Top 4 Strategies to Demonstrate Cybersecurity's Value in the Boardroom

‍TL;DR‍

• Only 12% of the US Fortune 500 companies have board members with cybersecurity expertise, a statistic indicative of the significant gap across the broader market.
• Due to technical complexities and niche terminologies, high-level stakeholders and budget-makers perceive proactive cyber risk management to be a resource drain rather than a business enabler.
• At the same time, as the average cost of a cyber event rises, boards are increasingly seeking to engage with their chief information security officers (CISOs) and require updates on the organization's cyber risk.
• To effectively communicate this risk landscape and help transform board members' common misconceptions, CISOs need to invest in their storytelling skills and leverage various tactics to make cyber concepts and metrics more tangible.
• CISOs can likewise harness the power of cyber risk quantification (CRQ), which can quickly translate cyber risk into broader business terms, such as financial implications, helping non-technical stakeholders understand the benefits of practice investment.
• Investing in regular one-on-one meetings with other C-suite colleagues can likewise improve communications strategies, build trust, and maximize buy-in at the board level.
• Communication is the catalyst for building a more robust, adequately funded cybersecurity program. The sooner CISOs invest in honing these skills, the more effectively cyber will be integrated into the corporate culture. 

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The Wide Gap Between the Boardroom and Cybersecurity

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Cybersecurity expertise is notoriously absent from the boardroom. Only last year, a market analysis found that a mere 12% of US Fortune 500 companies have a board member with adequate knowledge of cyber risk management. However, increased cybersecurity regulations, coupled with heightened cyber event costs, have begun to highlight the need to rectify this void as soon as possible.  

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Hindering this progress has been the pervasive belief that cybersecurity is a resource drain, an unfortunate yet necessary business investment. This common misconception has stemmed primarily from the fact that discussions surrounding cyber are typically saturated with technical terminology, rendering it near-impossible for someone unfamiliar with the subject matter to understand how it adds value to the organization.

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Nevertheless, the current cyber risk landscape has become too volatile for this status quo to remain and encouragingly, board members are increasingly pulling their chief information security officers (CISOs) out of their silos and asking to be briefed on the company’s cybersecurity posture.

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In many regards, the board’s new eagerness has been welcomed by many cyber executives who have long felt their efforts undervalued and are primed to take on greater leadership roles. At the same time, this shift has also presented an unprecedented challenge to an employee already bogged down by a seemingly endless list of responsibilities: learning how to speak the language of business. 

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Transforming Into Storytellers to Make Cybersecurity Accessible

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Effective board-level engagement demands that CISOs become storytellers, a skill not traditionally associated with such a technically oriented role. Nevertheless, whether attempting to demonstrate the progress that’s been made in the past month or articulate why additional funding is needed for a new security tool, these high-level cyber risk managers must be able to communicate in such a way that’s relatable and tangible to everyone in the room. 

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By leveraging the power of storytelling, cyber leaders can transform the abstract into the tangible, make meaning out of the obscure, and convey how proactive investment in cybersecurity ensures the business’s future success. While there’s no shortcut to acquiring this talent, as it’s a capability that professionals spend their careers honing, there are a number of strategies that can be adopted to accelerate the process. 

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The Power of Analogy and Metaphor

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Analogies and metaphors are widely used rhetorical devices because they make complex concepts relatable. Just as parents use the story of the tortoise and the hare to explain to children the benefits of persistence, CISOs can leverage various real-world situations to help board members understand the importance of a robust cybersecurity program.

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For instance, cybersecurity leaders can describe the business's cybersecurity activities as comparable to the safety measures in place at the beach. Although the lifeguard is there to rescue a swimmer in case of an incident, there are plenty of other precautions in place to minimize this likelihood of occurrence, such as flags that communicate the water's relative danger level, drones that survey the surface for sharks and other unfriendly creatures.

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Another commonly used industry metaphor is likening cybersecurity to a car's various safety features, including the brakes, seatbelts, and airbags. This comparison is especially useful, as organizations are commonly thought of as machines working toward a goal. By utilizing the car example, it becomes much easier for high-level stakeholders to comprehend that, by investing adequate resources, the company is significantly more likely to reach its destination.

