Purpose and boundaries
This is an awareness and decision-support assessment. It is not an audit, certification, legal opinion, or formal compliance determination. The score is designed to help leadership identify where deeper review, evidence, or remediation is warranted.
Scoring model
- Each question is scored from 0–4. The highest score represents a formalized, implemented, tested, and evidenced state.
- Questions are assigned to governance domains. Each domain score is the ratio of earned points to available points in that domain.
- Domain scores are combined into the overall score using the domain weights shown below.
- “Not sure” answers are treated as an uncertainty signal and may apply a modest uncertainty adjustment.
- Some foundational questions have critical rules. If a critical foundation is absent, the overall score can be capped so a high average does not hide material risk.
Domain weights
Executive accountability and security decision rights.
Customer, audit, growth, and regulatory triggers.
Material risk decisions, acceptance, and escalation.
Evidence, questionnaires, and audit readiness.
Decision-useful metrics and board visibility.
Critical score rules
- No clear executive accountability is a strong signal that fractional security leadership may be needed. (maximum score: 55)
- Material cyber risks are not consistently owned or treated. (maximum score: 60)
How to use the result
Review the three lowest domains, critical flags, and evidence checklist together. The objective is not to generate a high score; it is to make missing decisions, owners, and evidence visible. When a major customer, audit, regulatory, or incident deadline exists, the self-assessment should be followed by independent validation.