Evolution of exposure management
Most security teams understand the important things in their environment. What is difficult to fix? Business – Critical. These are assets that support processes that your business cannot function. They are not always the loudest or most exposed. They are linked to revenue, operations and delivery. If it goes down, it’s more than a security issue – it’s a business issue.
After publishing a four-step approach to business-critical asset mapping and security over the past year, my team and I have had the opportunity to be deeply involved in numerous customer workshops across multiple industries, including finance, manufacturing and energy. These sessions reveal valuable insights into how organizations are evolving their security attitudes.
This article will update that approach, incorporate what you learn along the way, and help organizations align their exposure management strategies with business priorities. What began as a theoretical four-stage approach has matured into a proven methodology with measurable results. Organizations implementing this framework report surprising efficiency gains. It can simultaneously enhance security posture, which is most important, while also reducing remediation efforts by up to 96%.
The engagement between CISOs, security directors and increasingly CFOs and executives reveals consistent patterns across the industry. Rather than identifying vulnerabilities, security teams struggle to determine what poses real business risks. Meanwhile, business leaders ensure that security investments protect what matters most, but often lack a framework to effectively communicate these priorities to technical teams.
Methodology The methods we refined bridge this gap and create a common language between security practitioners and business stakeholders. The following lessons distill what we learned by implementing this approach across diverse organizational contexts. They represent not only theoretical best practices, but also practical insights gained from successful real-world applications.
Lesson 1: Not all assets are created equally
What we discovered: Most security teams can identify what is technically important, but they have a hard time deciding on what is business critical. The difference is important – business-critical assets directly support revenue generation, operation, and service delivery.
Important takeouts: If you compromise your security resources, you focus on systems that cause real business disruptions rather than just technical issues. Organizations that implemented this targeted approach reduced their remediation efforts by up to 96%.
Lesson 2: Business Context Changes Everything
What we discovered: Security teams are owned to signals, including vulnerability scans, CVSS scores, and alerts from the entire technology stack. Without a business context, these signals are meaningless. The “critical” vulnerabilities of unused systems are less important than the “medium” systems on the revenue-generating platform.
Important takeouts: Integrate business contexts into security prioritization. If you know which systems support core business functions, you can make decisions based on actual impact as well as technical severity.
Lesson 3: Four-stage method works
What we discovered: Organizations need a structured approach to link security efforts to business priorities. Our four-stage methodology has proven effective in a variety of industries.
- Identify important business processes
- Map the process to technology
- Prioritize based on business risk
- It acts where it matters
Takeout: Start by how your company makes and spends money. You don’t need to map everything – just a process that causes great confusion if it’s interrupted.
Takeout: Determine which systems, databases, credentials, and infrastructure and support those critical processes. No perfect mapping is required – aim to be “good enough” to guide your decisions.
Takeout: Focus on chokepoints – System attackers could pass to reach assets critical to the business. These are not always the most serious vulnerabilities, but fixing them will give you the best effort return.
Takeout: Repair exposures that create a path to your business system first. This targeted approach makes security work more efficient and easier to justify leadership.
Lesson 4: CFOs are becoming security stakeholders
What we discovered: Financial leaders are increasingly involved in cybersecurity decisions. As one director of cybersecurity told us, “Our CFOs want to know how they view cybersecurity risks from a business perspective.”
Important takeouts: Frame security from a business risk management perspective to gain support from financial leadership. This approach has proven essential to fostering initiatives and ensuring the necessary budget.
Lesson 5: Clarity beats data volume
What we discovered: Security teams don’t need more information – they need a better context to understand what they already have.
Important takeouts: When security work can be connected to business outcomes, the conversation with leadership changes fundamentally. It’s no longer about technical indicators, it’s about business protection and continuity.
Lesson 6: Effectiveness arises from focus
What we discovered: Organizations implementing an approach that is consistent with our business have reported dramatic efficiency improvements, reducing some repair efforts by up to 96%.
Important takeouts: Security excellence is not something to do more – it is something to do important. By focusing on the assets driving your business, you can achieve better security outcomes with fewer resources and demonstrate clear value to your organization.
Conclusion
A journey to effective security is not about ensuring everything, but about protecting what really drives your business. Align security efforts with business priorities, allowing organizations to achieve both stronger protection and more efficient operations. This is to translate security from technical capabilities to strategic business enablers. Want to learn more about this methodology? Check out my recent webinars here to learn how to start protecting the most important things.
Bonus Checklist:
Get started – How to protect your business assets
Step 1: Identify your important business processes
□Schedule focused discussions with business unit leaders to identify the process that generates core revenues
□ See how your company earns money and brings to the surface of high-value operations
□Create a short list of business processes that will cause significant disruption if interrupted
□ Document these processes clearly explain and document the importance of your business
Step 2: Map business processes to technology
□Identify support systems, databases, and infrastructure for each critical process
□Document which administrative qualifications and access points protect these systems
□Consult the system owner about dependencies and recovery requirements
□Compile findings from CMDB, architecture documentation, or direct interviews
Step 3: Prioritize based on business risk
□ Attackers identifying chokepoints are likely to pass to reach critical assets
□Evaluate which exposures create a direct path to your business system
□Determine which system has the tightest SLA or recovery window
□Create a list of prioritized exposures based on not only technical severity but also business impact
Step 4: Turn insights into action
□ Efforts to focus on exposure that directly affects business systems
□ Develop clear communications about why these priorities are important in business terms
□Track progress based on reduced risk to core business functions
□Bring out results for leadership not only from technical indicators but also from a business protection perspective
As highlighted in Lessons 4 and 5, bridging the gap between technical findings and executive leadership is one of the most important skills for modern CISOs. To learn this essential dialogue, we now offer our practical course, “Risk Reporting,” completely free of charge. The program is designed to provide the framework and language necessary to transform conversations with the board and to confidently present security as a strategic business function. Access our free courses now and start building stronger relationships with your leadership team.
Note: This article was skillfully written by Yaron Mazor, the leading customer advisor at XM Cyber.
