London / Dubai – 12 March 2024. In a region where national infrastructure, energy grids, and sovereign assets are increasingly under digital siege, a new cybersecurity innovation is changing the way enterprises quantify risk and allocate capital to defend against it. Cybersecurity spending in the Middle East is rising even faster, propelled by both ambitious digital agendas and targeted threats. Gartner estimates MENA enterprises will spend $3.3 billion on information security in 2025, a 14% increase from 2024. Governments in the Gulf region have elevated cybersecurity as a national strategic pillar (e.g. Saudi Vision 2030). This prioritization has catalyzed robust funding and regulations to protect critical industries like energy, utilities, finance, and telecom.
The Push to Translate Cybersecurity into Financial Terms
There is a strong and growing demand – from boards, executives, and independent observers to reframe cybersecurity in the language of financial risk. Stakeholders want to understand “cyber risk in dollars and cents.” Several indicators highlight this shift:Boardrooms Expect Business Metrics: A Gartner survey of directors found 88% of Boards view cybersecurity as a business risk. Consequently, boards are increasingly asking CISOs and CIOs to justify cybersecurity spending in business terms. After years of hefty security investments, “Boards are now pushing back and asking what their dollars have achieved,” Gartner’s analysts report. Gartner recommends CISOs present options with “costs and risks of each choice clearly outlined”, effectively treating security initiatives like any other business investment with an expected return (or risk reduction).
- Executive Awareness and Buy-In: Top executives outside of IT are paying closer attention to cyber risk especially when expressed in monetary terms. In PwC’s 2024 survey, 87–89% of business executives agreed that quantifying cyber risk is essential for informed cyber budgeting and resource allocation. This is echoed in the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook, which emphasizes that effective CISOs frame cyber threats as business risks, not purely technical challenges. The WEF notes that CISOs “now quantify cyber risk by its effects on market share, brand trust, and financial impact,” allowing CEOs and boards to see cybersecurity in the broader risk landscape. Security leaders who can translate tech-speak into the language of business continuity and dollars “are earning the ears of executives”, the report says. In practical terms, this means presenting scenarios like “a ransomware attack on System X could cause an estimated $10 million in losses and 2 weeks of downtime” rather than just saying “System X has vulnerabilities.”
- Analysts and Industry Voices: Gartner and other analysts frequently highlight the need for monetized risk metrics. One Gartner prediction bluntly stated that by 2025, half of cybersecurity leaders will have tried and failed to use CRQ for decision support, because many current approaches yield “non-actionable” results prompting a “fundamental shift” to focusing on business assets and data-driven risk modeling. The FAIR Institute and similar bodies advocate for financial risk quantification as a bridge between IT and finance – Jack Jones (FAIR’s creator) calls it the “penultimate mechanism for translating cybersecurity terms into business-speak.” It helps figuring out the alignment from the treasury/insurance side: insurers, credit rating agencies, and regulators increasingly expect companies to quantify cyber exposure. For example, Moody’s (through BitSight) and other financial services firms are developing cyber risk ratings that influence credit – effectively treating cyber incidents as financial events.
- Improved Communication & Trust: Gartner’s research shows that when risk teams produce quantitative, economically framed analyses, it builds trust with senior leadership. Instead of abstract heat maps or Red-Amber-Green statuses, a CFO sees hard numbers that can be compared to other business risks which facilitates clearer decisions. Nearly 78% of organizations using CRQ say they use it to prioritize risks which means they’re able to have more rational discussions about which cyber risks truly merit the most attention and funding.
Furthermore, when CISOs quantify potential losses, it often leads to better outcomes in budget negotiations. Board members and CEOs have shown they are more likely to fund cybersecurity initiatives when presented with a “compelling, defensible business case” in financial terms (e.g. “Investing $1M in these controls will reduce our annualized risk exposure by $5M”). These factors point to a strong demand for monetized risk scoring, frameworks and tools that turn cyber risk into the lingua franca of business.
Whether through formal CRQ platforms or in-house analysis, organizations are striving to answer the key question: “How does cybersecurity affect the bottom line, and how can we manage that risk in dollars?”
The concept of cyber risk quantification, long discussed in boardrooms and whitepapers, has now taken a decisive leap into operational reality with the launch of a pioneering solution developed and deployed through a collaborative effort between enterprise architects and regulatory advisors in the UAE. The platform developed by Cywift; led by CEO Abuzar Ghafari and Lead Cybersecurity Product Architect Mansoor Khan, has shown measurable success across critical infrastructure operators and is poised to redefine how CISOs, CFOs, and boards prioritise investments in digital defence.
