The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) provides organizations with best practices for managing cybersecurity risk. Performing comprehensive NIST assessments is crucial for evaluating controls, developing strategies to protect critical assets, and monitoring overall cyber maturity.
However, manual assessments can be extremely labor-intensive and checklist-focused as opposed to performance focused. They are also point-in-time measurements that can be quickly outdated. Automating NIST CSF risk assessments can provide continuous evaluation of security performance to identify security gaps from real-world and emerging threats.
NIST CSF Assessment Automation Is the Future
As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, organizations need frequent, repeatable, and comprehensive assessments to reveal risks in real-time. Automation makes this possible.
Automated cybersecurity assessments can safely test existing controls against real-work threats, measure the performance of tools and analysts, and recommend the best solution to address any security gaps. This transforms NIST CSF assessments from periodic compliance checkboxes to dynamic security programs that improve over time.
The Advantages of Automating NIST CSF Assessments
The advantages of automating risk assessments with a threat exposure management platform include:
Objective Performance Data and Consistent Results
By removing the subjectivity inherent in manual checklist processes, automated assessments offer unbiased evaluations of security operations and controls based on verifiable performance data. This means assessment teams can measure across clients consistently to accurately benchmark and compare performance while also reducing error rates.
Time and Cost Efficiency
Automation dramatically accelerates the process of risk assessment, performing continuous analysis in real-time. Not only does this reduce the workload for security teams, but it also reduces the costs associated with manual assessments. This means assessments can be completed more quickly, for less cost.
Repeatability = Real-time Risk Identification
Since the assessments are pre-programmed, they can be repeated in an ongoing way for clients that want to track and improve their security posture over time. The best automated assessments will evaluate performance, identify areas for improvement, and prioritize issues that require immediate attention. Ongoing threat assessments result in continuous visibility that can be used to guide and confirm cybersecurity posture improvements.
Customizable Reporting
Advanced automated platforms generate comprehensive reports with qualitative and quantitative insights into organizational cyber risk. Reports can also be tailored to highlight the most critical information for different audiences, from executives to individual team members.
How to Transform Operations with Automated NIST CSF Assessments
Assessment automation aids in strategic decision-making, so it should be integrated into regular security operations. SightGain connects to existing security tools and gives holistic visibility into security operations while providing individualized recommendations to address any shortfalls.
Unlike other solutions, SightGain doesn’t just reveal what threats are being stopped, but it also shows the threats cybersecurity tools are missing. SightGain automated assessment capabilities collect empirical evidence to generate objective measures of security performance, documenting security gaps, and guiding remediation. The SightGain platform tests cybersecurity tech, processes, and people against the threats they protect against — automatically. Contact SightGain today to get a demo.
