New Performance Benchmark Ranks Companies' Cybersecurity

Cyber Governance Indexes, a performance benchmarks software, provides market-based proof that companies with good cyber governance outperform peers in shareholder value terms – and vice versa.

Five thousand companies are ranked at the beginning of each month from best to worst using real-world financial modeling and then measured the actual performance of the top and bottom 20 percent at the end of the month. The top 20 percent receive a 5-star rating. The worst 20 percent receive only one star. The ranking methodology is based on an ongoing assessment of the quality of cyber governance for every public entity, not just those that have announced a data breach.

According to the World Economic Forum, cybersecurity has been ranked as a top-five macro-risk by senior executives for two years running. However, the current best practice for managing this massive risk is simply to buy more technology. As a result, spending on cybersecurity continues to grow, while the number and scale of breaches continues to rise rapidly year-over-year, leaving boards and investors exposed.