Over the last half decade, industry insiders around the world have watched cybersecurity budgets balloon astronomically to fight the ongoing threats facing businesses everywhere. The rise of ransomware, the constant assault of phishing attacks, the never-ending list of vulnerabilities, it all culminates in a diverse threat profile that requires a multitude of technical solutions to address all practical threat vectors. This diverse threat profile is what contributes in large part to the climbing cybersecurity costs for businesses everywhere. 

The answer is Cybersecurity Performance Management (CPM). CPM is a framework that ties cybersecurity performance to an organization’s strategic cyber objectives, measuring meaningful Performance metrics – defined as Cybersecurity Performance Indicators (CPIs) – over time to ensure continuous monitoring of our risk, compliance, maturity and ROI. It’s a data-driven approach to cybersecurity, leveraging existing tools that you already have to gain greater insight into your cybersecurity performance.  

CPM relies on centralizing the reporting of your existing security tools to create a unified understanding of the baseline cybersecurity performance of your organization. It empowers decision makers by tracking the specifics of your performance with CPIs that measure key performance metrics such as multifactor authentication enrollment or time to patch critical vulnerabilities. These metrics will inform strategic investments that result in more efficient, targeted spending in cybersecurity improvements. 

In this article we will talk about 5 reasons why you should consider implementing CPM in your business. 

Improving cybersecurity performance

CPM is all about strengthening your cybersecurity program from the ground-up with targeted improvements to exact a tangible impact on the baseline cybersecurity performance of an organization. When properly integrated with existing risk management processes, CPM provides a methodical system for identifying weak points, reducing risk, and improving overall security. It encourages small, continuous improvements that foster a culture of constant growth and strong competencies in the fundamentals of cybersecurity. The key value in CPM is the ability to compare Cybersecurity Performance Indicators (CPIs) against organizationally defined goals, such as multifactor authentication compliance, time to patch critical vulnerabilities, and the percent of known assets that have been scanned for vulnerabilities. 

Improve cybersecurity ROI

Being able to make quantitative decisions based on real-world performance data is a powerful tool in increasing operational efficiency. CPM empowers you to effectively target your weakest performing metrics and dramatically strengthen your baseline cybersecurity performance without falling into the trap of ballooning cybersecurity budgets. Best of all, stakeholders can see and measure the impact of cybersecurity improvement in real time. Being able to prove to board members, executives, and other stakeholders the tangible return on their investment in security is key to getting cybersecurity buy-in across all organizational units. 

Unify understanding of real cyber risk

Across the world, organizations of all sizes wrestle with a misalignment in understanding of risk tolerance between upper management and security teams. Often referred to as “risk appetite”, this misalignment creates a mismatch in the amount of risk the team and executives see as acceptable and it increases the likelihood that the two are not working towards the same objectives. The visibility into cybersecurity performance afforded by CPM greatly facilitates the complicated task of measuring cybersecurity risk as well as simplifying obligations.  

Simplify executive reporting and oversight

If you ask an average CEO or Board member how well their organization is performing in terms of its cybersecurity program, they probably won’t be able to give you a good answer. Much of this issue currently rests in the ability of the CISO or ISSO to simplify complex and nuanced security topics to a high-level summary that adequately contextualizes the issue. Their interpretation of the constantly evolving performance of the organizations’ security posture needs to be as accurate as possible. Because at the end of the day, it's their interpretation that the board will be hearing and acting upon. CPM greatly enhances the ability for the CISO to understand the day-to-day performance of their cybersecurity teams and gives them the tools they need to relay that information as accurately as possible to oversight stakeholders. 

Reduce cyber insurance premiums

In recent years, cyber insurance premiums have climbed due to various market factors, perhaps the most salient of which has been the rise of ransomware as the predominant cyber threat that businesses face. Businesses with a lower risk profile will pose less risk to the insurance providers which allows them to provide a better rate. In terms of reducing risk, it’s all about managing cybersecurity performance with CPM and being able to demonstrate cybersecurity effectiveness and maturity. Effectively tracking and managing cybersecurity performance is critical because it allows decision-makers to have the best possible understanding of the organization’s cybersecurity strengths and weaknesses, which allows security leaders to systematically improve cybersecurity performance with targeted investment and demonstrate cybersecurity maturity to insurance providers. 

At this point, It's clear that organizations need to make a step-change and evolve how they think about and manage cybersecurity within their organizations. Succinctly, when divisions within an organization are unified in mission and approach to cybersecurity, it vastly increases the effectiveness and efficiency of security improvement initiatives. It’s time to move our focus from our activities in cyber to our achievement and value as it relates to the business.