How does cybersecurity maturity guide board decision-making?

The increased sophistication of attacks, the growth of regulatory risks, and the financial and reputational impact of incidents have made cybersecurity a strategic agenda.

As a result, talking about security maturity with the board is no longer an option and has become a necessity. Because it is at this level that priorities, investments, and guidelines are defined that directly affect the resilience of the business.

After all, security maturity reflects how prepared the organization is to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber risks consistently and sustainably.

The greater this maturity, the lower the exposure to critical incidents and the greater the capacity for data-driven decision-making.

In this context, the board plays a key role in ensuring governance, aligning security with strategic objectives, and directing investments to initiatives that truly reduce risks and strengthen organizational culture.

What is security maturity and how should it be understood?

Security maturity is nothing more than the level of ability that an organization has to protect its assets, manage risks, and respond to incidents in a structured, consistent, and continuous way.

It is important to emphasize that it is not just about having tools or policies, but about how these initiatives are integrated into the business strategy and the day-to-day operation.

In other words, the greater the maturity, the greater the predictability, efficiency, and the reduction of relevant risks for the organization.

Unlike one-off actions, security maturity involves evolution over time. After all, isolated controls can solve immediate problems, but they do not guarantee sustainability.

For this, a mature program is essential, which establishes clear processes, performance indicators, continuous improvement cycles, and alignment with corporate objectives, allowing security to stop being reactive and strategic.

Another central point is to understand that maturity is not only associated with the technological level.

This is because organizations with advanced solutions may have low maturity if there are no well-defined processes or if people are not prepared to act correctly in the face of risks.

The lack of integration between areas, the lack of communication with leadership, and the lack of clear metrics are common signs of a program that is still immature.

Therefore, security maturity is based on three fundamental pillars:

• People;

• Processes;

• Technology.

  
  

Aware and engaged people reduce behavioral risks, well-structured processes ensure consistency and governance, and technology acts as an enabler, supporting the prevention, detection, and response to incidents.

The balance between these pillars is what allows the organization to evolve from isolated initiatives to a truly mature security program aligned with business needs.

Is security maturity a strategic indicator?

More than volumes of alerts, number of tools, or excessively technical data, what the board needs to see is the company's ability to prevent incidents, respond efficiently, and reduce impacts on the business.

In this context, maturity works as a thermometer that consolidates different aspects of security in an executive and results-oriented vision.

For this to be possible, it is essential to translate technical metrics into executive indicators, such as:

• Phishing click-through rates;

• Recurrence of incidents;

• Response time;

• Adherence to policies;

• Evolution of employee behavior.

  
  

These indicators allow leadership to understand not only what is happening, but how much the organization is evolving or becoming more exposed over time.

This is because there is a direct relationship between security maturity, exposure to risks, and business continuity.

For example, organizations with greater maturity tend to suffer fewer critical incidents and, when they occur, respond in a faster and more controlled way, reducing financial, operational, and reputational impacts.

For the board, this level of visibility is essential. Because it supports more assertive decisions about investments, priorities, and strategies, ensuring that information security is aligned with the sustainability and growth of the business.

What practical actions do I need to implement security maturity?

For information security to become truly strategic, it is necessary to transform diagnosis, goals, indicators, and behavior into coordinated actions, capable of reducing risks in a measurable and sustainable way.

By adopting clear practices aligned with the business, organizations are able to evolve their maturity, strengthen governance, and demonstrate concrete results to senior leadership and the board. Here's how to do it.

Diagnosis of the maturity level

The first step to evolving security maturity is to understand, objectively, where the organization really is.

This diagnosis should go beyond compliance checklists and consider aspects such as employee behavior, effectiveness of existing controls, incident response processes, and level of visibility for leadership.

Without this initial vision, any initiative tends to be punctual and little connected to the real risks of the business.

Therefore, it is essential to map the current level of maturity, this allows you to identify gaps, prioritize actions, and establish a reliable baseline.

From this point, the organization is able to compare its evolution over time and direct efforts to the points that most impact risk reduction, avoiding uncoordinated investments or investments based only on perceptions.

Setting clear and measurable goals

After the diagnosis, it is essential to transform the identified gaps into clear, realistic and measurable goals.

Well-defined goals help guide safety actions and align expectations between technical, management, and board areas.

They must be connected to specific risks, such as reducing exposure to phishing, improving incident response time, or increasing the level of employee awareness.

As a result, measurable results allow you to objectively track progress and demonstrate results over time, thus being recognized as a strategic element, capable of generating predictability and supporting executive decision-making.

Creating indicators

The evolution of security maturity can only be proven through consistent and recurring indicators.

In other words, punctual indicators or indicators analyzed in isolation do not reflect trends or demonstrate real improvements.

Therefore, it is essential to define metrics that can be continuously monitored and compared over time, creating a clear view of evolution or regression. These indicators should be simple, relevant, and aligned with the business.

It is important to emphasize that metrics must translate security maturity into understandable data for the board, strengthening strategic communication.

Employee engagement

No security maturity initiative can be sustained without employee engagement.

This is because the human factor continues to be one of the main vectors of risk, making it essential to create a safety culture that goes beyond specific training.

Thus, raising awareness, communicating and reinforcing good practices on an ongoing basis is essential to reduce behavioral risks.

After all, when employees understand their role in information security, they act as an active part of the strategy, and not as a point of vulnerability.

As a result, continuous engagement strengthens organizational maturity, improves safety indicators, and generates direct impacts on the reduction of incidents, making safety a collective effort aligned with business objectives.

PhishX helps organizations measure maturity

Instead of isolated actions, the platform promotes a constant cycle of learning, reinforcement and evaluation, integrating:

• Attack simulations;

• Educational training;

• Recurring campaigns.

  
  

This continuous model contributes directly to the change in employee behavior and to the consistent reduction of exposure to risks.

In addition, PhishX transforms operational data into clear and actionable indicators, facilitating executive monitoring and communication with the board.

Metrics such as behavior evolution, engagement levels, incident recurrence, and risk reduction are presented objectively, allowing to demonstrate security maturity over time.

With this visibility, security is no longer just operational and starts to support strategic decisions, more assertive investments, and governance aligned with the organization's objectives

Want to know how? Contact our experts and learn more.

Cybersecurity maturity guides board decision-making.