Filippo Angelo Romeo
Head of Cybersecurity & GRC Advisory
Cyber Risk: the ticking time bomb inside every boardroom
Why cyber risk is now a strategic priority, not a technical issue
Two executives silently observe a security dashboard, with city lights glowing in the background. In 2025, cyberspace is no longer an abstract domain reserved for technicians. It has become a geopolitical variable, a financial factor, and a structural element of corporate competitiveness.
Yet in many boardrooms, cyber risk is still perceived as an “IT problem,” a matter tied to the management and technical maintenance of information systems.
An outdated view that ignores an increasingly evident truth: cyber risk is business risk. And it can determine, in just a few hours, the continuity or the crisis of an entire organization.
The illusion of “more IT budget”
For years, cybersecurity relied on a linear model: building higher barriers, adding layers of protection, preventing incidents. A perimeter-based paradigm grounded in a simple assumption: there is a safe inside and a hostile outside.
Success was measured in binary terms: no incidents = effective strategy.
As a result, many investments turned into a sum of technologies promising protection. Today, this approach no longer holds.
The perimeter has become fluid, fragmented across cloud environments, hybrid work, partner ecosystems, and digital supply chains. There is no longer a clear boundary to defend, nor a barrier strong enough to guarantee impenetrability.
Moreover, the continuous accumulation of defense layers and the proliferation of tools and dashboards have created such management complexity that, over time, they have put significant pressure on corporate security teams.
The new threats of the extended digital era
In today’s landscape, technological vulnerabilities and operational interdependencies expose organizations to systemic risks.
We are no longer dealing with isolated attacks, but with adaptive, automated, and scalable threats. Among the most relevant:
- Offensive AI Social engineering becomes hyper-realistic: voice and video deepfakes, phishing generated by language models, automated evasion capabilities. Over 80% of social engineering–based attacks already leverage artificial intelligence.
- Ransomware-as-a-Service Ransomware remains the highest-impact threat in the EU, accounting for over 83% of identified malware. An industrialized model that lowers the barrier to entry for attackers.
- IT/OT convergence Attacks no longer target only data—they affect the physical continuity of processes. In OT environments, the priority is no longer confidentiality but operational safety and availability. An incident can cause environmental damage, prolonged production shutdowns, or risks to human life.
In this context, prevention alone is no longer sufficient. A paradigm shift is required.
The new mindset: from protection to operational resilience
To achieve this level of resilience, organizations must adopt an adaptive security framework, driven by business priorities and enabled by digital capabilities.
Four key pillars:
1. Integrated governance
Cybersecurity is not a technical silo but part of risk management, corporate strategy, and compliance (NIS2, DORA, digital ESG).
2. Architectural resilience
Zero Trust architecture eliminates implicit trust,
segments environments, and reduces attackers’ ability to move laterally.
3. Continuous defense
It’s no longer about reacting to incidents, but operating in a constant response mode: monitoring, behavioral analysis, continuous detection.
4. Proactive behavior
AI is not only an attack vector but also a defensive lever: it anticipates hostile patterns,
automates responses at machine speed, and makes security dynamic.
Security as a business responsibility
Cybersecurity can no longer be relegated to IT. It is a cross-functional capability, a shared responsibility, and a cornerstone of corporate strategy. Integrating security into Board-level decisions is not just a prudent choice—it is a necessary condition to ensure resilience, operational continuity, and competitiveness over the medium to long term.
In a context where threats evolve faster than traditional defense models, digital maturity and resilience become decisive factors for business sustainability.
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