What Your Competitors Are Doing to Strengthen Cyber Resilience
Cyber resilience has quietly become a competitive differentiator.
While public conversations often focus on high-profile breaches or new technologies, the reality is that many organisations are strengthening their security in far more practical and effective ways. Not because they want to be “best in class”, but because customers, regulators, and partners increasingly expect it.
If you’re wondering how your security posture compares, it’s worth understanding what peers and competitors are already doing.
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Contents
They’re moving beyond compliance as the finish line
Frameworks like Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001 remain important but resilient organisations no longer treat certification as the end goal.
Instead, they use compliance as a baseline and focus on whether controls actually work in practice. This shift reflects a growing understanding that passing an audit doesn’t guarantee reduced risk.
Competitors investing in resilience are:
Validating controls through testing, not just documentation
Reviewing configurations and access regularly
Treating audits as checkpoints, not milestones
This approach reduces unpleasant surprises when scrutiny increases.
They’re testing assumptions, not just systems
A common weakness in less mature organisations is untested assumptions: “that system isn’t exposed”, “that account isn’t used”, “that process would work in an incident”.
More resilient organisations actively challenge these assumptions through:
Regular penetration testing
Scenario-based incident response exercises
Reviews of identity and access pathways
This isn’t about expecting failure it’s about confirming reality before attackers do.
They’re prioritising identity and access risk
Across almost every sector, identity has become the most abused attack path.
Competitors who are strengthening resilience are paying close attention to:
Privileged access and administrative accounts
Consistent use of MFA
Third-party and service account permissions
Access review processes that actually remove risk
They recognise that small gaps in access control can undermine even the strongest technical defences.
They’re reducing dependency on point-in-time assessments
Annual tests still have value but they’re no longer enough on their own.
More mature organisations are pairing assessments with continuous visibility so they can:
Detect new vulnerabilities as environments change
Track remediation over time
Reduce repeat findings
Maintain confidence between audits and tests
This shift reflects the reality of modern environments, where risk changes faster than assessment cycles.
They’re preparing for incidents, not just trying to prevent them
The most resilient organisations assume that incidents will happen and plan accordingly.
Rather than relying on static response plans, competitors are:
Reviewing and testing escalation paths
Clarifying decision-making responsibilities
Ensuring response timelines meet regulatory expectations
Making incident reporting safe and non-punitive
This preparation often makes the difference between a manageable event and a business-disrupting incident.
They’re investing in evidence, not just activity
Security leaders are increasingly being asked a simple question:
How do you know this is working?
Organisations strengthening resilience are building their programmes around evidence not assumptions or anecdotal success.
This includes:
Tracking trends rather than one-off fixes
Maintaining audit-ready records of decisions and actions
Aligning security reporting to board-level risk conversations
As scrutiny increases, this evidence-led approach becomes a significant advantage.
Resilience is becoming a quiet differentiator
Very few organisations advertise their security maturity publicly but customers and partners can feel the difference.
Fewer disruptions, smoother assurance conversations, and clearer risk ownership all contribute to trust. And trust increasingly influences purchasing decisions, renewals, and long-term relationships.
At Bulletproof, we see resilience built through consistent, practical steps not dramatic transformation projects.
Because while your competitors may not be shouting about their security investments, many of them are already making them.
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