With cyber threats evolving at a rapid pace, organizations understand the criticality of offensive security measures to protect their digital assets. However, like any other business investment, the question arises: is the ROI on these proactive security practices meaningful? It’s a valid question. Understanding the ROI of offensive security testing helps businesses ensure management understand the real value from their investments.
The purpose of this blog is to explain the relevance of offensive security ROI. We will discuss what is the ROI of offensive security, its importance, and how to measure it.
What Does ROI Mean in Offensive Security
Most CISOs and security leaders argue how it helps avoid threat attacks. That’s not the best way to gauge cybersecurity ROI, though it might sound tempting. Most C-Suite executives will not buy this argument.
For example, SolarWinds suffered a massive loss of $1 billion in value in just a few days due to the 2020 breach. The company did not know or care how much it could have saved by averting such types of attacks.
Therefore, it is better to rely on easily calculated indicators that they can directly link to costs that manage themselves.
What is Offensive Security Testing?
Offensive security testing is a proactive approach that involves a simulated attack on an organization’s systems to identify its security loopholes in advance. This helps security teams to fix the issues before malicious actors exploit them to their advantage.
Offensive security testing includes numerous methodologies, such as penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and red teaming. The attack is carried out in conjunction with stakeholders to mimic real-world attack scenarios.
Why Offensive Security Testing Matters
Offensive security testing is different from many other investments. Here are some of the benefits of investing into offensive security:
- Proactive risk mitigation: Put simply, identifying vulnerabilities in advance allows organizations to prevent costly data breaches and related financial losses. It reduces the likelihood of incidents that could lead to significant expenses, such as regulatory fines or ransom payments.
- Compliance assurance: Some industries are sensitive in nature that requires regular security testing to meet regulatory standards. So, when organizations invest in offensive security testing, they can demonstrate compliance.
- Enhanced incident response: Simulated attacks provide organizations with insight into their incident response capabilities. This improves preparation for actual cyber events by changing their planning and training.
- Improve operational efficiencies: Offensive security testing reduces the number of false positives generated by automated testing tools. This translates into cost savings as security teams can focus on things that matter.
Benefits of Offensive Security Testing
Offensive security testing offers two types of benefits: quantifiable and non-quantifiable.
1. Quantifiable benefits of offensive security testing:
Here is a list of quantifiable benefits of offensive security testing:
- Cost avoidance and savings: Offensive security testing helps identify vulnerabilities before they’re exploited. It prevents potential breaches. This proactive approach can save significant costs. These costs are associated with incident response legal fees, regulatory fines and reputational damage that would occur in the event of successful attack.
- Reduced breach costs: Even if breach occurs organizations with robust offensive security programs typically experience lower overall costs. They identify and address vulnerabilities early. This minimizes potential impact and scope of breach. As a result, recovery expenses and data loss are reduced.
- Lower cyber insurance premiums: Many insurance providers offer reduced premiums to organizations that demonstrate strong security practices. Regular offensive security testing can serve as evidence of a proactive security stance. This approach can lead to significant savings on cyber insurance costs over time.
- Efficiency gains: Offensive security testing can streamline security processes by identifying and prioritizing most critical vulnerabilities. This focused approach allows security teams to allocate resources more effectively. It reduces wasted effort on low-priority issues. Additionally it improves overall operational efficiency.
2. Unquantifiable benefits of offensive security testing:
Here are some non-quantifiable benefits of offensive security testing:
- Strategic alignment: Executives want to see how security fits into the big picture. Show them how assessments directly support key business objectives. For instance, protecting valuable intellectual property or maintaining customer trust can be critical for long-term success.
- Risk avoidance: The C-suite is all about managing risk. Highlight how security assessments act as an early warning system, identifying vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. This proactive approach can prevent costly breaches and protect the bottom line.
- Competitive edge: In today’s market, security can be a differentiator. Demonstrate how a robust security posture, validated through assessments, can attract security-conscious clients and partners. It’s not just about defense; it’s about opening new business opportunities.
- Regulatory compliance: No executive wants to deal with compliance headaches. Illustrate how regular assessments help navigate the complex landscape of industry regulations, avoiding penalties and preserving the company’s reputation.
- Long-term impact: Executives think in terms of sustained success. Emphasize how ongoing security assessments contribute to building a resilient organization, one that can withstand future threats and maintain a trustworthy brand image in the long run.
