The Compliance Burden vs. Real Security
A recent congressional letter to the Office of Management and Budget sounded the alarm on a growing problem in cybersecurity: organizations are drowning in compliance requirements that don’t necessarily make them safer. House leaders noted that companies “choose between spending precious resources on security or on compliance” – an unnecessary tradeoff that puts entities at risk. The U.S. cybersecurity regulatory landscape has become exceedingly complex, with over three dozen separate federal mandates for incident reporting alone. This patchwork of overlapping rules forces many organizations into a defensive crouch of paperwork and audits, rather than proactive defense. One congressional hearing found at least 50 different incident reporting requirements in effect across the federal government – a “conflicting and complex” web that places “a significant burden on reporting entities” and pulls their attention away from securing networks (House Homeland, Oversight Republicans Urge OMB to Cut Burdensome, Duplicative Cyber Regulations – Committee on Homeland Security).
The costs of this compliance overload are staggering. A single proposed update to federal healthcare security rules (HIPAA) carried an estimated $9 billion in first-year compliance costs for industry. Bank cybersecurity chiefs testified that they now spend 30–50% of their time on compliance management, and their teams spend up to 70% on the same – time not spent actually hunting threats or bolstering defenses. Worse, about 25% of regulatory inquiries to banks were found to be duplicative and uncoordinated. In the energy sector, too, witnesses warned that juggling “disparate regulations across agencies may in fact harm the cybersecurity posture” of organizations when limited resources get allocated to checklist chores over real risk management and capability-building. These realities underscore a dangerous imbalance: compliance efforts are consuming resources at the expense of security outcomes. As cyber adversaries grow only more sophisticated, we cannot afford to let red tape hinder our agility in responding to threats. The call from Congress to streamline regulations – to eliminate duplication and reduce burdens – is timely and justified. But streamlining alone won’t solve the deeper issue. We need a fundamental shift in how we approach cybersecurity itself, focusing on performance and results rather than paperwork.
Beyond Checklist Compliance: Enter Cybersecurity Performance Management
How can organizations satisfy necessary compliance standards while actually improving their security? The answer is to flip the traditional model. Instead of treating security as a compliance exercise, forward-leaning organizations are embracing Cybersecurity Performance Management (CPM) – a data-driven discipline that measures and manages cyber efforts like a business performance program. CPM was introduced by TDI in 2017 as a direct response to this compliance–security tension. The premise is simple: what gets measured gets done. Rather than auditing once a year and hoping for the best, CPM calls for continuous visibility into meaningful cybersecurity metrics, so that leaders can track progress and adjust in real time. It provides “quantitative measures of cyber performance, aligned to strategic cyber objectives, tracked over time,” establishing a visible baseline and ongoing improvements across risk management, compliance, and operational effectiveness. In short, CPM refocuses cybersecurity on outcomes.
Traditional governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) approaches tend to be periodic and documentation-heavy. They too often encourage a “check-the-box” mentality – satisfying auditors with evidence of compliance, yet offering little insight into whether security controls are actually working. It’s no surprise that such approaches can breed inefficiency and a false sense of security. By contrast, a performance-based approach asks a different question: “Is our cybersecurity program actually effective?” This is the question CPM is designed to answer. A CPM program continuously tracks key indicators – for example, how quickly critical vulnerabilities get patched, how reliably access controls are enforced, or how frequently security incidents are detected and contained. These Cybersecurity Performance Indicators (CPIs) give a real-time pulse of security health, much like business KPIs do for revenue or operations. They are tied to strategic goals and risk priorities, ensuring technical metrics aren’t measured in a vacuum but in context of what the organization is trying to protect. Crucially, CPM doesn’t just generate data for data’s sake; it delivers insight. It enables executives to get a high-level snapshot of cyber risk reduction, and at the same time provides engineers a granular view of where to focus their next improvement. This turns cybersecurity into a process of continuous improvement: teams address weaknesses as they are discovered, and leadership can see evidence that security posture is getting better (or flag if it’s getting worse).
By embracing CPM, organizations can move from static audits to dynamic oversight. For example, the federal FedRAMP program recently announced plans to adopt continuous Key Security Indicators, recognizing that “periodic, compliance-driven cycles are not cost effective” for today’s agile threats. This shift echoes what industry leaders are finding: continuous performance measurement, not endless paperwork, is the future of cybersecurity management. Notably, analysts like Gartner have also recognized CPM as an emerging best practice, because it directly tackles the big question: Are our cybersecurity investments paying off? According to Gartner’s® observations, CPM clarifies whether security spending is delivering measurable risk reduction, improving compliance, and enhancing resilience – “all while eliminating redundant efforts and wasted resources.” That balance — achieving security outcomes while streamlining effort — is exactly what’s needed to resolve the compliance versus security dilemma.
