– IS STRATEGY
Cyber Target Operating Model
A Cyber Target Operating Model That Turns Strategy into Sustainable Execution.
Empowering organizations to operationalize cybersecurity at scale through a clear, integrated model for how security is governed, delivered, and sustained. Eristotle partners with leadership to design the structure, roles, processes, and governance that embed cybersecurity into the enterprise, turning strategic intent into repeatable execution, enterprise alignment, and long-term resilience.
Build the Structure to Operationalize Cybersecurity at Scale
Cybersecurity is no longer a standalone function, it is an enterprise-wide responsibility. To scale effectively and operate securely, organizations need a clear, integrated model for how cybersecurity is governed, delivered, and sustained. Eristotle’s Cyber Target Operating Model (Cyber TOM) provides the structure to embed cybersecurity into your organization’s DNA.
This service equips leadership with the operating framework required to support governance, resilience, and continuous improvement, turning cyber strategy into sustainable execution.
Eristotle’s Cyber TOM engagement helps organizations design an operating model that integrates cybersecurity across people, processes, and technology. Whether you’re building a first-generation program or modernizing an existing one, we assess your current maturity, identify gaps, and define a scalable architecture that aligns with your business and risk profile.
Our model establishes clear ownership, role definitions, governance layers, escalation protocols, operational workflows, and performance metrics, ensuring your security function is agile, accountable, and business-aligned.
Aligned to ISOBOK™ – A Consensus Driven Standard
ISOBOK™ is developed through a rigorous consensus-driven standards development process and incorporates the collective wisdom and experience of experts in the field from around the world. It defines the skills and knowledge required by ISO professionals.
- Contains a description of generally accepted practices for the establishment of Information Security Offices.
- Community driven and consensus based, continuously updated through iterations.
- Techniques are transferable with option to modify concepts and best practices for wide range of organizational contexts.
- Includes the highly valued Reporting Framework.
1. Security Leadership
- Defines the ISO’s role, competencies, and mindset, including the different types of ISOs.
- Establishes the security organisation’s structure, charter, and board-level mandate.
- Aligns with industry standards and frameworks to develop a comprehensive security strategy.
- Covers setting up budgets, initiating security programs, and embedding the function into enterprise governance.
2. Security Culture
- Emphasizes that humans are the final line of defense and central to effective security.
- Promotes a human-centric approach through awareness, training, and behavior-shaping initiatives.
- Uses phishing simulations, access hygiene practices, and continuous reinforcement to improve behaviors.
- Encourages a feedback-driven culture of continuous improvement and user engagement.
3. Security Governance
- Establishes governance through policies, frameworks, ISMS, and the 3 Lines of Defense model.
- Defines risk management approaches, including qualitative/quantitative methods, tolerance, and appetite.
- Integrates compliance, audit, and control mechanisms to align security and business risk.
- Addresses fraud prevention, governance councils, and harmonization between compliance and security.
4. Security Advisory
- Advises on security trends, frameworks, and standards, supporting strategic and operational decisions.
- Applies a layered defense model and reviews risks across technology domains.
- Offers guidance on integrating emerging technologies and securing IT/OT environments.
5. Security Operations
- Aligns security operations with business goals through a service-based SOC model.
- Plans and executes incident and crisis management using structured detection and response frameworks.
- Defines SOC team roles and leverages platforms like SIEM, SOAR, and threat intelligence tools.
6. Security Reporting
- Delivers tiered reporting for operational, management, and board-level audiences.
- Ensures regulatory, legal, and external stakeholder reporting meets compliance obligations.
- Uses KPIs, KRIs, dashboards, and threat intelligence to communicate performance and risk posture.
- Follows best practices for effective, actionable, and transparent security reporting.
Additionally, this servcie draws on AIBOK, CWBOK, and Eristotle competency frameworks for breadth and depth to ensure consistency, credibility, and transferability across engagements.
