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A Boardroom Imperative in the Age of AI Threats, ETCISO
India, today sits among the most targeted markets for cyberattacks. Banking, healthcare, manufacturing, and government portals remain high on the radar for cyber threats. Modern adversaries are moving at breakneck speed, leveraging AI to accelerate exploit cycles and leaving organizations with a razor-thin margin for errors. A single breach today can erode customer trust and dent enterprise reputation in ways that enterprises struggle to recuperate from
This brings us to the question of the moment: are these modern enterprises genuinely matured in terms of their security posture, or are they mistaking investment for preparedness?
Maturity Gap goes beyond the adoption of smart tools
For modern enterprises, the cybersecurity maturity is the framework that determines if a particular organization will be knocked off its feet by the next major incident, or if it will persevere and continue operating with minimal disruption. My conversations with CIOs and CISOs revealed recurring themes such as
- Fragmented visibility of the security posture
- Overwhelmed teams, particularly SOCs and NOCs, inundated with noise
- Difficulty translating technical risks into boardroom language
In a nutshell, many organizations own advanced point solutions but only a handful of them have these solutions that talk to each other. The result is disjointed sophistication like a bank with cloud apps but no unified inventory, a hospital with endpoint protection yet blind spots in medical devices, a government portal with perimeters but brittle incident plans. Closing these gaps is key to advancing the maturity curve.Cybersecurity maturity fundamentally revolves around three interlinked pillars:
- Visibility across the attack surfaces and where risks may arise
- Prioritizing threats and assessing their potential impact on the business.
- The ability to act decisively to mitigate active threats and emerging risks.
As organizations mature, their capabilities across these pillars deepen, providing a stronger, more integrated security posture. These pillars set the foundation for understanding where an enterprise stands on the maturity curve.
The Four Stages of Cybersecurity Maturity
Understanding where a particular organization stands on the cybersecurity maturity curve is crucial. The journey typically progresses through four stages:
Reactive Mode: Organizations in this stage are primarily engaged in fighting the fire – responding to threats while they occur. Visibility across the attack surface is low, asset inventories are incomplete. Security teams are overwhelmed, often patching based on CVE scores without assessing risk impact and category.
Tactical Mode: Organizations begin integrating security and IT workflows, enhancing visibility and responsiveness. Yet, they remain largely reactive and slow-moving like siloed data, incomplete asset management, and a reliance on manual processes for threat detection and response.
Risk-Driven Mode: At this stage, security becomes slightly strategic and focuses on identifying and addressing risks. Organizations conduct continuous risk assessments, integrate security into business processes, and leverage automation for remediation and real-time awareness of their attack surface.
Proactive Mode: Here, security is comprehensive, continuous, integrated, and automated. Organizations have unified visibility, AI-driven threat detection, and robust incident response. Security is deeply embedded into business strategy, enabling resilience and agility in the face of evolving threats.
Climbing the Maturity Curve
Most enterprises today remain trapped in reactive or tactical modes, grappling with incidents as they erupt or navigating disjointed security workflows. The path to true resilience requires a strategic shift to proactive cybersecurity, anchored in Cyber Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) – the Gartner-endorsed framework for Continuously Mapping, Assessing, and Mitigating Exposures across the enterprise. This approach shifts the narrative from reaction to anticipation. Security teams can orchestrate defences, pre-empt potential disruptions, and maintain operational continuity against AI-accelerated threats.
Cybersecurity Maturity is a continued process
More than reaching a “finish line”, Maturity is a continuous process of evolving beyond checklists, siloed systems and sprawling tools. Too often, enterprises mistake passing an audit for being secure. A well-prepared organization stands armoured with proactive cyber defences, maintaining an integrated, automated, and continuously monitored security environment, that anticipates threats before they materialize, and aligns cyber risk with business objectives. These enterprises are weaving resilience into their operational fabric, business decision-making, and strategy. Organizations that embrace this view, also unlock what may be called the trust dividend – an assurance that their customers, partners, and regulators can depend on them even in moments of crisis.
The author is Sharda Tickoo, Country Manager for India & SAARC at Trend Micro.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETCISO does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETCISO shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organization directly or indirectly.
