Sustainable security advantage in a changing environment: The Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (CM2)

With the rapid advancement in technology and the growing complexities in the interaction of these technologies and networks, it is even more important for countries and organizations to gain sustainable security advantage. Security advantage refers to the ability to manage and respond to threats and vulnerabilities with a proactive security posture. This is accomplished through effectively planning, managing, responding to and recovering from threats and vulnerabilities. However not many organizations and even countries, especially in the developing world, have been able to equip themselves with the necessary and sufficient know-how or ability to integrate knowledge and capabilities to achieve security advantage within their environment. Having a structured set of requirements or indicators to aid in progressively attaining different levels of maturity and capabilities is one important method to determine the state of cybersecurity readiness. The research introduces the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (CM
²
), a 6-step process of progressive development of cybersecurity maturity and knowledge integration that ranges from a state of limited awareness and application of security controls to pervasive optimization of the protection of critical assets.