Trust begins with transparency.
For full transparency, we documented and made public our methodology and formulas that calculate our scores. Learn about it in our Scoring Methodology whitepaper.
SecurityScorecard commissioned a team of independent pentest experts to audit a sample of scorecards to objectively determine the accuracy of our IP and domain attribution.
This Site
Our goal is to provide transparency into our ratings methodology and deliver insights into how it aligns with industry standards.
Security rating companies use a combination of data points collected organically or purchased from public and private sources, and then apply proprietary algorithms to articulate an organization’s security effectiveness into a quantifiable score. Here we show the quality, breadth, and measurements of our data and its sources.
for the Entire Team
Learn more about these principles adopted by the US Chamber of Commerce and supported by organizations across the globe as guidelines for fair and accurate security ratings.
With millions of companies scored, the depth and scope of our collected data is unmatched, and our ability to validate our data increases with every new customer and follower.
These numbers are updated in real time, and illustrate the expansive reach of our scoring and monitoring.
832,258
Users Logged Into The Platform Today
Dispute, Correction, and Appeal
According to the principle, dispute, correction and appeal, rated organizations shall have the right to challenge their rating and provide corrected or clarifying data.
Companies can dispute any finding associated with their company score using one of three resolution types:
DISPUTE
The identified risk/finding was incorrectly associated with the company and should be removed from the company’s record/score.
CORRECTION
The company provides clarifying data about a compensating control in place that is not visible to our non-intrusive, outside-in view of the company.
APPEAL
The company resolved the risk.
SecurityScorecard engages collaboratively with its users and maintains a response time for resolving customer-submitted refutes that is consistent with market leading practices and our commitment to exceptional customer service. The chart shows the 7-day trailing average of recent daily response time in hours.
SecurityScorecard engages collaboratively with its users and maintains a response time for resolving customer-submitted refutes that is consistent with market leading practices and our commitment to exceptional customer service. The chart shows the 7-day trailing average of recent daily response time in hours.
Transparency
Our customers have access to the greatest volume and quality of intelligence available.
SecurityScorecard leverages data mined with the market’s leading capabilities, and relies on a global network of sensors to monitor signals across the internet.
We enrich our data using commercial and open-source intelligence sources, and track over 79 security issues.
SecurityScorecard’s scoring algorithm is based on a principled statistical framework.
One of the biggest challenges to providing fair cybersecurity ratings is properly accounting for company size. Attack surface typically scales with digital footprint, which ranges from a single IP for a small company to hundreds of millions of IPs for a large tech firm. To level the playing field, SecurityScorecard measures how the incidence of cybersecurity flaws (i.e. number of issue findings) varies with company size, and evaluates companies compared to organizations of similar size.
The number of findings for exposed Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) service vs. the number of IPs (size of digital footprint).
SecurityScorecard monitors the cybersecurity posture of millions of organizations. Among organizations with this issue, the dashed blue line corresponds to the average incidence (no. of findings). For example, an organization with 106 IPs (i.e. 1,000,000 IPs) typically has about 102 (i.e. 100) findings for exposed RDP service. Each blue dot corresponds to a scored company. Organizations in the yellow band receive an average score. Companies in the green region (fewer than average findings) receive a better score, while those in the red region (worse than average findings) receive a worse score. Hover over the graph to see how the distribution of findings among comparably sized organizations (gray vertical band) varies with company size.
SecurityScorecard scores provide insights and a detailed analysis of the security posture of an organization. Take a deep dive into our scoring methodology.
Accuracy & Validation
Refute Rate
Refute Rate
SecurityScorecard reports a low False Positive error rate for domain attribution based user-submitted refutes. The chart shows a 7-day trailing average of recent data.
Companies that use SecurityScorecard to engage their supply chain see a quantifiable improvement in their ecosystem security posture.
Rated companies that are invited to the platform with low security grades (C, D, or F) typically exhibit on average a 7 to 8 point improvement within 3 months, while the average score of unengaged companies remains relatively unchanged over the same period.
Model Governance
SecurityScorecard grades the cybersecurity health of organizations based on the information collected by ThreatMarket, our proprietary data engine, as well as our own internal collection activities. ThreatMarket collects information from several sources like data feeds, sensors, honeypots, and sinkholes. Both methods collect data that is externally accessible and public, meaning no intrusive techniques are used to gather the information. This comprehensive swath of data is then analyzed and appropriately weighted by considering factors such as the severity of the issues, the risk level as defined by industry standards, the overall performance of similar companies, and so on.
SecurityScorecard’s approach is to actively communicate substantive platform changes to customers using the appropriate methods of communication based on the update. This may include, for example:
- Customer success representatives providing updates to customers via email.
- In platform pop-ups alerting customers to updates upon login.
- Whitepapers explaining scoring methodologies.
Independence
SecurityScorecard’s ratings are fully independent and free of any commercial bias. To facilitate a fair, consistent and meaningful evaluation of cybersecurity risk, SecurityScorecard uses robust statistical methods to evaluate the security posture of a company compared to others of similar size. SecurityScorecard determines a company’s size by the number of digital assets assigned to the company. Aligning ratings for every company based on size ensures that companies are compared apples-to-apples, and that commercial agreements with SecurityScorecard do not influence ratings.
SecurityScorecard provides the ability for any rated company to view their company’s scorecard. A companion article titled SecurityScorecard on the Principles for Fair & Accurate Security Ratings: A Focus on Dispute, Correction, and Appeal provides additional detail on the topic of how a company can challenge a rating.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality: All information disclosed during a rating challenge or dispute is protected according to Confidentiality terms documented in the SecurityScorecard Master Service Agreement.
SecurityScorecard is committed to providing ratings for companies that is based solely on publicly and ethically sourced data. In principle, the rating data provided by SecurityScorecard is already in the public domain. SecurityScorecard recognizes the sensitivity of the data represented in our rating system and works diligently to protected sensitive data from public disclosure. Efforts to protect information include information security controls within the platform and SecurityScorecard’s online footprint itself.
SecurityScorecard data is only available to users that have properly registered for access to our platform information. Any user that wishes to view the scorecard for their own company must go through a formal user onboarding process that ensures the user is an employee of the company they claim to represent. In addition, companies that license the service must adhere to contractual obligations that dictate the use of ratings they access with respect to their vendors, to ensure the information is not used to compromise the systems of another third party.