Cybersecurity Metrics for Utility Executives: What to Track, