Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2025. Read them in this 17th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Monica Landen, CISO, Diligent
As the digital landscape becomes increasingly complex, cybersecurity has evolved from a technical challenge to a critical business priority. In 2025, the heightening of sophisticated cyber threats and continued stringent regulations will make cybersecurity inseparable from essential business operations and financial performance. Boards and executive leaders will have to develop a stronger understanding of cyber risks and how they affect their business at all levels. Leveraging tools like risk quantification and fostering cross-functional collaboration to ensure cybersecurity is embedded in both strategy and culture will be essential in the coming years.
Cyber and The Board
While cybersecurity has sat near the top of the board agenda for the last five or so years, emerging regulations and more sophisticated threats have caused this issue to escalate even further. Cybersecurity is very closely aligned with overall business success, and companies with measurably stronger cybersecurity practices deliver higher financial performance than their peers – a total shareholder return of 71% over 5 years compared to 37%. To remain secure and see greater business growth in 2025, we can expect cyber to remain one of the number one risks for most companies, and as such, a priority topic in the boardroom. We’ll see cyber literacy become a crucial skill on boards, and executive compensation will become more tied to cyber performance.
Quantifying Risks
Risk quantification will emerge as the strongest and most reliable tool for communicating cyber risk to your boardroom in 2025. Similar to how the insurance industry continuously improves risk assessments, security professionals must break down barriers and communicate how vulnerabilities in a tech stack can impact every part of the business. 2025 could be the year of more cross-organizational pollination to properly communicate cyber risks to the board. Security teams have historically been siloed, but if they can tie their challenges and successes to customer experience, sales pipelines, or product development, those barriers will deteriorate and the impact, positive or negative, of poor security will properly resonate with the board.
The Rise of Cybersecurity and GRC
In 2025, it will be mission critical for organizations to make cybersecurity a cornerstone of their overall risk management strategy. This will require a strengthened understanding of cybersecurity and a strong GRC framework to withstand ongoing cybersecurity threats. A close partnership between CISOs and GRC teams will also be crucial to communicate cyber risks and solutions to leaders and board members in clear, actionable terms, and quantify the risks and financial impacts of potential threats to highlight the importance of robust cybersecurity programs. Leaders must also prioritize fostering a cyber-centric culture and increasing cyber literacy through vigorous upskilling and training to ensure cybersecurity is a priority across all levels of the organization.
As we learned over the last year, the stakes have never been higher, and in 2025, organizations that fail to prioritize cybersecurity will find themselves at a significant disadvantage. By embracing risk quantification, strengthening cyber literacy in the boardroom, and fostering cross-organizational partnerships, leaders can turn cybersecurity from a high-cost, reactive effort into a proactive and strategic driver of growth. The companies that succeed will be those that view cybersecurity and its many risks not as an obligation, but as a cornerstone of their organizational resilience.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Monica is a Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Diligent, a leading GRC SaaS company. She has over 20 years of experience in leadership roles across information security, strategy, software development, and operations. As the CISO, Monica is responsible for developing and executing the global security strategy and program, ensuring the protection of Diligent’s data, systems, and clients. She leads a high-performing team of security professionals across engineering, operations, governance, risk, and compliance functions. She also works closely with the Board, senior management, and external partners to align security initiatives with business objectives and industry best practices.