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Financial Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ)

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One of the most straightforward means of telling a story that highlights the value that cyber brings to the business is by translating its risk into financial terms. Cyber risk quantification takes into account all of the internal elements that contribute to digital exposure, such as technologies used, location, industry, and revenue band, along with the external risk landscape, to provide a range of potential loss scenarios for the upcoming year due to cyber activities.

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With an on-demand CRQ platform, CISOs likewise have access to a multitude of other financially quantified insights that are valuable in the boardroom. For example, the Average Annual Loss communicates, on average, how much the organization is likely to lose due to a cyber event in the upcoming year, helping stakeholders understand if the business’s exposure falls in line with risk appetite levels.

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Certain CRQ solutions also provide targeted recommendations that highlight how much an organization’s financial exposure can be reduced if specific security control upgrades are pursued. These calculations aid cybersecurity leaders in demonstrating the business benefits of various initiatives, offering direct monetary implications to non-technical executives. If there’s one thing that all board members appreciate, it’s financial savings.

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CRQ platforms provide a slew of other boardroom-ready metrics, but ultimately, the bottom line is that by translating complex cyber terms into a language that decision-makers and resource allocators are already deeply familiar with, CISOs can facilitate conversation and more easily express how cybersecurity drives business success. 

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Regular One-on-One Meetings With C-Suite Executives

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Establishing regular discussions with other C-suite executives can help illuminate other methods for effective board engagement. Officers like the CEO, CFO, and CRO are accustomed to speaking with the board, demonstrating their progress, and acquiring additional budgets for special projects. The CISO can learn much from these professionals and the communication tactics employed to achieve their goals. 

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These meetings likewise offer a less stressful platform for the CISO to share updates and bring up potential threats that emerge along with new projects. Together, these C-suite colleagues can explore the business implications of various cyber risk management options and determine the approach to optimally balance innovation and security. The CISO offers a crucial perspective on cyber, while other C-level executives ensure the broader business context is considered.

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Moreover, investing in these relationships builds trust and ensures that cybersecurity is incorporated into the decision-making process. Having the support of the entire C-suite in the boardroom will amplify the importance of cyber risk management and help convince board members to prioritize these matters.

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Data Visualization

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Everyone has a unique learning style, even board members with many years of experience in high-level strategic meetings. Some comprehend and retain complex information better when it’s presented through a visual medium, a preference CISOs can leverage to enhance their storytelling capabilities. Charts, graphs, and other infographics can easily make cybersecurity more accessible and engaging.

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A pie chart, for instance, makes it much easier for stakeholders to understand the specific events driving their organization’s financial exposure. In the figure below, board members can see that the losses deriving from data breaches and ransomware events contribute the most significantly to their average annual loss forecast, signifying that it may be worth it to proactively invest in mitigating the costs of these specific incidents.

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Explore the Boardroom-Ready Reporting Template for additional examples of the types of visualizations that can be used to report cybersecurity to the board.

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Breaking Down the Language Barrier Between the Board and Cyber

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Reporting to the boardroom can be a daunting task for even the most seasoned business professionals. However, when accustomed to operating in and speaking with terms that the majority of these board members are unfamiliar with, this duty is all the more challenging. Nevertheless, amid a risk landscape in which the impacts of cyber events on businesses are becoming increasingly severe, it is one that is unavoidable.

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By investing in honing their storytelling skills, CISOs can discover the tactics that are most effective in conveying their cybersecurity messages to the board, whether it’s harnessing metaphors and analogies, translating cyber risk into financial terms with CRQ, scheduling regular meetings, incorporating visual aids into presentations, or a combination of all of them.

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When the board room is able to tangibly understand the impact cyber risk management is having on the organization, not only does it help to ensure that the CISO’s hard work is valued, but it also leads to optimized resource allocation, better alignment of cyber with the overall business strategy, and, ultimately, a more robust cybersecurity program. 

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‍Schedule a free CRQ demo today with one of Kovrr’s cyber risk management experts to learn more about how quantification streamlines cybersecurity board reporting and start communicating in a language that resonates.