Key Objectives
- Define the Structure and Processes for Consistent Cyber Delivery
- Establish a clear operating model across governance, operations, and assurance
- Standardize how cybersecurity is delivered across global, regional, and business unit levels
- Ensure repeatable, scalable execution aligned with business and risk priorities
- Clarify Accountability and Decision-Making Across the Enterprise
- Define roles and responsibilities across business, IT, risk, and security functions
- Remove ambiguity around ownership, escalation, and decision rights
- Align the ISO office with wider governance, transformation, and risk frameworks
- Embed Cybersecurity into Enterprise Workflows
- Integrate security into risk management, digital transformation, and operational processes
- Build cyber into product, platform, and third-party lifecycles
- Ensure security decisions are made at the right level, at the right time
- Standardize Operations Across Core Security Capabilities
- Design consistent workflows for governance, detection, response, awareness, and compliance
- Align with industry frameworks such as ISO 27001, NIST CSF, and the 3 Lines of Defense model
- Drive operational discipline and measurable performance across the security function
- Ensure a Scalable, Adaptable, and Future-Ready Model
- Build an operating model that flexes with growth, transformation, and emerging threats
- Support adoption of new technologies (cloud, AI, IoT, OT) without rework
- Create the foundations for continuous improvement and maturity progression
Business Outcomes & Benefits
- Defined Roles and Responsibilities
- Eliminate ambiguity with clear accountability across leadership, operations, risk, and business lines
- Strengthen coordination between the ISO office, SOC, GRC, IT, and business units
- Build confidence that the right people are making the right decisions
- Consistent and Scalable Security Delivery
- Standardize governance and execution across regions, business units, and subsidiaries
- Reduce duplication, rework, and fragmentation across the security function
- Enable the organization to absorb growth, change, and transformation with confidence
- Improved Accountability and Oversight
- Establish formal governance bodies, escalation paths, and reporting cadences
- Track performance and risk exposure through KPIs, KRIs, and maturity metrics
- Provide boards and executives with clear visibility of cyber posture and progress
- Operational Agility and Integration
- Embed cybersecurity into digital transformation, product development, and vendor ecosystems
- Enable secure-by-design delivery across cloud, AI, and platform change
- Align security cadence with business cycles, release schedules, and innovation priorities
- Increased Resilience and Readiness
- Equip the security function to detect, respond, and recover from threats with speed
- Build operational muscle through defined workflows, playbooks, and crisis protocols
- Demonstrate resilience to regulators, customers, investors, and partners
- Cost Efficiency and Rationalization
- Identify overlaps, gaps, and opportunities to consolidate capability and tooling
- Align resourcing, sourcing, and automation to the operating model
- Drive measurable ROI from security investment and transformation
Key Features
- Operating Model Architecture
- Design of centralized, federated, or hybrid structures tailored to your organization
- Alignment to business model, geography, regulatory footprint, and maturity level
- Integration with enterprise target operating models and transformation programs
- Functional Mapping
- Assignment of cyber responsibilities across ISO office, SOC, GRC, DevSecOps, IT, legal, HR, and business units
- Definition of interaction models between first, second, and third lines of defense
- Clarification of intersections with risk, privacy, fraud, resilience, and audit functions
- Process Standardization
- Design of consistent workflows for incident response, vulnerability management, and access governance
- Definition of policy enforcement, exception handling, and control assurance processes
- End-to-end mapping of critical cyber lifecycles across the enterprise
- Governance & Escalation Frameworks
- Establishment of oversight bodies, forums, and committee structures
- Risk acceptance, exception, and escalation workflows with defined thresholds
- Executive-level reporting models aligned to board, regulatory, and operational needs
- Tooling and Platform Alignment
- Recommendations for core technology capabilities across telemetry, automation, and reporting
- Rationalization of existing tools to reduce complexity and cost
- Alignment of tooling with process, data, and organizational design
