How to Align Cyber Resilience with Business Objectives

The greatest cybersecurity barrier isn't technical. It's relational. 🧙🏼♂️ It's always about people. After 20+ years in cybersecurity, I've watched brilliant security professionals repeatedly fail for one reason: they can't cross the relationship gap with business leaders. The pattern is predictable. Security teams master the technical domain but remain isolated from the business teams they protect. When they finally get their meeting with executives, they speak a language no one understands. wake up call: Your technical expertise means nothing if you can't build relationships that translate security into business impact. Here's what's happening: 1. Trust deficit by design → Security is seen as the "Department of No" → Leaders only see security when something breaks → Relationship-building isn't prioritized as a security skill 2. Language barriers  → Technical teams speak in vulnerabilities and threats → Business leaders hear only cost and constraints → No common vocabulary for shared goals 3. Misaligned objectives → Security pursues perfect protection → Business pursues growth and opportunity → Few can articulate how these goals align This broken relationship model isn't just frustrating.  💥It's dangerous. When business and security don't trust each other, both suffer. Here's the fix: 1. Build relationships before incidents → Regular business check-ins with no security agenda → Learn what keeps business leaders up at night → Understand their success metrics 2. Translate across domains → For Sales: Show how security enables closed deals → For Operations: Demonstrate resilience, not just protection → For Finance: Frame security in terms of risk economics 3. Practice business-centric security → Start with business objectives, then apply security → Create roadmaps that align with business milestones → Measure success in business terms, not security metrics Security professionals who master relationship-building become trusted advisors. Those who don't remain perpetual roadblocks. What relationship challenge do you face? 🔄 Repost to help security pros become business partners 📲 Follow Wil Klusovsky for wisdom on cybersecurity & tech business

How do you measure your success? The board asked that question in my first CISO role. My metrics, up to that point, had been very tactical and cyber-specific. Blocking these ports, managing IAM programs, and building out the SOC are all good and necessary things to do. However, it is different from what a board and executive team understand. So, I had to develop an understanding and a process to measure what I do and my team. Here are two areas that have been the most successfully measured metrics for me:  The emphasis is on proactive rather than reactive strategies. Proactive Strategies:  Metric: Time Taken to Detect Vulnerabilities Example: Implement continuous monitoring and advanced threat intelligence systems to reduce the average time to detect vulnerabilities from 10 days to 2 days. Metric: Success Rate of Simulated Attack Drills Example: Achieve a 95% success rate in simulated phishing attack drills within six months through regular training and awareness programs. Metric: Implementation of Advanced Threat Intelligence Systems Example: Integrate a new threat intelligence platform that decreases false positives by 30% and provides real-time alerts to preemptively counter potential threats. Integration of cybersecurity with business goals. Effective CISOs must demonstrate how their security strategies support business continuity, enhance customer trust, and contribute to the company's financial health. Integration with Business Goals Metric: Cost-Efficiency of Security Measures Example: Implement a new firewall system that reduces annual security-related costs by 20%, demonstrating cost-efficiency and effective resource allocation. Metric: Impact on Customer Satisfaction Example: Increase customer satisfaction scores by 15% through enhanced data protection measures and transparent communication about cybersecurity efforts. Metric: Return on Investment (ROI) for Security Technologies Example: Show a 150% ROI on the newly deployed security infrastructure by reducing downtime and preventing data breaches, thus saving the company $2 million annually. How do you measure or how do you think security programs need to be measured Here are 3 things to consider this week: Implement Continuous Monitoring: Adopt advanced threat intelligence systems to reduce the average time to detect vulnerabilities from 10 days to 2 days. Enhance Simulated Attack Drills: Aim for a 95% success rate in simulated phishing attack drills within six months by conducting regular training and awareness programs. Integrate Cybersecurity with Business Goals: Demonstrate cost-efficiency by implementing a new firewall system to reduce annual security costs by 20%, and enhance customer trust by improving satisfaction scores through better data protection measures. What else would you add? #CISO #Cybersecurity #CIO #CEO #Board  { John Felker } Ronald N. Christopher Skinner Evie Manning

𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐲𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐕𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 🔒 Struggling to ensure your organization has a strong cybersecurity posture? Suffering from difficulties in strategic planning? Inefficient and disjointed efforts plague leaders at all levels of organizational leadership, especially in finance and operations. I understand how challenging it can be to juggle competing priorities as a COO, CEO, CFO, or other key stakeholder. And securing one’s organization or department from further threats should never be pushed too far aside. ⚠️ Failure to prioritize cybersecurity can lead to misaligned efforts, wasted resources, and amplified vulnerability to cyber threats. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be your reality! To effectively address this issue, here's a preliminary roadmap to guide you: 📌 Incorporate cybersecurity topics into your routine strategic planning meetings. Even compliance topics could begin the conversation, but definitely start sooner rather than later. 📌 Add a seasoned representative from your cybersecurity team to these crucial discussions. External, fractional experts can also be brought in to facilitate discussion and enhance every leadership member’s knowledge in this subject. 📌 Delegate roles and tasks essential for the deployment of security safeguards. This can be challenging for many organizations at any level of “security maturity” especially because if done poorly, it can become a cost-center and time-sink. 📌 Instill accountability for the execution and success of cybersecurity initiatives. A good commitment to meaningful metrics can be very helpful here. 📌 Harmonize your cybersecurity objectives with the broader business goals. For example, obtaining and maintaining SOC 2 or ISO 27001 compliance may help show shareholders or other investors you’re serious about security threats and protecting vital IP. 📌 Continually monitor progress, making necessary adjustments along the way. Iteration is so critically important for any operational transformation, and this subject definitely requires ever more agility for strategic efforts. By following these steps, you'll enhance operational efficiency, seamlessly coordinate initiatives, and create a fortified business environment that keeps security well-integrated. Plus, it’s been our experience with our clients that they actually see returns on investments made when they’ve learned how to right-size their cybersecurity budgets, align their efforts with day-to-day operations, and enhance their security posture overall. I’m curious to learn about your experiences. What methodologies have you adopted to embed cybersecurity into your strategic planning? Feel free to share your insights or thoughts below. ⬇️ #innovation #technology #businessintelligence #dataprotection #bestadvice #cybersecurity

I often get asked what are the requirements to become an effective Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Over a twenty-year career, starting when hard tokens were the standard for MFA, I have been fortunate to see and learn from the best in the security industry. The pattern I have seen in all successful CISOs is the ability to demonstrate a broader understanding of a business’s assets and goals and prioritize risk treatments on addressing threats that stand in the way of realizing enterprise objectives. A good starting strategy for CISOs and security teams is to validate capabilities to manage the risk of an interruption to business operations, whether from outside threats or even internal threats impacting the availability of systems. CEOs and CFOs want to know they are resilient to a business interruption, and they want to see how the security team measures risk exposure to limit business impact. As a CISO, one must be able to answer “What is the risk of an interruption to business operations,” as the first focus in building the security program. Develop a risk register, utilize threat-based risk assessments and crisis testing to improve your organization’s resiliency, and enable a foundational win for the business and security team to grow together in managing enterprise cyber risk. To be an effective CISO, one has to shift from focusing on tech tools and outputs towards having informed business risk discussions with CFOs, CEOs, and boards on how an organization should define, communicate, and manage cyber risk impact for the enterprise. #riskmanagement #ciso