The Business of Cybersecurity: Why Leaders Must Align Security with Business Processes

Bridging the Gap Between Cybersecurity and Business: Driving Growth, Reducing Risks, and Building Resilience. The guide for cybersecurity practitioners in aligning security and business process

Cybersecurity is no longer a standalone function relegated to the IT department. It is a critical component of business strategy. Cybersecurity leaders must not only understand technology but also deeply grasp business operations, goals, and risks. Aligning cybersecurity initiatives with business processes leads to better adoption, reduces risks, and ultimately enhances organizational resilience. But now let’s dig deep into what that really means.

Here’s why this alignment is essential and how real-world examples demonstrate its impact.

Understanding the Business Imperative

At its core, cybersecurity is about protecting the assets that drive a business - its people, processes, data, and technology. However, in the last cybersecurity often fought business and created misalignment which led to friction, resulting in poor adoption of security measures, unnecessary disruptions, and wasted resources. For cybersecurity to be effective, it must be seamlessly integrated into the flow of business operations.

Cybersecurity leaders must spend time with the business, understanding the various workflows, challenges, successes and synergies. Once we have an understanding of the business, we can then begin to formalize a strategy that ensures our security tools assist the business in reducing risk and increasing resiliency.

Additionally, cybersecurity leaders and their teams must follow the motto, we enable the business to operate securely. We may not win every battle or reduce every risk but our role is to serve the business and ensure its sustainable through good time and more challenging ones and create resiliency to deal with the interruption that it will face from threat actors.

Real-World Examples of Successful Alignment

1. LoanDepot: Balancing Security with Business Growth

LoanDepot, one of the largest mortgage lenders in the U.S., faced a cybersecurity crisis that highlighted the cost of misalignment. A data breach exposed sensitive customer information, leading to regulatory scrutiny and reputational damage. To address this, LoanDepot revamped its cybersecurity strategy to align with its business priorities.

The company:

• Implemented identity-based security measures tailored to how employees accessed and processed customer data.

• Aligned its security protocols with compliance frameworks to ensure regulatory requirements were met without slowing down operations.

The result was not just enhanced security but also faster processing times for loans, demonstrating that cybersecurity can be a growth enabler rather than a bottleneck.