Power BI Dashboard: Cybersecurity Operations Monitoring

The Challenge

Security teams at enterprise organizations struggle with:

❌ Visibility gaps – 500+ vulnerabilities scattered across multiple systems
❌ Priority confusion – Which issues need immediate attention?
❌ Compliance complexity – Tracking SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST requirements
❌ Manual reporting – Hours spent preparing status updates for executives

The question leadership asks: “What’s critical RIGHT NOW?”

Most teams can’t answer quickly.

My Approach

I designed a 3-page dashboard that tells a complete operational story:

1. Executive Summary – 30-second status scan for C-suite
2. Vulnerability Management – Detailed analysis for security teams
3. Compliance Tracking – Framework monitoring for audit preparation

Each page serves a specific audience with the exact insights they need.

Page 1: Executive Summary

Purpose: High-level operational status for C-suite and security leadership

Key Metrics Tracked:

📊 Current Status

• 90 Open vulnerabilities
• 85 In-Progress
• 325 Closed (78% closure rate – exceeds industry average of 65%)

⏱️ Performance

• 20-day average time to remediate (meets SLA target of <25 days)
• 31 Critical vulnerabilities requiring immediate attention

🎯 Risk Profile

• Severity distribution: 40% Medium, 30% High, 15% Critical, 15% Low
• Applications have highest count: 194 total (26 Critical)

Key Insight:

The stacked bar chart reveals Applications have 26 Critical vulnerabilities – immediately directing security teams to prioritize application patching over other system types.

Interactive features: Filter by Location and Remediation Owner for drill-down analysis.

Page 2: Vulnerability Management

Purpose: Operational intelligence for security teams to identify trends, aging vulnerabilities, and prioritize remediation work

What This Page Reveals:

📈 Trend Analysis

• Q1 2024: 195 vulnerabilities discovered (annual audit spike)
• Q3 2025: Discovery and closure rates converging (improvement)
• Clear quarterly patterns guide resource planning

⏰ Aging Analysis

• 225 vulnerabilities aged 90+ days (backlog requiring escalation)
• Stacked by severity: Most are Medium priority, but Critical items exist
• Visual immediately shows if urgent issues are aging too long

🎯 At-Risk Systems

System	Critical	High	Avg Days Open
CRM	5	7	415
Patch Management	5	7	348
Payment Gateway	5	10	303

Key Insight:

CRM system has 5 Critical vulnerabilities with 415-day average age – the conditional formatting (dark blue highlighting) draws immediate attention to this urgent remediation priority.

Technical note: The aging chart uses a stacked column design to show severity composition within each time bucket – revealing that not all aged vulnerabilities are equal priority.

Page 3: Compliance Tracking

Purpose: Framework compliance monitoring for audit committees and risk management

Compliance Status:

📊 Overall Score: 78%

• Target: 80% (currently 2.34% below)
• Q3 2025 peak: 95%
• Q4 2025 decline: 78%

📉 What Happened in Q4?

The trend line tells the story: Compliance peaked at 95% in Q3, then dropped to 78% in Q4. This reflects a comprehensive year-end audit that identified previously undetected gaps.

Framework Breakdown:

SOC 2 Type II: 77 findings (highest count)

• 6 Critical
• 14 High
• 38 Medium
• 19 Low

ISO 27001: 74 findings
NIST SP 800-53: 24 findings
PCI DSS: 7 findings

Business Unit Performance:

• Operations: 79% (lowest – needs focused support)
• HR: 81%
• IT: 83%
• Finance: 86%
• Security: 89%
• Other: 100%

Key Insight:

The matrix visual groups findings by framework and severity, revealing that SOC 2 Type II compliance requires immediate attention with 77 total findings concentrated in monitoring and malicious software controls.

Technical Highlights

Data Architecture

Data Model: Star schema design

• Fact Table: Vulnerabilities (500 rows)
• Dimension Tables: Systems (30 rows), Compliance (200 rows)
• Date Table: Custom DAX-generated calendar (2024-2025)

Relationships: One-to-many from Systems → Vulnerabilities

Advanced Power BI Features

✅ Custom DAX Measures

MTTR = 
CALCULATE(
    AVERAGE(Vulnerabilities[Days_To_Remediate]),
    Vulnerabilities[Status] = "Closed"
)

Critical Count = 
CALCULATE(
    COUNTROWS(Vulnerabilities),
    Vulnerabilities[Severity] = "Critical"
)

✅ Conditional Formatting
Gradient scales automatically highlight high-priority items using color intensity

✅ Cross-Page Filtering
Slicers enable multi-dimensional analysis across all visualizations

✅ Matrix Visuals
Hierarchical grouping by framework reveals compliance patterns

✅ Time Intelligence
Trend analysis with quarter-over-quarter comparisons

Design Principles Applied

Color Strategy:

• Blue gradient palette for professional, corporate appearance
• Darker shades indicate higher priority/urgency
• Minimal accent colors (orange for targets only)
• Consistent across all pages

Information Hierarchy:

• Page 1: Summary metrics (executive 30-second scan)
• Page 2: Operational details (daily security team use)
• Page 3: Compliance monitoring (audit preparation)

Real-World Applications

This dashboard structure is used in:

🏢 Security Operations Centers (SOC)
Real-time monitoring and incident prioritization

🔒 Risk Management
Executive reporting on security posture and compliance status

📋 Audit Preparation
Framework compliance tracking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST assessments

👔 Board Presentations
C-suite visibility into cybersecurity operations

Industries:

Utilities • Financial Services • Healthcare • Government • Technology

Based On:

This structure mirrors production dashboards I worked with in the Energy sector, where I tracked $50M+ IT operations and cybersecurity compliance for utility infrastructure.

What This Project Demonstrates

Technical Skills

✅ Power BI Pro (advanced visualizations, DAX, Power Query)
✅ Data modeling (star schema, relationships, calculated columns)
✅ Business intelligence (KPIs, trend analysis, conditional formatting)
✅ SQL (data extraction and transformation)

Business Acumen

✅ Cybersecurity domain knowledge
✅ Risk-based prioritization thinking
✅ Executive communication (distilling technical data for leadership)
✅ Compliance framework understanding (SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST)

Soft Skills

✅ Translating business requirements into technical solutions
✅ Information design and visual communication
✅ Stakeholder-focused reporting

Portfolio Quality

This isn’t a tutorial project. It’s production-ready work that could be deployed in enterprise environments today.

Explore the Project

🔗 Interactive Dashboard

Launch Dashboard
Try the filters, explore the data, see how interactive visualizations guide decision-making.

💻 GitHub Repository

View Code & Documentation
Complete technical documentation, DAX measures, data model structure, and design decisions.

📺 Video Walkthrough

Coming This Week
5-minute guided tour explaining the business problem, technical approach, and key insights.

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Let’s Connect

Interested in discussing data analytics, Power BI best practices, or cybersecurity operations?

📧 Email: hello@ernestogonzales.com
💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/eg-data
💻 GitHub: github.com/ernestog27
🌐 More Projects: Browse Portfolio

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Ernesto Gonzales, MSDA
Data Analyst | San Diego, CA
Master’s Degree in Data Analytics, Western Governors University

Specializing in Power BI, SQL, Python, and transforming complex operations into executive insights.