Risk-Based Cybersecurity: The Next Stage of Cybersecurity Evolution Beyond Failed Maturity Models

Organizations have invested substantially in cybersecurity maturity initiatives over the past decade, yet high-profile breaches continue to occur at an alarming rate. Simply building more controls and achieving higher maturity levels has not reliably reduced real-world cyber risks. Many leaders are realizing that a fundamental shift is needed in how cybersecurity is managed.

As this McKinsey report stated, "The most sophisticated institutions are moving from a ‘maturity based’ to a ‘risk based’ approach for managing cyberrisk." The problems with a theoretical maturity target are becoming more clear. As McKinsey argued, "A more strategic, risk-based approach is imperative for effective and efficient risk management."

Rather than a theoretical maturity target, the most sophisticated institutions are embracing risk-based cybersecurity - focused on pragmatically identifying and closing the vulnerabilities posing the greatest actual threat. This approach acknowledges that while protection for everything is ideal, effective prioritization allows smarter allocation of finite security resources.

The maturity model mindset has become counterproductive for many organizations. The reflexive answer to any cyber risk is to demand more controls, monitor more assets, and raise maturity ceilings across the board. While certain foundational elements are indispensable, this avalanche of uniformly heightened security inevitably creates cost and complexity that impedes innovation and productivity.

Under a risk-based model, security leaders make risk appetite clear to the businesses and help them implement appropriate controls for assets that could genuinely impact those risk thresholds if compromised. Critical crown jewel assets and processes get protection commensurate with the danger, while less crucial areas aren't needlessly over-encumbered in the name of maturity.

As noted by the report: "Following the risk-based approach, a company will no longer “build the control everywhere”; rather, the focus will be on building the appropriate controls for the worst vulnerabilities, to defeat the most significant threats—those that target the business’s most critical areas. The approach allows for both strategic and pragmatic activities to reduce cyberrisks"

This approach facilitates better decisions about security investment prioritization and resource allocation. When a new threat emerges, the risk-based methodology allows more agility in responding and adapting the security posture. Executives can track quantifiable risk reduction rather than vague maturity scores. Overall cyber resilience improves.

How Trend Micro Risk-Based Cybersecurity Platform Can Help

Trend Vision One offers capabilities that can greatly assist organizations in implementing a risk-based cybersecurity approach. The Trend Vision One platform provides continuous visibility into risk scores at both the asset and company-wide level.

It calculates individual risk scores from 0-100 for each device, application, cloud asset and other endpoints. This considers the likelihood of compromise based on threat activity, exposures and security configurations, along with the potential business impact.

Trend Micro correlates insights across IT layers to enrich threat detection and power risk calculations. Machine learning analyzes asset attributes and behaviors to determine confidentiality, integrity and availability requirements that factor into impact scoring.

The platform surfaces a real-time company risk index showing high-level exposure, attack and configuration risk. Security leaders gain an at-a-glance view into the changing posture. Granular risk factors help teams quickly prioritize and remediate the most pressing issues.

Analysts can use continuous, dynamic risk scoring to make access control and remediation decisions automatically. Threshold policies can disable users or revoke access when risk levels exceed defined tolerances based on business risk appetite.

An additional benefit of the continuous risk scoring provided by Trend Micro is the ability to measure security improvements over time. As new exposures are addressed and configurations tightened, risk scores will dynamically update to reflect the changing posture. Security leaders can clearly demonstrate risk reduction to leadership and the board.

Trend Micro also lets organizations benchmark their risk index and asset scores against anonymous peers. Comparing security effectiveness against other companies in the same industry and region highlights areas for improvement. Organizations can determine whether their scores follow norms or lag behind competitors. This context motivates leadership to authorize targeted security projects with proven return on investment.

In summary, the depth of dynamic cyber risk visibility within Trend Vision One allows organizations to not only practice risk-based security, but also measure progress in risk reduction and compare security programs to industry standards. The platform provides decision-useful risk scoring needed to justify, implement and improve upon a risk-based cybersecurity approach over time using purpose-built risk scoring algorithms that scale risk-based approaches.

The Urgency of Adopting Risk-Based Cybersecurity

The necessity of this shift is urgent in today's threat landscape, as the consequences of security failure continue to mount. Cyberattacks are growing more severe, and no organization can afford to waste resources chasing arbitrary maturity metrics. The risk-based cybersecurity paradigm brings better clarity on actual asset protection requirements and focuses efforts on moves that demonstrably reduce enterprise risk. Every security leader should be evaluating how to make this transformation in their organization now.