You passed your audit. You checked the boxes. You’re “compliant.”
But here’s the problem: compliance isn’t protection.
Too many companies treat compliance like a finish line when it should be a baseline. Regulations are written to set the floor—not define what it takes to actually protect your business, your customers, or your bottom line.
That’s where a cyber risk assessment comes in.
Let’s break this down:
Being “compliant” just means you meet minimum regulatory expectations
Being “covered” by insurance doesn’t guarantee payout after a breach
Being resilient means you understand your risks, mitigate them intelligently, and can defend your actions when something goes wrong
And those three outcomes don’t always overlap.
A typical compliance audit may confirm:
✅ You have a written policy
✅ You conducted a training
✅ You did a risk assessment... two years ago
But it often misses:
❌ How well your controls are actually working
❌ Emerging threats your framework doesn’t address
❌ Contractual, legal, or insurance gaps
❌ Third-party risks and supply chain exposure
❌ Whether your documentation would hold up in court or a claim
A modern cyber risk assessment—done properly—doesn’t just tick boxes. It helps you:
Identify new threats as your business and environment change
Prioritize investments based on business impact
Prepare for insurance renewals with evidence of active controls
Build legal defensibility before a breach or investigation
Ensure alignment across security, legal, finance, and operations
This isn’t just about IT. It’s about business continuity, board oversight, and customer trust.
We recently worked with a company that had just passed a PCI-DSS compliance check. They thought they were safe.
Our risk assessment revealed:
No vendor due diligence process
No documentation of incident response testing
A single employee with full admin rights across systems
That’s not a compliance issue. That’s a business risk waiting to explode.
At Bawn, we conduct Cyber Liability Risk Assessments that go beyond frameworks. We evaluate:
Legal exposure
Insurance readiness
Third-party and contractual risks
Control maturity and documentation quality
Your ability to defend your program in front of regulators or attorneys
Regulations are constantly evolving. Threats are evolving faster.
If you’re relying on last year’s audit to protect you today, it’s time for an updated view of your risk.