Gartner Insights Abstract

2025 Strategic Roadmap for Cybersecurity Leadership

Published: 23 August 2024

Summary

The increasingly complex threat landscape requires cybersecurity leaders to balance comprehensiveness with agility. This roadmap offers actionable steps and resources to establish and refine cybersecurity programs by combining cyber risk management activities, capabilities, people and technology.

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Overview

Key Findings
  • The acquisition, creation and delivery of technology is moving from central IT functions to lines of business. As a result, top-down cybersecurity operating models fail to align to business needs or effectively manage risk.

  • Strategic planning processes that follow strict stage-gates and static assessments fail to adapt to shifting business needs, evolving threats and emerging technology. In short, waterfall planning fails to support agile businesses.

  • Employees often adopt new technology, such as GenAI, before understanding the cybersecurity implications of their decisions. While these actions are typically well-intentioned (e.g., innovation, efficiency), they rarely consider the associated risks.

  • Human behavior significantly impacts cyber

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