular factor is to an organization’s overall cybersecurity posture. Critical or high risks are given greater importance as part of the overall score.

We apply a similar weighted average to each of the individual risk factor groupings for the individual Factor Scores.

For example, since IP reputation is a higher risk than hacker chatter, we give that a greater “weight” when creating the Total Score. Within the IP reputation risk factor category, we look at the different controls and apply a similar ranking to those for evaluating the organization’s “IP reputation” Factor Score.

SecurityScorecard: Security with transparency

SecurityScorecard began with a belief that IT professionals and business leaders needed to communicate cybersecurity risks more effectively. We’ve worked to create an easy-to-understand scoring system based on an A-F rating scale so that all enterprise stakeholders can meaningfully discuss information security.

Companies with an F rating are 7.7x more likely to suffer a data breach versus those with an A rating. In a world where a data breach can lead to reputational and financial ruin, SecurityScorecard works hard to give organizations a way to protect the sensitive information that customers entrust to them.

For a more detailed discussion of our ten risk factors and how we generate our scores, download our whitepaper “A Deep Dive in Scoring Methodology.”

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