---
title: 'Risk Scoring'
description: 'How Panguard Scan calculates the 0-100 risk score and A-F letter grade.'
icon: 'chart-bar'
---

Every Panguard Scan produces a single risk score from 0 to 100 and an associated letter grade from A to F. This page explains how the score is calculated and what each grade means.

## Score Display

```
Score: 62/100 [████████████░░░░░░░░] Grade: C
```

The score represents a **risk score**: higher means more risk. It is the sum of severity-weighted findings (adjusted by context), clamped to the 0--100 range.

## Grade Thresholds

| Grade | Score Range | Interpretation                                                  |
| ----- | ----------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **A** | 90 -- 100   | Excellent. Minimal risk. All critical and high issues resolved. |
| **B** | 75 -- 89    | Good. A few medium-severity items remain.                       |
| **C** | 60 -- 74    | Fair. Multiple findings need attention.                         |
| **D** | 40 -- 59    | Poor. Significant security gaps present.                        |
| **F** | 0 -- 39     | Critical. Immediate remediation required.                       |

## Scoring Factors

The risk score is derived from the severity and quantity of findings across all scanners. Each finding contributes penalty points based on its severity:

| Severity | Points per Finding |
| -------- | ------------------ |
| CRITICAL | 25                 |
| HIGH     | 15                 |
| MEDIUM   | 5                  |
| LOW      | 1                  |
| INFO     | 0                  |

Points are summed and the total becomes the raw risk score (higher = more risk). The score is clamped to the 0--100 range.

### Deduplication

When multiple findings share the same ID (e.g., the same rule triggered on different inputs), only the highest-severity instance is counted. This prevents score inflation from duplicate detections.

### Context Multiplier

The raw score is adjusted by a **context multiplier** that reflects environmental signals:

| Multiplier | Meaning                            | Effect               |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------- | -------------------- |
| > 1.0      | Malicious context signals present  | Increases risk score |
| 1.0        | Neutral (default)                  | No adjustment        |
| < 1.0      | Legitimate context signals present | Reduces risk score   |

The final score is `min(100, round(rawScore * contextMultiplier))`.

### Example Calculation

| Finding               | Severity  | Points |
| --------------------- | --------- | ------ |
| SSH on 0.0.0.0        | HIGH      | 15     |
| Weak password policy  | MEDIUM    | 5      |
| Expired SSL cert      | CRITICAL  | 25     |
| No firewall           | HIGH      | 15     |
| Outdated kernel (CVE) | MEDIUM    | 5      |
|                       | **Total** | **65** |

With a neutral context multiplier (1.0), the risk score is **65** (Grade: **C**).

### Risk Level Overrides

The presence of a CRITICAL finding forces at least a HIGH risk level, regardless of the numeric score. If the context multiplier is very low (< 0.6), the override is weakened to MEDIUM instead of HIGH.

## Score Categories

Beyond the single number, the score is contextualized across 10 categories:

| Category            | What It Measures                                   |
| ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| **System**          | OS patch level, kernel version, architecture       |
| **Network**         | Open ports, binding addresses, firewall status     |
| **Authentication**  | Password policy strength, account lockout          |
| **Encryption**      | SSL/TLS certificates, cipher suites, key strength  |
| **Access Control**  | Shared folders, file permissions, anonymous access |
| **Services**        | Running services, unnecessary daemons              |
| **Scheduled Tasks** | Cron jobs, suspicious scripts, persistence vectors |
| **Security Tools**  | Presence of AV, IDS, firewall, audit daemon        |

## Improving Your Score

<Steps>
  <Step title="Fix CRITICAL findings first">
    Each critical finding costs 25 points. Resolving just one can move your grade up a full letter.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Address HIGH findings">
    High-severity items are the next priority at 15 points each.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Review MEDIUM findings">
    These are typically configuration improvements that accumulate.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Re-scan to verify">
    Run `panguard scan` again after making changes to confirm your new score.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Tip>
  Run `panguard scan --json` to get machine-readable output that includes per-finding scores, making
  it easy to integrate into CI/CD pipelines.
</Tip>