- People, Skills, and Sourcing Model
- Definition of capability requirements, role profiles, and competency expectations
- Guidance on in-house vs outsourced delivery and managed service partnerships
- Integration with talent, training, and career development pathways
- Alignment with Eristotle Frameworks
- Grounded in ISOBOK™, the consensus-driven standard for ISO professionals
- Draws on AIBOK, CWBOK, and Eristotle competency frameworks for breadth and depth
- Consistent, credible, and transferable approach across engagements
Deliverables
- Cyber Target Operating Model Blueprint
- Comprehensive reference model defining organizational structure, capabilities, and interactions
- Visual depiction of layers, functions, and relationships across the enterprise
- Narrative document explaining the rationale, design principles, and future direction
- Role & Responsibility Matrix (RACI)
- Clear assignment of accountability, consultation, and information rights
- Coverage of all core cybersecurity functions and intersecting roles
- Alignment with enterprise governance and risk frameworks
- Process Maps & Workflow Schematics
- Visualized operational flows for detection, response, risk reviews, and control enforcement
- End-to-end process documentation for critical cyber lifecycles
- Integration points with IT, business, and third-party processes
- Governance and Oversight Charter
- Recommended cyber committees, leadership forums, and escalation paths
- Terms of reference, membership, and meeting cadences
- Decision rights, reporting lines, and governance tiering
- Capability Roadmap
- Phased maturity development plan across people, process, and technology
- Prioritized initiatives to close gaps and strengthen the operating model
- Milestones, ownership, and success measures for each phase
- Metrics, KPI & KRI Framework
- Defined measures of operating model effectiveness and cyber posture
- Reporting cadences across operational, management, and board tiers
- Integration with enterprise performance and risk reporting
- Transition & Change Plan
- Roadmap to move from current state to target operating model
- Change impact analysis, stakeholder engagement, and communication plans
- Guidance on sequencing, resourcing, and risk management during transition
- Executive Summary & Board Briefing Pack
- Concise, visual summary for executive and board-level engagement
- Narrative framing the operating model as a business and governance asset
- Talking points and Q&A support for executive sponsors
How We Deliver
Our engagement is structured, collaborative, and tailored to your sector, regulatory environment, business model, and security ambitions. We work alongside your leadership and cross-functional teams to ensure the operating model is not only well-designed, but embraced, executable, and sustainable.
- Discovery & Scoping
- Stakeholder interviews across security, IT, business, risk, and assurance functions
- Review of existing operating models, strategies, policies, and assessments
- Confirmation of scope, objectives, timelines, and success criteria
- Maturity & Current-State Assessment
- Evaluation of operating model maturity across people, process, and technology
- Benchmarking against industry frameworks and peer organizations
- Identification of gaps, overlaps, and improvement themes
- Target Model Design Workshops
- Cross-functional design sessions with security, IT, risk, and business leaders
- Co-creation of structure, roles, processes, and governance
- Iterative refinement to ensure organizational fit and buy-in
- Model Development & Documentation
- Production of the Cyber TOM blueprint, RACI, process maps, and charters
- Alignment with enterprise architecture, risk, and operating model standards
- Validation sessions with key stakeholders to confirm accuracy and feasibility
- Transition Planning
- Definition of the change journey from current to target state
- Sequencing, resourcing, and dependencies across initiatives
- Change management, communication, and enablement planning
- Executive Alignment & Sign-Off
- Presentation of the TOM to executive sponsors, committees, and the board
- Facilitation of decision sessions to secure endorsement and funding
- Agreement on governance, oversight, and review cadence going forward
- Handover & Enablement
- Transfer of artifacts, documentation, and knowledge to internal owners
- Enablement sessions for security, IT, and business teams
- Optional ongoing advisory support through related Eristotle services
Ready to Build a High-Impact Cyber Operating Model?
Don’t leave cybersecurity delivery to chance. Engage Eristotle to architect a Target Operating Model that scales with your business and stands up to modern threats.