Genesis of a Cybersecurity Risk Revolution
The innovation was born from research related to a regulatory inflection point in the UAE. As part of an enterprise audit in 2023, the Department of Energy (DoE) mandated a cost-benefit justification for all proposed cybersecurity investments. Historically, cybersecurity strategy in the region was largely compliance-driven and reactive. This new directive demanded a shift; cybersecurity would now be treated as a financial risk discipline.
Faced with this paradigm shift, enterprise cybersecurity architects at the system operator, supported by Cywift, sought to build a system capable of modelling threat exposure, vulnerability surface, and control coverage in monetary terms. The resulting concept evolved into what is now referred to as the Exposure Value Algorithm: an AI-enabled module that ingests real-time telemetry from security tooling, compliance frameworks, and threat feeds, converting it into quantifiable risk scores and financial impact projections.
“This was a technical solution which dramatically supported the CFO and his teams”, shared the product architect. “We designed it to answer: if we don’t invest in this control, what’s the monetary downside of doing nothing?”
From Hypothesis to Proof
The model matured rapidly. Within six months, it integrated with over 80 cybersecurity tools; from endpoint protection and SIEM to identity management and cloud gateways. API-driven collectors and a universal normalisation engine harmonised disparate risk data into a single, actionable financial risk dashboard.
Early pilots across UAE-based energy and critical infrastructure clients delivered compelling results:
- 81% improvement in detection of compliance gaps and exposed assets
- 45% faster response time to risk triggers, enabled by prioritised remediation guidance
- 60% reduction in audit-readiness reporting effort
- 32% improvement in alignment of cybersecurity budgets to high-priority risk vectors
The scoring engine drew from frameworks like ISO27001, NIST CSF, and NIS2 to ensure global and local compliance mapping. It transformed abstract metrics such as “incomplete coverage” into tangible liabilities and cost-of-inaction forecasts.
An Industry First
While cyber risk quantification (CRQ) has been discussed extensively, few real-time, enterprise-scale deployments exist globally. Cywift’s solution is considered an industry first for several reasons:
- Real-Time Integration: Unlike GRC tools reliant on surveys or periodic updates, Cywift connects directly to live data sources. Its real-time telemetry ensures every risk score is reflective of the current threat environment.
- Financial Language Translation: Leveraging actuarial models and breach cost projections (e.g. Ponemon, Gartner), the platform quantifies risk vectors in monetary terms, enabling business-aligned decision-making.
- Single-Pane Executive Dashboard: The dashboard was built for cross-functional visibility, allowing both cybersecurity teams and executives to track exposure and justify investment with a shared view.
According to Middle East CISO forums, no comparable solution offers this level of data integration, regional regulatory alignment, and financial clarity.
Strategic Relevance and Market Timing
This innovation enters the global market during a cybersecurity inflection point. Gartner projects global information security spending will reach $212 billion by 2025, while in the MENA region, annual spend is expected to exceed $3.3 billion. Critical infrastructure operators face heightened scrutiny and escalating attacks; fueling demand for quantifiable, board-level risk reporting.
PwC’s 2025 Digital Trust Insights survey found only 15% of firms have meaningful financial risk metrics in place. Data gaps, model distrust, and lack of operational integration remain obstacles. Cywift overcomes these through:
- Live integration with over 80 tools
- Transparent, auditable risk models
- Alignment with UK’s NCSC CAF and EU frameworks like DORA and NIS2
In particular, DORA compels financial institutions to demonstrate resilience using quantifiable metrics, making real-time CRQ systems essential. In parallel, the UK’s CAF v4.0 framework mandates outcome-based cyber resilience reporting, rewarding solutions that evidence measurable reduction in risk.
The Commercial Path Forward
With its proof of concept validated and pilot successes recorded, the platform is being commercialised through a London-headquartered entity with engineering hubs in the UAE and India. Initial clients include telecom, energy, and fintech operators. The roadmap includes:
- Sector-specific models (e.g. ICS for energy, AI threats for fintech)
- Graph RAG-based predictive risk modeling
- Integration with cyber insurers for premium calibration
A revenue goal of $10 million ARR by year five has been publicly stated, supported by early-stage investor interest from Europe and the GCC.
Closing the Gap Between Technical Exposure and Business Risk
For too long, cybersecurity spending has been justified via fear or compliance. This innovation anchors security investment in the language of business: risk-adjusted capital allocation. It allows CISOs to prioritize control deployment, CFOs to model ROI, and boards to visualise exposure in real time.
In transforming cyber from a sunk cost to a measurable strategic lever, Cywift has not just solved a technical challenge; it has bridged a long-standing accountability gap. Its innovation is timely, globally relevant, and deeply aligned with the future of cyber risk governance.
The ability to do real-time financial modeling of cyber risk, with mappings to compliance requirements and strategic decisions, is fast becoming not just a “nice-to-have” but a must-have capability for organizations that want to stay secure, compliant, and competitive in the digital age.
