CISOs: Here’s How to Prove the ROI of Your Cybersecurity Budget?

Even maintaining current budgets can be hard as companies look for cost savings in non-revenue-generating areas. But you don’t have to wait for a cyber attack to occur to prove that you need to invest in cybersecurity.

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Instead, CISOs can demonstrate the ROI of their current spend, and potentially convince other leaders to increase budgets, by using cyber risk quantification (CRQ).

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In particular, using a CRQ methodology that provides detailed insights into the financial impact of cyber risk, and which displays how different cybersecurity actions can result in different financial outcomes, can show whether your cybersecurity spend is effective.

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Why Use CRQ to Prove ROI?

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‍CISOs might find themselves in position of wanting to invest in new security controls, adopt innovative technology tools, or reorganize the current resource allocation in a way that could help prevent incidents like a data breach. But trying to convince someone of these cybersecurity necessities to someone who lacks the technical cyber knowledge can be hard, unless you translate your arguments into terms that they resonate with.

In many cases, that means talking about risk management and business impact, e.g., “This type of cyber event could cost us up to $1 million, but if we invest $10,000 in this area, we could cut that financial exposure in half.” These financial terms could be much more convincing than diving into details on how ransomware encryption works, for example, which others might lack the technical background to understand.

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‍How Can CISOs Use CRQ To Prove ROI?

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Understanding the importance of financially quantifying cyber risk is only half the battle. You also need to be able to make those calculations and use them effectively. One way to do so is with an automated platform like Kovrr's cyber risk quantification platform.

If CISOs tried to manually calculate cyber risk on their own, or worked with a consultant on a risk assessment, the results could be outdated by the time they’re ready. Plus, it’s hard to continually do those calculations, and you never know when you’ll need to prove ROI.

For example, your company might be going through a round of layoffs and budget cuts, and you may need to quickly show that you shouldn’t shrink your cybersecurity budget. So, Kovrr's solution can help you automatically pull together data sources and map your security environment to then provide on-demand CRQ insights.

Specifically, this type of CRQ helps prove ROI via:
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Cybersecurity Investments Analysis

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Based on extensive data from both insurers and enterprises, our CRQ models can estimate the impact of different cyber actions. So, if you’re considering making new cybersecurity investments, like adding data recovery capabilities, or pursing a new project that fortifies perimeter security, then the platform can show if/how much that would reduce your potential financial exposure.

That way, if you’re deciding between different investments, you can go with the one that has the highest ROI. Even if you’re just considering one action, you can get a clear sense of whether that spend results in reduced financial risk, as well as how much you’re potentially saving by reducing that exposure.
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Risk Mitigation Recommendations

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‍Related to quantifying the impact of cyber security investments, CISOs can get a list of risk mitigation recommendations by using Kovrr's quantification platform, prioritized based on potential cost savings.

From there, you can focus on the security controls that have the most financial impact, and you can show these cyber risk management recommendations to other business leaders to prove that your department is helping the organization save money as a whole.

You might even be able to justify spending more in some areas, like adding staff, if you can demonstrate how that leads to a risk reduction in monetary terms.

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Industry Benchmarks‍

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Another way to demonstrate ROI is by showing how your organization stacks up against your industry. If you use our state-of-the-art CRQ tool's benchmarking capabilities to show how your security controls fall short of peers, for example, it might convince other leaders to get your team the budget needed to bring your security posture up to par.

Or, if you’re ahead of peers, that could be used to prove that you’re making good use of your security budget, whereas budget cuts could increase your risk exposure relative to competitors.
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Cyber Insurance Analysis

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Kovrr's advanced CRQ solution can also help when it comes to cyber insurance optimization. If you’re trying to figure out how much  cyber insurance you should buy, you can see which type of insurance policy would give you the risk transfer you’re looking for. Or, if you want to assess whether your insurance spend is sufficient, then you can use the platform to understand the risk of exceeding policy limits, for example.
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Start Quantifying Your Cyber Risk

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Overall, being able to financially quantify cybersecurity risk can help prove to others in your organization that your cybersecurity spend is effective or that you need more money to get your financial exposure to an acceptable level.

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Chief information security officers (CISOs) know that convincing boards and other executives to invest in cybersecurity can be challenging. While everyone wants to stay secure, it can be hard to justify spending more money on something that often feels hidden.

Rather than making rough guesses or struggling with communicating overly technical areas, CISOs can use a CRQ platform like the one from Koverr to get on the same page as other executives and board directors and improve cyber resilience.

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Ready to see how CRQ can help you show the ROI of your cybersecurity spend? Get a free demo.