From Technical Features to Customer Security Metrics

Marco Rottigni

Last updated on: October 14, 2021

Qualys solutions are packed with great functionality to deliver operational efficiency to all our customers, but the value does not end with bits and bytes. Qualys customers can count on Technical Account Managers to maximize the effectiveness of their subscription, and this post tells a story about one TAM who converted theory into practice.

Observability via Unified Dashboard

One of the most popular and used functionalities in Qualys VMDR is the Unified Dashboard, to build real-time Observability from the great Visibility that our sensors provide across the digital landscape of an organization. Observability means the ability to dynamically track the information we need, in the format we need, on the logical perimeters we need.

Observability is solidly grounded on core functionalities of the Qualys Cloud Platform, specifically the processing of metadata sent by sensors into normalized, indexed, and searchable datapoints. The dashboarding engine enables you to slice and dice these data points, aggregating them to form the refined actionable information you need to support operational decisions.

And the powerful dynamic tagging engine maps this information instantly to the area of your IT estate you’re interested to examine.

This enormous horsepower needs to be grounded with the right expertise, because you wouldn’t give a Lamborghini Huracan to someone without teaching him how to get the most out of it, right?

Maximizing Observability

This is where your TAM counts! In this specific case the need of the customer was to monitor the efficiency of their remediation program, which they outsourced to an external service provider.

More specifically, their Security Executives wanted to understand the efficiency of that vendor’s remediation progress by monitoring easily configurable metrics that they could digest and act upon to make data-driven decisions.

Enabling them to answer simple questions with difficult answers, questions like:

  • “How old is my vulnerable surface?”
  • “Are there any exploitable part that remediation left out?”
  • “What is my Accepted Risk?”

The Qualys TAM listened, worked with the Customer to share the hints to drive the Lamborghini Huracan…et voilà, observability delivered! Right in the format, layout, and wording customer needed.

Building observability delivers high value while requiring little effort, thanks to the power of the Qualys Cloud Platform. When you have data indexed and processed into data points, all that you need is a clear idea about how you want the data points aggregated to represent the information you want to track. The rest is just a couple of clicks…

Observability Dashboard

Interested in getting the same visibility into your Qualys subscription? Please look for in the Qualys Dashboard Template library for the Dashboard called Patch Efficiency – Severity 3-5.

Qualys Cloud Platform release 3.8 brings in a new more efficient dashboard library for easy searching and finding dashboards as you can see in the video above.

And while we can’t help you drive a Lamborghini Huracan, your TAM is certainly there to help you getting the most from your Qualys subscription!

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