by Jordan Harris – 06/2/11
Creating a number value for the perceived state of cyber security isn’t an easy task but two highly respected security professionals have created just that. The Index of Cyber Security (ICS) is a new website and index to take the opinion of roughly 300 chief risk officers, Chief Information Security officers, academics and security firm chief scientists. This sentiment-based index created by Dan Geer and Mukul Pareek to measure the level of risk to business, government and education from a range of cyber security threats.
The index has only been in operation since April 2011 but has published two reports thus far. The index takes 15 sub-indices that measure everything from malware attacks to media and public perception. With the recent breaches at Micheals and Sony the index has been increasing. March 2011 is the baseline of 1000 for the index which is currently at 1043.2. These indices are published monthly to provide a reference of the state of cyber security for researchers, industry professionals, media, security product vendors and financial markets.
The creators Dan Geer and Mukul Pareek feel this will assess the level of risk in the market place and give a status for individual practitioners to compare their own threat level. The continued sharing of information of current risks between firms is helping to mitigate the problem as identified in the May 2011 report. Visit their website for more detail on the survey and how the index is calculated.
About the Creators
Dan Geer is the chief information security officer at In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
Mukul Pareek is a consultant with Strativis LLC and previously was a vice president at a major investment bank and a senior manager for a major accounting and consulting firm.
Check out the Cyber Security Index here
