Lynne Murray | Director of Product Marketing for Data Security
Cyber threats are like moving targets—constantly evolving and increasingly pervasive. In a hyper-connected world, no individual, industry, or organization is immune. The threat landscape presents a serious and persistent challenge for governments, businesses, critical infrastructure, and individuals alike.
Many organizations ensure resilience and elevate their security maturity by adopting a structured framework for guidance. A leading standard, the NIST 2.0 Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), offers a comprehensive, scalable approach to building a proactive cybersecurity program. By following this framework, organizations can effectively address evolving cyber threats and adapt to the dynamic regulatory landscape. Additionally, the framework provides a phased strategy for implementing data security, prioritizing three key objectives: compliance, risk management, and security.
Improving security maturity pays off
Let’s start with three high-impact reasons why advancing security maturity drives real business value:
Compliance: 57% better outcomes
Security maturity models help organizations align with relevant standards and regulations. This matters: According to the 2025 Thales Data Threat Report, 78% of enterprises that failed compliance audits also suffered a breach—compared to just 21% of those that passed. Over the past five years, the likelihood of a breach dropped by 50% for organizations that consistently passed their compliance audits.
Faster response: 25.9% cost savings
A mature security posture enables faster threat detection and response. The difference is measurable: breaches contained under 200 days cost $3.87 million on average, compared to $5.01 million for longer incidents—a 24% savings. Those organizations who detected the breach internally also observed nearly $1 million savings on breach costs compared to those disclosed by an attacker. Speed matters for minimizing financial damage, reducing downtime, and maintaining business continuity.
Trust: 30-40 points higher
Consumer trust in digital services is declining, with 82% abandoning brands because of concerns about data privacy and security. The Thales Digital Trust Index found 64% of consumers said their brand confidence would significantly increase if innovative, advanced technologies were being used to protect sensitive data.
Beyond these benefits, let’s tackle a core challenge: Which comes first—compliance, risk, or data security?
Which comes first: Compliance, risk, or data security?
These three benefits—compliance, faster response, and trust—show why advancing security maturity leads to stronger business outcomes. But they also surface a common organizational dilemma: Where should the security journey begin, with compliance, risk, or data security?
COMPLIANCE: A foundational requirement
For many organizations, business continuity mandates that the security journey start with compliance. While achieving compliance is a necessary first step, it is not a long-term strategy on its own. Compliance-driven efforts tend to be reactive, intermittent, and narrowly focused. They aim to meet requirements rather than anticipate future threats, which can create a false sense of security.
Compliance is especially critical in healthcare organizations. They handle sensitive patient data and rely on interconnected systems, making them particularly vulnerable to breaches and disruption. Healthcare compliance involves implementing data security measures to protect sensitive patient information (PHI) and adhering to regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.
A compliance-first example: Healthcare and HIPAA
A healthcare organization, seeking to avoid fines, legal liability, and reputational damage, starts by aligning with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Its security strategy includes encrypting all protected health information (PHI) in motion and at rest, limiting access to authorized personnel, logging all access to patient records, and performing regular audits.
To meeting specific compliance requirements, organizations must manage sensitive data effectively. This includes protecting data from unauthorized access, breaches, and other security threats. To safeguard data against cyber threats such as breaches, ransomware, unauthorized access, and maintain compliance, organizations should implement robust data security measures. These measures include encryption and access controls, maintain strong data governance practices, and automate compliance reporting.
RISK: Raising the bar with risk-first thinking
At more advanced security maturity levels, organizations shift from merely reacting to regulations to proactively managing actual risk. A risk-first approach prioritizes security efforts based on the actual risks that vulnerabilities pose to the organization. It focuses on addressing security gaps that present the greatest threat to critical assets and business objectives. This prioritization considers both the likelihood of exploitation and the potential business impact, enabling organizations to effectively allocate resources for the most critical vulnerabilities.
A risk-based approach provides a more proactive stance and adjusts to evolving threats and business needs. Compliance becomes a pillar of a wider-reaching risk-first strategy versus a sole security approach. However, many sectors are slow to adopt a risk-based approach because of their lower levels of security maturity. Many cyber threats are directed at vulnerable industries due to outdated security tooling, low visibility to risk exposures, and security gaps as they transition to the cloud. In general, the financial sector and manufacturing industries are recognized as the most vulnerable and must prioritize cybersecurity based on the high value of their data and the potential for significant disruption.
A risk-first example: Manufacturing and IP protection
A global manufacturer conducts a risk assessment, identifying its proprietary designs and trade secrets (CAD files, R&D data) as high-value digital assets—and a likely target for industrial espionage. It must prioritize protecting these assets and allocate security resources to mitigate threats and their potential impact on the business.
Ideally, the manufacturer should leverage modern data security tools that include data access monitoring, risk analytics, risk prioritization, and threat detection. A focus on risk—not just regulation alone—drives this strategy for business growth and competitive advantage.
SECURITY: The pinnacle of maturity: A data-first mindset
The highest level of security maturity is a data-first or security-first approach. Here, the strategy focuses on safeguarding data, prioritizing the protection of sensitive data. To do so, organizations must establish an understanding of data flows—including data at rest and in transit—and their respective risks.
This mindset starts in the design phase. Security controls are built in from the beginning, applying “secure by design” and “secure by default” principles. Data security builds robust controls that can adapt to the evolving threat landscape, using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for real-time threat detection and rapid response.
A data security-first example: Financial services and sensitive data protection
To better safeguard customer data, a financial services organization prioritized the protection of sensitive data throughout its lifecycle instead of focusing solely on perimeter defenses. It starts with data discovery and classification, identifying where sensitive data lives, how it flows, and who accesses it. Security controls manage sensitive data based on those factors.
The organization uses secure data handling tools, such as encryption, access controls, and data masking via a unified data security platform that combines data discovery, policy definition, and policy enforcement across data silos and data types. Real-time, AI-powered tools help detect and prevent cyber threats and improve organizational responsiveness. A well-defined, continuously tested incident response plan ensures preparedness.
To remain resilient, data security can be implemented in a phased approach to meet top organizational needs, such as:
1. Decrease the likelihood and impact of security incidents. A mature security program, built on strong risk management and continuous improvement, significantly lowers the chances of data breaches and other costly cyberattacks.
2. Minimize financial losses and legal liabilities. Investing in robust security can help organizations avoid the heavy costs associated stemming from data breaches, regulatory fines, and legal repercussions.
3. Optimize security spending. Maturity models help prioritize security investments, ensuring resources are allocated to address the most significant risks and generate the best ROI.
The bottom line
For organizations just starting their cybersecurity journey, compliance is often the first milestone—and rightly so. But compliance alone isn’t enough to stay secure in a threat landscape that moves faster than the regulations that govern it.
And, consumer trust in digital services is declining, causing customer defections. The adoption of emerging security technologies significantly boosts consumer confidence, sustaining customer loyalty and the revenue from it, contributing to positive, bottom-line results.
Mature organizations recognize this. They go beyond compliance and embrace security-first approaches that are proactive, adaptive, and built to scale with complexity. These strategies don’t just align with regulatory requirements—they anticipate and neutralize real threats before they materialize, building resilience, saving money, and earning trust.
Simply put, security maturity isn’t just about reducing risk—it’s about unlocking ROI via stronger, smarter business outcomes.
Read more about Thales Data Security solutions to accelerate your compliance initiatives, gain control over your risk, and secure sensitive data to improve operational resilience, visibility, and control:
- CipherTrust Data Security Platform: Encryption, tokenization, key management, and data discovery, all in one platform.
- Data Security Posture Management (DSPM): Visualize and protect sensitive data across