Cybersecurity leaders have long struggled with a fundamental communication challenge: translating technical risk into a language the board understands.
Money talks, and until now, CISOs have been speaking a dialect that executives struggle to comprehend.
Enter Squalify, a Munich-based startup that’s reimagining cyber risk quantification through a revolutionary lens. Asdrúbal Pichardo, the company’s CEO, cuts straight to the heart of the problem:
“Everyone is aware they will experience an attack. It’s not a matter of if, but when. The real challenge is understanding the potential financial impact.”
The Traditional Risk Assessment Trap For decades, cybersecurity risk has been assessed through qualitative frameworks – a landscape of “high,” “medium,” and “low” risk categories that provide little meaningful insight.
As Pichardo bluntly puts it, “What does ‘medium risk’ actually mean? Are we talking about $10 million or $100 million in potential losses?”
This ambiguity creates a dangerous communication gap between technical teams and business leadership. CISOs find themselves speaking a technical language while executives demand clear financial metrics.
A Data-Driven Approach to Risk Quantification
Squalify’s approach is unique, leveraging over 10 years of insurance data from the world’s largest reinsurers. Their methodology combines two critical inputs:
Company Exposure Analysis
- Industry sector
- Revenue
- Geographic location
- Number of employees
- Data sensitivity
Information Security Maturity Assessment
- Control effectiveness
- Process sophistication
- Compliance with frameworks like NIST and ISO 27001
The result? A comprehensive financial risk profile that transforms abstract security concepts into concrete dollar figures.
Beyond Numbers: Strategic Risk Management
The tool offers multiple strategic use cases for CISOs: Simulation Capabilities CISOs can model “what-if” scenarios, understanding exactly how specific security investments might reduce potential financial risk.
Imagine being able to tell your board, “If we invest $20 million in these specific controls, we can reduce our potential cyber risk by $40 million.”
Insurance Optimization
The platform helps organizations right-size their cyber insurance, ensuring they’re neither under-protected nor overpaying. By providing granular risk insights, companies can craft precise insurance policies tailored to their specific threat landscape.
Subsidiary-Level Insights
For multinational organizations, Squalify offers granular risk assessment across different business units and regions. A car manufacturer, for instance, can now understand the distinct risk profiles of its leasing division versus its manufacturing operations.
Benchmarking
Perhaps most compelling for board-level discussions is the ability to benchmark against industry peers. CISOs can now definitively show how their security posture compares to similar organizations, transforming abstract risk discussions into data-driven strategic conversations.
The Human Element
Despite the sophisticated technology, Pichardo emphasizes the human-centric nature of their approach. The quantification process involves interviews with key stakeholders like the Data Privacy Officer, Deputy CFO, and CISO, ensuring a holistic view of organizational risk.
A New Paradigm for Cyber Risk Management
The cyber risk landscape is evolving rapidly, with artificial intelligence and sophisticated threat actors creating unprecedented challenges. Traditional risk assessment methods are becoming obsolete.
Squalify represents a critical evolution in how organizations understand and manage cyber risk. By translating technical complexity into financial clarity, they’re empowering CISOs to become true strategic partners in organizational risk management.
Call to Action
For CISOs tired of speaking into the void, it’s time to transform your risk communication strategy. Explore quantitative risk assessment tools that speak the language of business. Your board is waiting to listen.
The future of cybersecurity isn’t just about preventing attacks – it’s about understanding and communicating their potential business impact with precision and clarity.
Visit https://www.squalify.io/ for more information.
About the Author
Pete Green is the CISO / CTO of Anvil Works, a ProCloud SaaS company. With over 25 years of experience in information technology and cybersecurity, Pete is a seasoned and accomplished security practitioner.
Throughout his career, he has held a wide range of technical and leadership roles, including LAN/WLAN Engineer, Threat Analyst, Security Project Manager, Security Architect, Cloud Security Architect, Principal Security Consultant, Director of IT, CTO, CEO, Virtual CISO, and CISO.
Pete has supported clients across numerous industries, including federal, state, and local government, as well as financial services, healthcare, food services, manufacturing, technology, transportation, and hospitality.
He holds a Master of Computer Information Systems in Information Security from Boston University, which is recognized as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance / Cyber Defense (CAE IA/CD) by the NSA and DHS. He also holds a Master of Business Administration in Informatics.