Calculating the ROI of Offensive Security Testing
Here is a step by step process of calculating ROI of Offensive Security:
1. Determining Scope of Offensive Security Testing
To accurately calculate ROI of aggressive security, it’s important to start by clearly defining your goals and scope of your security efforts This includes identifying specific assets and systems to be tested. The types of testing to be performed, such as penetration testing or vulnerability scanning should also be determined.
2. Metrics for measuring effectiveness
To quantify the impact of your aggressive security initiatives, you need to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) These metrics should reflect both the direct results of your security efforts and the broader impact on your organization’s security posture. Two important metrics to consider are:
- Number of known vulnerabilities: This metric indicates the immediate impact of your aggressive security system. By tracking the number and severity of identified vulnerabilities you can demonstrate how well the program performs in identifying potential security gaps prior to deployment.
- Reduced incident response time: This metric shows how strong security improves your organization’s ability to manage threats. It helps in demonstrating moving operational efficiencies. This minimizes the impact of security breaches.
3. Identify potential risks
Thoroughly conduct risk assessment to properly evaluate internal and external threats that can impact organizational operations.
4. Determine the cost of mitigation
Determine the cost of implementing risk mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of potential threats. This includes the cost of implementing policies, procedures , and technology.
5. Estimate the potential cost of a risk event
Now, make an estimate of the loss if risk mitigation is not in place using historical data, industry benchmarks, and expert opinions.
6. Calculate the potential cost savings
Next, calculate cost savings: Cost of a risk event – Cost of mitigation.
For example, if the cost of a risk event is $400,000 and the cost of mitigation is $200,000, the potential saving will be $200,000.
7. Determine the ROI
Finally, the ROI= Potential cost savings/cost of mitigation.
Therefore, ROI in this case will be $200,000/$400,000, which is equal to 50%.
Use Cases of Offensive Security Testing ROI
Here are some of the industry use cases of offensive security testing ROI
Manufacturing:
- Vulnerability discovery: Industrial control systems can be exploited if there are security loopholes in the system. This can lead to production disruption causing millions of dollars of losses.
- Supply chain security: Weaknesses in the supply chain system can be detrimental to industrial productivity. Offensive security testing can uncover weaknesses, minimizing the risk of third-party breaches.
- IoT device security: Testing security flaws in connected devices on the factory floor can help fix issues before large scale deployment, avoiding expensive market recalls.
Retail:
- Point-of-sale (POS) system testing: Identifying security weaknesses in POS systems can help avoid breaches that can result in compromising customer data and result in regulatory fines.
- E-commerce platform security: Identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in online stores, preventing potential revenue loss from site downtime or data theft.
- Loyalty program protection: Testing loyalty systems to prevent fraud that could lead to financial losses and damaged customer trust.
Banking:
- ATM security testing: Identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in ATM networks to avoid cash-out attacks can cause significant damage.
- Mobile banking app security: Releasing mobile apps before testing it thoroughly for security issues can fail to protect customer data. In the case of third-party attacks, the damage can reduce trust and harm brand reputation.
- Insider threat simulation: Penetration testing can help in identifying potential avenues for employee fraud or data breach.
Leveraging Technology For Higher Offensive Security ROI
Using tech AI and automation, can boost the return on investment in offensive security. These tools make security testing and checking for weaknesses more productive, far-reaching, and powerful.
AI and machine learning systems can look at huge amounts of info to spot patterns and odd things that people might not catch. They can also adjust to new threats and ways of attacking faster than old methods. Automation lets you test and watch things all the time, cutting down on the time and stuff needed for people to do security checks by hand.
- Scalability: Automated scans can check big networks and apps fast.
- Consistency: Automated tools do tests the same way each time cutting down on mistakes people might make.
- Cost-effectiveness: Using less manual work brings down overall costs.
- Continuous assessment: These systems can run tests all the time giving up-to-date security insights.
- Comprehensive coverage: Tools driven by AI can find weak spots across many different systems and situations.
- Rapid adaptation: These platforms can add new info about threats and ways attacks happen.
Final Thoughts
In the end, offensive security investments, though often discussed from a narrow perspective of cost avoidance, the ROI of offensive security testing provides a broad set of quantifiable and unquantifiable advantages. This ranges from protecting brand reputation, preserving intellectual property theft, maintaining customer loyalty to regulatory compliance. Therefore, quantifying ROI of offensive penetration testing is not entirely possible, and this should be viewed as a long-term strategic investment. Are you looking for a reliable offensive security testing partner? Get in touch with our penetration testing team to know more about our offensive security services.
