An organization may have a very robust vulnerability management program in place. However, there has to be some way by which the progress, success, or failure of the program can be measured. This is when metrics come in handy. Metrics are the key indicators of performance of the vulnerability management program. The organization leadership can take key decisions on strategy and budgeting based on the metrics. Metrics also help to showcase the overall security posture of the organization and raise an alarm for issues that need to be addressed as a priority.

Metrics can be derived based on the various compliance standards or can be completely customized based on the specific organizational needs. The section ahead describes a few such metrics and their relevance. These metrics can be reported at a frequency as per the organizational policy. These metrics can be best represented when shown using various charts, such as bar graphs, pie charts, line graphs, and so on.