The security reporting viewpoint used by CISOs consists of views such as the state of security compliance, security posture and cybersecurity trends. These views must be meaningful to the CISO and thereby help them make decisions that retain or improve organizational cybersecurity posture. This also helps the CISO demonstrate the effectiveness of the organization's security investments to the board of directors (or whoever they’re reporting to).

Businesses expect their information security systems  to provide security assurance. To some extent, businesses understand what successful security looks like. However, to prove that the investments into security programs are effective, stakeholders must feel the reports are relevant. When security teams take the above steps, they ensure that the organization has maximum visibility. The backbone in providing such reporting is Security Data Analytics and Reporting (SDAR).

Segregating reporting into domains helps organizations design reporting suited to each of recipients. In this article, we looked at the physical, logical and management domains at a high level. Future articles will detail the reporting viewpoints and then map stakeholders and their requirements with the reporting domains to design and deliver an SDAR system.

SDAR is quite robust and can be a useful cybersecurity tool, even without accompanying SIEM and SOAR systems.

This article will give you a high-level overview of the different terminologies and overlapping features of some common IT tools. You’ll also learn, in detail, about SIEM software and its use cases. Please refer to the glossary page for all the acronyms and definitions used in this article.