Continuous Monitoring
An ongoing, automated process of observing and evaluating the security posture, compliance status, and operational health of an organization's systems and controls in real time or near-real time, enabling rapid detection of deviations, vulnerabilities, and threats.
Continuous monitoring represents a shift from periodic, point-in-time compliance assessments to ongoing, automated evaluation of an organization's security and compliance posture. Rather than demonstrating compliance once a year during an audit and hoping nothing changes between assessments, continuous monitoring provides persistent visibility into the state of controls, configurations, vulnerabilities, and threats. This approach enables organizations to detect and respond to issues as they arise, maintain audit readiness at all times, and provide stakeholders with current rather than historical assurance about the security environment.
Continuous monitoring aligns with and supports requirements across all major compliance frameworks. ISO 27001 Clause 9.1 requires organizations to evaluate the information security performance and the effectiveness of the ISMS, and Annex A control A.8.16 addresses monitoring activities. SOC 2's monitoring criteria require that organizations monitor system components for anomalies and evaluate the effectiveness of controls on an ongoing basis. NIS2 mandates that essential entities implement measures for monitoring, including the detection of security events. GDPR's accountability principle is better served when organizations can demonstrate continuous compliance rather than periodic snapshots. In technology due diligence, continuous monitoring capabilities indicate a mature, proactive approach to security management.
Practical continuous monitoring encompasses several domains. Security monitoring includes SIEM-based threat detection, vulnerability scanning, configuration compliance checking, and user behavior analytics. Compliance monitoring includes automated evidence collection, control effectiveness testing, policy compliance verification, and regulatory change tracking. Operational monitoring includes system availability, performance metrics, backup success rates, and patch compliance. Modern GRC platforms and cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools can automate much of this monitoring, providing dashboards and alerts that give security and compliance teams real-time visibility into their environment. The key challenge is not collecting data — most organizations have abundant monitoring data — but ensuring that monitoring outputs are actionable, that alerts are triaged and responded to promptly, and that monitoring coverage evolves alongside the environment it protects.
Related frameworks
Related terms
Audit Evidence
The documented records, observations, test results, and other verifiable information collected during an audit to determine whether the organization's controls and processes conform to the specified requirements and are operating effectively.
Compliance Automation
The use of technology tools and platforms to automate the collection, management, and reporting of compliance evidence, control monitoring, policy management, and audit preparation, reducing manual effort and enabling continuous compliance assurance.
Risk Register
A structured document or database that records all identified risks, their assessment details (likelihood, impact, rating), assigned risk owners, selected treatment options, current control status, and residual risk levels. It serves as the central repository for an organization's risk management activities.
Security Information and Event Management
A technology platform that aggregates, correlates, and analyzes security log data from across an organization's infrastructure to detect threats, support incident investigation, and meet compliance requirements for centralized security monitoring.
Vulnerability Assessment
A systematic process of identifying, quantifying, and prioritizing security vulnerabilities in systems, networks, and applications. Unlike penetration testing, vulnerability assessments focus on discovering weaknesses rather than exploiting them.
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