Security Theater: Vanity Metrics Keep You Busy - and Exposed
Apr 07, 2025
Attack Surface Management
After more than 25 years of mitigating risks, ensuring compliance, and building robust security programs for Fortune 500 companies, I've learned that looking busy isn't the same as being secure. It's an easy trap for busy cybersecurity leaders to fall into. We rely on metrics that tell a story of the tremendous efforts we're expending - how many vulnerabilities we patched, how fast we responded - but often vulnerability management metrics get associated with operational metrics because traditional approaches to measuring and implementing vulnerability management does not actually reduce risk. So, we resort to various ways of reporting on how many patches were applied under the traditional 30/60/90-day patching method . I call these vanity metrics : numbers that look impressive in reports but lack real-world impact. They offer reassurance, but not insights. Meanwhile, threats continue to grow more sophisticated, and attackers exploit the blind spots we're not measuring. I've se...
