MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Improving Your Bottom Line With Cybersecurity

Leaders are beginning to see cybersecurity as a means to improve their bottom line, and there are specific ways to do this effectively.

Cybersecurity budgeting is one of the most peculiar efforts today in corporate strategy and planning. For a cyber leader, requesting a budget is unfortunately more art than science. This is because measuring and communicating cyber risk is notoriously difficult — the threat is always morphing, enterprise vulnerability is fluid, and business impacts are far-reaching and tough to calculate. To justify budget requests, cyber leaders inevitably incorporate headline news that instills fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Here, leaders seek to influence through emotion. This process happens year over year, all to increase cybersecurity spending slightly. A couple more dollars here, a little more capability there, often with few measurable gains.