Is concern for your cybersecurity readiness keeping you awake at night? If the answer’s yes, this white paper has everything you need to establish effective cybersecurity Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help you protect your business. Better KPIs not only inform your investment allocations and guide security improvement initiatives and purchase decisions, but they also ensure that you develop smarter strategies and leverage disruption towards powering growth.
How your cybersecurity KPIs relate to your IT management
Unlike in larger enterprises, IT leaders in small and midsize organizations must have a more difficult time balancing their general goals with their efforts to reduce cybersecurity risk. This includes harmonizing investments for maximum impact. As part of a successful KPI program, IT leaders must define data-driven objectives so they can weigh IT support requirements against cybersecurity risk management goals. By focusing on cyber hygiene, they can greatly reduce the likelihood and severity of cybersecurity incidents, avoiding downtime and other downstream damage that thwarts IT goals.
What should your KPI cybersecurity program include?
If IT leaders want to implement an effective KPI program that secures their organizations they must ensure that it:
- Connects each top-level KPI to the key objectives or the mission statement of the company
- Measures a mix of outcomes and leading performance indicators
- Sets short and long-term targets for each KPI
- Uses only quantifiable, well-defined and objective KPIs
- Automates their collection efforts where possible
- Makes their KPI scorecard completely transparent
- Establishes monthly reviews at the company level that come up in quarterly board-level discussions
- Spreads accountability across the organization 99
For a road map on operationalizing a KPI program that elevates your business, check out our Executive Summary.