Security Posture Management concepts

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  • Explanation

Results

Results are findings from Dynatrace in relation to your security and compliance posture, based on the rules of the supported compliance standards.

Rules are specific configuration and other process requirements defined in the compliance standards.

Results consist of

  • Rules that were assessed automatically (labeled Failed, Passed, and Not relevant)
  • Rules that couldn't be assessed automatically (labeled Manual)

Learn below about each result type.

Result typeDefinition
FailedThe assessed resource doesn't follow the recommendations specified in the rule. In this case, a reason for failure is provided, based on which you can fix the issue. For details, see Gain insights.
PassedThe assessed resource follows the recommendations specified in the rule (there are no misconfigurations violating the specified recommendations).
Manual1The resource cannot be automatically assessed, as Dynatrace can't determine whether the resource is compliant (for example, when, due to physical security, Dynatrace can't get the configuration data from the clusters and nodes).
Not relevantThe assessed resource doesn't meet a specific criteria for assessment, such as a specific version. These results can be skipped.
1

Manual results aren't currently actionable.

To increase the number of results based on automatic assessment, we recommend that you deploy Kubernetes Security Posture Management.

View

Results are displayed for all your monitored systems on which Security Posture Management is enabled.

  • The Overview page shows the total number of failed, manual, and passed rules per monitored system.
  • The Assessment results page shows a table with all results, sorted automatically in descending order, starting from the ones deserving the most attention (failed rules with critical severity) to those less important (not relevant rules with low severity).

See below the result calculation based on the aggregation of finding events into rules.

Rule resultAggregation of resource states
FailedAt least one assessed resource has a Failed result.
PassedAt least one assessed resource has a Passed result, but none Failed nor Manual.
ManualAt least one assessed resource has a Manual result, but none Failed.
Not relevantAll assessed resources have a Not relevant result.

Categorize assessment results

You can filter and sort results based on different criteria of interest. For details, see Review findings.

Explore

To view result details

  1. Go to the Assessment results page.

  2. Select a rule.

    This opens a side window with more information that can help you understand the context and fix potential issues. For details, see Gain insights.

Severity

Severity indicates how important a rule is from a security and compliance perspective. Dynatrace determines severity using the Common Configuration Scoring System (CCSS), a standardized and vendor‑agnostic framework for evaluating configuration weaknesses. This unified approach ensures that severity levels (Critical, High, Medium, and Low) are consistent, transparent, and comparable across all supported standards.

How severity is evaluated

Dynatrace uses CCSS to evaluate the risk level of each misconfiguration, considering how easily it can be exploited and the potential impact on your environment. CCSS provides a security‑focused classification model that helps you understand configuration risk and prioritize remediation consistently across your environments.

Severity derives from a numerical CCSS score based on three metric groups:

  • Likelihood (L)—How easily the misconfiguration can be exploited, considering required access, system knowledge, authentication, and whether exploitation can be automated.

  • Technical Impact (TI)—The potential effect on confidentiality, integrity, and availability if the misconfiguration is exploited.

  • Configuration Impact (CI)—How significantly the misconfiguration weakens expected security controls or baselines.

This standardized, expert‑driven evaluation provides a reliable foundation for managing configuration risk at scale. For details and examples, see Introducing the Common Configuration Scoring System (CCSS) for misconfiguration findings in Dynatrace SPM.

View

  • The Overview page shows
    • The total number of rules per compliance standard and how many of them are passed, manual, and failed (see the compliance standard cards)
    • The total number of failed rules per system based on severity (see My systems table)
  • The Assessment results page shows a table with all results and the associated severity, sorted automatically in descending order, starting from the ones deserving the most attention (failed rules with critical severity) to those less important (not relevant rules with low severity).

Categorize assessment results

You can filter and sort results based on severity. For details, see Review findings.

Related tags
Application Security