Cybersecurity gaps are security vulnerabilities that expose organizations to cyber threats, data breaches, and operational disruptions, directly translating into measurable business risks that can knock critical systems offline and impact key business functions. These gaps represent the difference between your current security posture and the level of protection required to defend against today’s threats.
Unaddressed cybersecurity gaps result in an average of $4.45 million per data breach, according to IBM research, as well as regulatory fines under frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and operational downtime that can disrupt business operations. Organizations that treat cybersecurity gaps as purely technical issues miss the critical connection to business continuity and regulatory compliance.
This guide provides comprehensive coverage of gap identification methodologies and remediation strategies. You’ll learn how to systematically identify security weaknesses, assess their business impact, and implement risk-based remediation approaches. Whether you’re translating technical risks for executive stakeholders or developing a cyber risk management program, you’ll find practical frameworks for assessing gaps and implementing remediation.
What You’ll Learn:
- Methods to prioritize remediation efforts based on business risk and impact
- Strategies to implement continuous monitoring processes for ongoing gap identification
- Approaches to align gap management with business objectives and risk tolerance
Understanding Cybersecurity Gaps
Cybersecurity gaps are weaknesses or missing controls in an organization’s security posture that create exposure to cyber threats, representing systematic vulnerabilities in your information security management system rather than isolated technical flaws.
These gaps emerge when security controls fail to adequately protect sensitive data, when security measures don’t align with current threat landscape realities, or when information security risks outpace an organization’s defensive capabilities. Unlike individual vulnerabilities that represent specific technical flaws in systems, cybersecurity gaps are systemic weaknesses that can span multiple layers of your security architecture.
This connects to risk management because gaps represent the difference between the current security state and the desired security posture needed to protect against cyber risks while supporting business operations. A comprehensive cyber risk management process must identify these gaps to manage security effectively for an organization’s operations.
Gap Categories by Impact
Critical gaps affecting core business operations include those that could lead to data breaches involving sensitive information, disruption of key business functions, or violations of regulatory compliance requirements under frameworks such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These gaps directly threaten business continuity, resulting in lost revenue, regulatory fines, and reputational damage.
Relationship to overall security framework – how gaps undermine defense-in-depth strategies by creating weak points that cyber attacks can exploit. When security controls have gaps, the entire information security management system becomes vulnerable to threat actors who specialize in finding and exploiting these weaknesses.
Gap Lifecycle and Evolution
Gaps emerge due to technological changes, process modifications, and an evolving threat landscape that introduces new threats faster than organizations can adapt their security measures. The adoption of cloud services, the expansion of remote work, and digital transformation initiatives often create new attack surfaces before appropriate security controls are implemented.
This dynamic nature requires continuous identification and remediation as part of an ongoing monitoring strategy. What represents adequate protection today may become a critical risk tomorrow as cybersecurity threats evolve and threat actors develop new attack methods.
Understanding these foundational concepts of cybersecurity gaps sets the stage for examining the specific types of gaps that organizations commonly face across their IT systems and business processes.
Types of Cybersecurity Gaps
Building on the foundational understanding of systemic cybersecurity weaknesses, it is essential to recognize the specific classifications of gaps that security teams encounter across technical, procedural, and human layers when managing risk within an organization.
Technical Infrastructure Gaps
Unpatched systems, misconfigured firewalls, inadequate network segmentation, and vulnerabilities in legacy systems represent the most visible category of cybersecurity gaps. These technical weaknesses in IT systems create direct pathways for cyber-attacks and can compromise the entire security posture if left unaddressed.
Examples include outdated Windows Server 2012 instances that no longer receive security updates, default SSH configurations that use weak authentication, and missing endpoint detection tools that fail to identify malicious activity. Network vulnerabilities in cloud service configurations frequently create exposure points that threat actors actively scan for and exploit.
Patching systems also remains a persistent challenge, with vulnerability assessments regularly identifying known security flaws that organizations haven’t addressed due to resource constraints or concerns about disrupting business operations.
Process and Procedural Gaps
Missing incident response procedures, inadequate change management protocols, and insufficient access controls represent systematic weaknesses in how organizations manage security processes. These gaps often enable technical vulnerabilities to be exploited because proper security measures aren’t consistently applied across the organization.
