They assume stronger prevention means they’ll spend much less on what occurs after a breach however that’s a dangerous wager. “One thing all the time breaks! And whereas prevention is nice, one thing all the time will get in,” he says. “When one thing breaks, it’s not the management depend that issues. It’s your response time, containment, and skill to bounce again.”
Throughout his time as a Gartner analyst, Mahdi noticed this play out. “In a single state of affairs, a CISO reduce on IR readiness and outsourced Tier 1 SOC to save lots of funds,” he recollects. “When a breach hit, the supplier missed early indicators, and with out inside muscle, the group misplaced crucial hours earlier than even understanding the scope.” In circumstances like this, the precise loss isn’t simply knowledge, it’s additionally credibility.
One other mistake CISOs make is slicing cross-functional roles like embedded product security, governance leads, or business-aligned threat advisors. “These roles are connective tissue,” Mahdi says. “With out them, security turns into reactive, misunderstood, and sidelined.”



