Security Dashboard for CISOs and Security Leaders

What is the biggest challenge CISOs and security professionals face while combating the rising number of threats? Lack of visibility. It might be obvious, but visibility into your network can limit and cripple your ability to confidently combat threats

Visibility is one key factor that often limits the effectiveness and impact of the work CISOs, and security leaders do. Further, without a clear and comprehensive view of your organization's security landscape, making informed decisions is next to impossible!

Overcome the visibility problem with security dashboards.

However, creating security dashboards isn't as easy as you might think. A lot of factors in your IT network can limit you and create obstacles in the process of building security dashboards.

Additionally, apart from collecting info on your enterprise, you must also get the best out of the data too. That includes actionable insights and properly aligned tasks.

So, let's understand the ins and outs of security dashboards and learn how to get the best visibility for your network.

Key Challenges CISOs face in Getting Visibility

Lack of deep and insightful visibility is probably the biggest challenge that hampers the productivity, impact and overall work of CISOs and security leaders. But why does this challenge exist?

• Multiple Tools: The most obvious one here, security professionals use multiple tools to perform their tasks. It can include vulnerability scanners, patching tools, detection and response tools, and more. Each of these tools will generate its own data and that can create a mess. So, in the end, all you’ll have is a humongous amount of data that doesn’t tell you anything actionable!
• Lack of unified view: A direct result of the first challenge, multiple tools lead to a scattered view of the info. Due to different vendors and missing integration between the tools, you can't aggregate all the data into a single unified view too. As a result, all you’d have is messy data that can confuse you and limit your impact.
• Complex Operations: Another, more nuanced challenge security leaders face is the sheer complexity of the work they do.

So, what’s the result of challenges?

Lack of visibility, difficult decision-making, and overall lack of effectiveness in cybersecurity efforts.

5 Key Components to Create CISO’s Dream Security Dashboard

Now that you know the challenges, how can you get the visibility you need? As previously mentioned, it shouldn’t be a collection of all the data but a cherry-picked metric that’ll give you the picture you need.

Here are the 5 must-have components for your security dashboard

• Device/ Network Overview: The most obvious of them all, device or network overview basically provides the entire network at a glance. The goal of this component is to ensure you don’t miss out on any device in your network.
  Here’s an example:

• Total Vulnerability Count: Vulnerabilities and risks are the biggest reason why your network is under potential threat. So, having the total Vulnerability count is always handy.

• Criticality Overview: The next important component is the criticality overview of the risks in your network. When the total number of risks is split based on criticality, that’ll provide another layer of information without overwhelming you.

• Pending Patches: Another critical metric, the pending patches component of your dashboard, should list all the patches that have yet to be applied, along with their associated vulnerabilities. This is especially important in understanding the potential risk they pose.

• Most Impactful Patches: Not all patches have the same impact on your security posture. So, prioritizing is key, especially when the number of patches is high. Some patches address vulnerabilities that are more critical than others, and some can also fix multiple vulns as well.

Must-Have Types of Dashboards for a CISO

Different members of your team need different levels of detail. While CISOs typically need a high-level overview, your security analysts will need more granular data to do their jobs effectively.

So, here are some must-have dashboards that cater to your team and your network as a whole.

• Daily Dashboards:
  
  Daily dashboards are arguably the most important ones to have and are typically used by ‘more hands-on’ members of the team. With real-time insights into your security posture, the dashboards must highlight anything that needs immediate attention. Ex: Critical vulnerabilities, important patches, potential loopholes, and more.

• Weekly & Monthly Dashboards: Similar to the daily dashboards, the weekly and monthly dashboards provide a higher view of your network. Further, these also include the activities performed on the network. The key difference is that these dashboards are more concise and briefer when compared to the daily dashboards.

• Executive Dashboards: Unlike the previous reports, the executive dashboards are for the C-suite and board members who may not have a deep understanding of cybersecurity. These dashboards should be high-level and not be very technical.
  
  Here’s what the executive dashboard should look like:

Simplifying Your Dashboards with Saner Platform

Building and maintaining effective security dashboards can be a daunting task, especially if you’re trying to do it manually or with disjointed tools.

Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered.

SecPod Saner Platform is a continuous vulnerability and exposure management solution built to tackle what you face every day: dangerous security risks and challenging vulnerability mitigation. You can scan, detect, assess, prioritize, remediate, and report security risks. All in one single tool.

In the case of dashboards, Saner Platform provides extensive and comprehensive customization and breadth of data to give you exactly what you need. But at the same, it simplifies the entire process of monitoring your network with natively built in capabilities.

Saner Platform automatically creates these dashboards, ensuring that you always have the insights you need at your fingertips.

Here’s how:

• Natively Built-in Capabilities:
  
  A key differentiator Saner Platform brings to the table is that it can replace your vulnerability management stack and unify the cyberattack prevention process. That means you don’t have to jump through multiple hoops (tools ;) )to actually do what you want to do.
  
• Automatic Generation:
  
  Talking about the dashboards in particular, due to Saner Platform’s multiple capabilities, you can automatically generate the reports and dashboards you need. This eliminates the need for you to manually collect data and the other advantage is your dashboards are always up to date.
  
• Granular Customization:
  
  Your organization might have different priorities and goals, so you might need different data to monitor. Saner Platform allows you to completely customize your dashboards to reflect your organization's specific priorities and risks. You can choose which metrics to display and get the exact info you need.
  
• Real-Time Management:
  
  With the networks being so dynamic, yesterday’s data can be useless. So, Saner Platform’s dashboards provide real-time visibility into your security posture, allowing you to monitor risks as they emerge and respond accordingly. This real-time management capability ensures that you can address vulnerabilities and threats before they have a chance to escalate into serious incidents.

Conclusion

As the saying goes, knowledge is power. But too much of anything can be dangerous, so security dashboards are powerful tools you must add to your arsenal. From simplifying data communication to providing insights into your security efforts, dashboards will give the visibility you need.

Simplify vulnerability management and your dashboards with Saner Platform.