Maturity Models Can Lie: What Security Leaders Should Track Instead

The compliance-driven security industry has long treated maturity models as gospel, but leading CISOs are abandoning static checklists for metrics that reflect real-world risk. 

The cybersecurity industry has long relied on maturity models — those reassuring frameworks that promise to transform chaotic security programs into neat, numbered tiers of protection. From NIST's Cybersecurity Framework to CIS's Implementation Groups, these models have become the default language for measuring security posture, complete with their seductive promise that higher scores equal better protection.  

But while security teams have been busy climbing these mountains, attackers have been exploiting the very gaps these models systematically ignore. The harsh reality is emerging: organizations with pristine compliance scores are falling victim to devastating breaches, while their "immature" competitors — focused on rapid detection and response — often fare better against increasingly sophisticated threats. 

Is it time to abandon the comfortable fiction of maturity models and embrace metrics that actually predict and prevent real-world security failures? 

Is it time to abandon the comfortable fiction of maturity models and embrace metrics that actually predict and prevent real-world security failures? In this article, we’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of these models. 

The False Promise of Compliance Maturity Scores 

Why "checkbox security" fails 

Maturity models reduce complex risk landscapes into deceptively linear tiers — like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 1-4 scale — creating a false sense of uniformity and progress. These frameworks often ignore how threats interconnect across systems or how an organization’s unique operational context influences vulnerability. A single “1” in a control area that is critical to your business may represent a massive risk that is obfuscated by a number of “3s” in less critical, but perhaps more easily achieved control areas.

The quantification gap 

• Scoring 3.2/5 on a compliance checklist answers nothing about actual risk exposure or the value of security investments. A recent example illustrates the quantification gap all too clearly:  

• In 2023, Home Depot experienced a significant breach due to an unsecured API connected to a third-party vendor. Despite meeting compliance requirements and having robust policies on paper, the company still faced substantial financial and reputational fallout.  

This incident underscores how maturity models and compliance scores often fail to capture the true risk posed by complex vendor relationships and overlooked technical exposures. In the end, compliance checklists measured effort, not the real-world effectiveness of security controls or the actual financial impact of neglected attack surfaces. 

 Hidden Risks of Self-Assessed Maturity 

Blind spots in self-evaluation  

Internal assessments often suffer from optimism bias, with organizations disproportionately rating their maturity higher than external audits reveal. For example, many firms believe they achieve “Fully Compliant” status under frameworks like HITRUST CSF yet overlook critical vulnerabilities such as unmonitored SaaS tool permissions or misconfigured cloud storage. These gaps persist because self-evaluations tend to focus on documented policies rather than operational realities, creating a facade of security that crumbles under adversarial scrutiny. 

While 30% of CIOs believed their organizations were above average in data resilience, fewer than 10% actually were, with over 74% operating at the two lowest levels of maturity. 

Compliance ≠ resilience  

Maturity models incentivize checkbox compliance — prioritizing audit-ready documentation over real-world stress-testing. Incident response plans, for instance, frequently gather dust in binders rather than being validated through red team exercises or simulated breaches.

Meanwhile, rigid adherence to regulations like CMMC or PCI DSS can divert attention from business-critical risks, such as supply chain attacks targeting third-party vendors. For example, a healthcare provider might pass a HIPAA audit with flying colors while remaining oblivious to ransomware vulnerabilities in legacy medical devices. 

The allure of regulatory alignment often obscures a harsh truth: attackers exploit weaknesses, not compliance scores. Organizations that conflate maturity with resilience risk becoming the next headline — fully compliant, wholly compromised. 

What Leading CISOs Measure Instead 

Time-to-Contain (TTC) as the new KPI 

Forward-thinking security teams prioritize TTC — the critical window between detecting a threat and neutralizing its spread. Top performers leverage automated playbooks and real-time threat hunting to slash TTC to under 45 minutes, minimizing attacker dwell time. Organizations achieving TTC under one hour see breach costs drop by nearly 50% compared to slower responders, as rapid containment limits data exfiltration and operational disruption. As with all metrics, business context is critical to setting the right measure to meet organizational risk tolerance and complement other risk management tools, such as cyber insurance.

Control effectiveness audits 

Gone are the days of static compliance checklists. Modern audits stress-test controls against real-world attack scenarios: 

• Preventive controls: Simulated phishing campaigns reveal gaps in email security, such as misconfigured DMARC policies or insufficient employee training. 

• Detective controls: Metrics like mean time-to-detect (MTTD) for identity and access management (IAM) anomalies expose weaknesses in monitoring tools or alert fatigue. 

Cyber risk quantification (CRQ) 

The Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) model’s growing adoption reflects a shift toward dollar-based risk analysis. By translating technical vulnerabilities into financial terms — such as quantifying a cloud misconfiguration’s multi-million-dollar impact — CISOs leverage FAIR to secure board approval for targeted security investments. Quantification bridges the gap between technical teams and executives, helping to communicate how, for instance, a $450K control upgrade can avert seven-figure breaches. 

Resilience scorecards 

Leading organizations track recovery time objectives (RTO) for mission-critical systems, ensuring backups, redundancies, and incident response plans align with business priorities. They benchmark resilience using frameworks which measure how well defenses map to adversary tactics — such as preventing credential dumping or detecting lateral movement in hybrid cloud environments. 

These metrics paint a dynamic picture of security effectiveness, far beyond the static illusions of maturity models. 

Building a Post-Maturity Measurement Program 

Step 1: End the compliance score obsession 

Progressive security teams are dismantling maturity-based reporting, replacing abstract compliance grades with metrics that resonate in boardrooms. Instead of touting a “Level 4 NIST CSF score,” CISOs now present: 

Financial risk exposure: “Our unpatched ERP system poses a $5.3M annualized loss risk.” 

Control failure rates: “23% of endpoints lack EDR, doubling ransomware susceptibility.” 

Threat surface reduction: “Migrating 40% of on-prem workloads to Zero Trust architecture cut phishing attack surfaces by 58%.” 

Step 2: Implement continuous control monitoring 

Automation tools can shift teams from periodic audits to real-time oversight, offering dashboards that track control health. Automation handles evidence collection for regulations like PCI DSS, freeing analysts to focus on hunting advanced persistent threats (APTs) rather than compiling spreadsheets. 

Step 3: Align metrics to business outcomes 

Map security KPIs to revenue impact, such as: 

• “DDoS mitigation preserved 99.9% uptime during peak sales, safeguarding $12M in daily revenue.” 

• “Third-party risk assessments accelerated merger due diligence by 30%.” 

Collaborate with finance to calculate risk-adjusted ROI, such as: “A $1M deception tech investment reduced business email compromise (BEC) losses by $8.2M annually.” 

The future belongs to CISOs who measure what matters — not how many boxes they’ve checked, but how quickly they adapt. As ransomware gangs weaponize generative AI and cloud misconfigurations spiral, theoretical maturity scores crumble. The winners will be those tracking real-time resilience, financial risk, and attacker-neutralizing speed — metrics that turn security from a cost center into a business enabler.