3 Key 2025 Imperatives for Security and Risk Management

When cybersecurity programs are optimized for performance, they focus on continuous improvement in effectiveness and efficiency.

Accelerators can be quick wins, smart tactics or new directions, and tend to fall into one of four buckets: 

• Win differently — e.g., challenge the status quo approach to cybersecurity management.

• Force multipliers— e.g., deploy a collaborative cyber-risk management process.

• Banish drags — e.g., remove unnecessary or overly restrictive security controls.  

• Redirect resources — e.g., stop redundant security initiatives.

To optimize for resilience, improve the organization’s ability to resist, absorb, recover and adapt to business disruption in an ever-changing and increasingly complex environment and threat landscape. To shift from protection to resilience, focus on: 

• Safeguarding what is most impactful versus protecting everything

• Targeted and effective efforts versus more tools for the sake of more tools

• Hiring and training for failure versus preventing disruptions

Agile security teams rapidly reprioritize the projects and investments within the cybersecurity strategy and program. These programs must be robust enough to withstand both minor disruptions and major external shocks. Agile principles include:

• Customer orientation

• Adaptability

• Empowered ownership

• Collaboration

• Continuous improvement

SRM leaders are wise to evaluate these imperatives to evolve existing cybersecurity programs. Each promises to enable organizations to better protect themselves in the current security landscape while opening up opportunities to benefit from new and emerging technologies. 

Learn more about these imperatives and how they will impact cybersecurity programs in the 2025 Security and Risk Management Leadership Vision.