Marrying Compliance with Continuous Improvement
Adopting a performance-driven model does not mean ignoring compliance—far from it. In fact, CPM can make compliance easier by baking it into everyday operations instead of treating it as a separate, laborious project. Modern CPM platforms (such as TDI’s own CnSight® platform) are built to bridge the gap between regulatory requirements and operational security. They automatically collect and correlate data from across an organization’s tools – vulnerability scanners, incident trackers, configuration management databases, identity systems, and more – and distill this information into digestible metrics and dashboards. Because these metrics are mapped to both technical controls and high-level frameworks, an organization can simultaneously satisfy multiple compliance mandates with one integrated effort. For instance, a single CPI like “percentage of critical patches applied within 30 days” can map to a requirement in NIST, overlap with a CMMC practice, and inform a risk metric for ISO 27001. Rather than maintaining separate reporting silos for each framework, CPM provides “framework mapping (e.g., RMF, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, CMMC, CIS)” that unifies compliance efforts in a performance-centric way. In practice, this means security teams focus on improving core security activities (like patch management or access control effectiveness), and the CPM system translates those improvements to the language of whatever compliance standard is needed. Compliance reporting, in essence, becomes a byproduct of doing security well.
This approach directly addresses the congressional call for harmonization. Today, a major complaint is that different regulators ask for slightly different evidence in slightly different formats – a duplication nightmare that the Government Accountability Office found leads to 49–79% overlap in some federal cyber rules. CPM can help “eliminate manual data calls and inefficient reporting cycles,” as one analysis noted. By consolidating metrics into one source of truth, organizations no longer have to scramble to pull data for each audit or fill out dozens of similar questionnaires. Reporting is streamlined – executives and auditors alike can be given access to live dashboards or on-demand reports showing where the organization stands on key controls. CnSight, for example, was designed to present an executive-level dashboard – a single pane of glass – that shows an up-to-date snapshot of enterprise cyber health and compliance posture without requiring teams to generate new spreadsheets for each review. This kind of capability “offers leadership a high-level snapshot of enterprise cyber health, bridging the gap between security operations details and business priorities.” It also offers drill-down views for practitioners, meaning that one system can speak to both audiences – those concerned with governance and those fixing the day-to-day issues. In short, CPM leverages automation to ensure that continuous monitoring doesn’t add overhead – it actually replaces or streamlines old manual compliance processes. When done right, “continuous, automated oversight of cybersecurity performance” provides the evidence needed for compliance without triggering costly assessment cycles or compliance fire drills. This is a smarter way to stay in line with regulations: by being continuously audit-ready, organizations can avoid the last-minute scrambles that so often divert resources from real security work.
Equally important, CPM ties compliance to risk management and business outcomes. Compliance requirements exist for a reason – usually to mitigate certain risks – but in a checkbox regime that rationale often gets lost. A performance approach makes that connection explicit. For example, CnSight’s integrated risk registry links each performance metric to relevant risk factors, so that leaders can see how improving a security metric (say, reducing open vulnerabilities or improving backup success rates) actually lowers a quantified risk to the business. Conversely, if a particular control’s performance is lagging, CPM will flag the heightened risk that results – prompting action before an incident or an examiner forces the issue. This risk-driven context ensures that compliance is not just about meeting a rule, but about genuinely protecting the organization’s mission. It transforms the dialogue from “Did we comply with requirement X?” to “How is our performance on X affecting our overall risk and readiness?” – a far more meaningful conversation for both security teams and regulators. When compliance efforts are viewed through this lens, they stop being a drain and start being an integral part of continuous improvement. In essence, CPM serves as a bridge between compliance and resilience, ensuring that meeting requirements also translates to tangible risk reduction and stronger defense. The result, as we’ve seen with organizations adopting this model, is a cyber program that is measurably more effective and “built to sustain both compliance and resilience in the face of evolving threats.”
Driving Accountability and a Security Performance Culture
One of the often-overlooked benefits of Cybersecurity Performance Management is its impact on organizational culture. When you start rigorously measuring something, accountability naturally follows. CPM introduces a metrics-driven culture in which everyone – from front-line security engineers to the C-suite – can see how well the organization is performing and where it needs to improve. Dashboards make performance visible. When a key metric dips, it’s quickly evident and can be assigned an owner to drive it back up. This fosters a sense of shared responsibility for security outcomes, not just compliance tasks. As TDI has noted, CPM “promotes a culture of accountability and performance measurement, ensuring that cybersecurity becomes an integral part of operations.” Rather than security being a black box that only gets opened during audits or after a breach, it becomes a constant part of business review, much like sales figures or production quality. Teams begin to take pride in improving their scores – say, shortening the average time to remediate critical findings – because those scores reflect real progress in risk reduction and preparedness. This positive pressure can be far more motivating than an annual compliance tick-box. It’s the difference between aspiring to excel versus struggling not to fall behind.