Procedural weaknesses can enable technical vulnerabilities to be exploited by creating gaps in ongoing monitoring, access management, and the sharing of security information between teams. Without proper data governance and employee training, even robust technical controls can be circumvented.
Organizations often find that their information security management system lacks clear protocols for managing risk during system changes, handling the potential consequences of security incidents, or maintaining continuous process oversight.
Human and Cultural Gaps
Lack of security awareness training, insufficient privileged access management, and poor security culture create exposure points that threat actors routinely exploit through social engineering and insider threat scenarios. These gaps represent the intersection between technology and human behavior in cybersecurity best practices.
Unlike technical gaps, human gaps require sustained behavioral change and ongoing reinforcement through comprehensive training programs, clear accountability measures, and cultural initiatives that make cybersecurity everyone’s responsibility. Cyber hygiene practices must become an integral part of daily operations, rather than being treated as periodic compliance exercises.
The private sector has increasingly recognized that managing director-level support for cybersecurity initiatives directly correlates with reduced human and cultural gaps across the organization.
Having identified the significant cybersecurity categories gaps, the next critical step involves understanding the common challenges organizations face when implementing systematic approaches to identifying and remedying these gaps.
Common Challenges and Solutions
Implementing systematic gap management programs within the broader context of a cyber risk management program, and adopting frameworks such as the NIST risk management framework, presents several common challenges for organizations. These obstacles often include limited resources, competing business priorities, and the complexity of integrating new processes into existing workflows.
Additionally, organizations may struggle with incomplete asset visibility, making it difficult to identify all potential cybersecurity gaps. Measuring the effectiveness of remediation efforts and maintaining continuous monitoring also requires dedicated tools and expertise. Overcoming these hurdles is critical to establishing a resilient cybersecurity posture that aligns with business objectives and regulatory requirements.
Challenge 1: Resource Constraints and Competing Priorities
Solution: Implement risk-based prioritization using frameworks like FAIR (Factor Analysis of Information Risk) to focus limited resources on the highest-impact gaps that threaten most critical risks to business operations and regulatory compliance.
60% of organizations cite budget limitations as the primary barrier to gap remediation, making it essential to align cybersecurity risk management with business priorities and demonstrate clear risk responses that protect key business functions.
Challenge 2: Shadow IT and Asset Discovery
Solution: Deploy continuous asset discovery tools and establish IT governance policies requiring security team approval for new technologies, particularly cloud services and information systems that handle sensitive data.
Unknown assets cannot be assessed for gaps, creating blind spots in security posture that threat actors can exploit. The NIST cybersecurity framework emphasizes the identification of assets as a foundational requirement for effective cyber risk management.
Challenge 3: Measuring Remediation Effectiveness
Solution: Establish quantitative metrics, including gap closure rates, mean time to remediation (MTTR), and repeat gap occurrence tracking as part of your cyber risk management process and ongoing monitoring strategy.
Without measurement, organizations cannot validate whether gap management efforts improve overall security posture or effectively reduce information security risks that could lead to data breach incidents or cyber breaches.
What’s the Next Step?
Systematic gap identification and remediation are essential for maintaining an effective cybersecurity posture in a dynamic threat environment, where new threats constantly emerge and breaches occur when organizations fail to stay ahead of evolving cyber risks.
To get started:
- Work with Atlantic to understand your cybersecurity gaps and develop a comprehensive risk assessment tailored to your organization’s operations.
- Establish a regular gap assessment schedule integrated with your risk management strategy and business continuity planning.
- Implement continuous monitoring tools and processes that identify gaps in real-time rather than relying solely on periodic assessment.
About Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office
Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office is a leading managed services provider offering managed IT, cybersecurity, office technology, business consulting, and digital transformation solutions. Focusing on helping mid-market businesses optimize their cybersecurity practices, enabling technology and operations, Atlantic delivers end-to-end solutions tailored to the evolving needs of today’s enterprises. For more information on Atlantic and its expanded business consulting services, visit www.tomorrowsoffice.com.
