What Can be Monitored with CCM?

What Does CCM Monitor?

Continuous monitoring identifies hidden system components, misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and unauthorized actions. The provision of data-driven updates enhances a culture of proactive risk management. 

How Does a CCM Work?

Continuous control systems test data output for any indications that the controls are not working properly. When key controls are functioning, they should produce certain data outputs. Analyzing these output logs for potential errors gives security teams insight into the performance of key controls.

A CCM Solution should:

• Include configuration management and access controls for organizational systems

• Use a risk-based approach to prioritize control assessments 

• Map risks to relevant controls based on continuous security monitoring.

• Provide data-driven reports to appropriate organizational officials

• Involve executive-level ongoing oversight of security and privacy risks.

Continuous monitoring programs enable an enterprise to:

• Accelerate reporting capabilities to facilitate corporate decision-making
• Detect exceptions and anomalies in real-time to enable real-time responses
• Reduce ongoing compliance costs
• Replace reactive controls with automated proactive controls
• Highlight competitive edge and increase value to investors
• Streamline core business processes
• With a CCM, audit preparation and periodic assessments of controls are a breeze

How To Implement CCM

To deploy a CCM system that monitors a wide range of controls across a business domain, an organization needs to have a single repository that documents and manages its controls and gathers evidence of their effectiveness.

An automated continuous monitoring system has connectors to common business applications across IT, development, security, HR, sales, and finance and can pull pertinent data about many types of controls into its platform for streamlined controls assessment and validation. CCMs make it easy to simplify workflows that manage alarms, communicate to the board, investigate alerts, and remediate or mitigate control weaknesses.