From a management perspective, CPM also enables much smarter resource optimization. With continuous metrics, leaders can pinpoint where resources are yielding good security returns and where they’re being wasted. For instance, if data shows that a particular security tool is constantly underperforming or a certain process is causing delays (e.g. patches not being applied due to insufficient staffing), those insights justify reallocating budget or personnel to where they will make a difference. The congressional letter highlighted how redundant regulations divert funds and effort with little gain; CPM helps ensure every dollar and hour spent on cybersecurity is aligned with reducing risk, not just satisfying an auditor. By automating rote tasks like data collection and report preparation, CPM “frees cybersecurity teams to focus on mission-critical defense rather than administrative tasks.” In other words, it addresses the exact complaint voiced by so many CISOs in Washington: that too much time is spent on paperwork instead of protecting systems. When properly implemented, a performance management platform will “reduce the manual workload on cyber teams, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives.” This efficiency gain is not trivial – it can reclaim significant staff hours that can be redirected to threat analysis, incident response, and security innovation. Over time, as duplication of effort is eliminated and processes become leaner, organizations can even save money while improving security – a welcome development for both CEOs and government overseers footing the bill for compliance regimes.
Accountability extends upward, too. CPM provides CIOs, CISOs, and Boards with hard evidence of security performance, which enables informed governance. No longer must leaders rely on gut feeling or periodic audit scores to evaluate their cyber programs. They can see trends, benchmark progress, and ask tough questions when needed. This drives a healthy performance-based accountability: if certain risk metrics aren’t improving, leadership can challenge why and reallocate support to fix it. Conversely, successes can be recognized and reinforced. The end effect is a performance-based culture where continuous improvement is the expectation. Cyber teams become more agile and outcome-focused. Executives become more conversant in cyber risk in quantitative terms. And importantly, regulators and stakeholders gain confidence that cybersecurity is being managed in a proactive, evidence-driven way. Efficiency, clarity, and accountability stop being buzzwords and start being baked into daily practice. In such an environment, compliance requirements transform from dreaded checklists into useful guardrails that help guide which metrics and outcomes matter. This is how we bridge the gap between policy intent and operational reality – by making sure that meeting a requirement actually means something in terms of security performance on the ground.
A Path Forward: Performance-Driven Resilience
The message from lawmakers was clear: the current approach to cybersecurity regulation is too cumbersome, too redundant, and too costly to sustain. They urged OMB to streamline the maze of rules as quickly as possible. As a cybersecurity CIO who has worked with organizations in highly regulated sectors, I strongly echo the need for simplification. But I also believe we shouldn’t wait idly for the regulatory landscape to be cleaned up – nor assume that simply cutting rules will automatically yield better security. We have an opportunity now to rethink our strategy and double down on security outcomes. Cybersecurity Performance Management is that opportunity. It aligns perfectly with what both businesses and government ultimately want: measurable improvements in cyber resilience with less waste. By focusing on continuous performance, agencies and companies can “close the costly gap between compliance and true operational readiness”, as one analysis put it. In fact, CPM has demonstrated that organizations can “move beyond check-the-box security” to a model of clear, actionable insights that drive real risk reduction and resilience. This is a viable, proven path to satisfy regulators and improve defenses at the same time.
We should acknowledge that embracing a performance-first model requires commitment. It means investing in the right tools and processes, and shifting mindsets from top to bottom. Fortunately, the technology to enable this shift is more accessible than ever. Advanced CPM platforms like CnSight® have shown that continuous monitoring can be done in a lightweight, non-intrusive way – agentless integrations, open APIs, and flexible data analytics – so that organizations of all sizes can get started without massive upheaval. Such platforms come with built-in expertise, offering out-of-the-box metrics for areas like vulnerability management, configuration hygiene, and incident response readiness mapped to common security frameworks. This means a company doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to adopt CPM; they can begin with industry-tested indicators and refine from there. The payoff from this approach is substantial. We’ve seen it firsthand at TDI: when organizations implement CPM, leadership gains confidence through real evidence of security posture, engineers get clear feedback to hone defenses, and overall risk is demonstrably reduced. In one case, a CIO was able to report to their board not just that they were “compliant” with regulations, but that their security capabilities had improved by a quantifiable percentage over the last quarter – a powerful shift from the old narrative. This is the kind of accountability and progress that a performance approach makes possible.
Ultimately, the goal that Congress articulated – “dramatically improve the security and resiliency” of our networks and critical infrastructure – will not be achieved by compliance reforms alone. We must also empower organizations with smarter ways to manage cybersecurity. Cybersecurity Performance Management offers a complementary solution: it streamlines operations, reduces waste, and turns cybersecurity from a compliance exercise into a performance-driven mission enabler. By measuring what matters and striving for continuous improvement, organizations can ensure they are not just ticking boxes for an audit, but truly ready to defend their missions and assets when it counts. Policymakers should encourage this shift by incorporating performance-based criteria into their oversight and guidance, rewarding those who demonstrate tangible security outcomes. Likewise, security leaders in the public and private sector should view CPM as a strategic investment that yields both immediate and long-term benefits.
In conclusion, the journey from compliance to performance is already underway, and it’s time to accelerate. We can and should replace the days of “cybersecurity by paperwork” with “cybersecurity by performance.” By doing so, we relieve the burden on our cyber defenders and let them focus on what really matters: keeping our organizations safe. A performance-first, data-driven approach to cybersecurity will not only ease the compliance headaches; it will also produce the resilient cyber posture that all these regulations were meant to ensure in the first place. In an era of relentless cyber threats, this is a change we urgently need – and one that promises a true win-win for security professionals and policymakers alike.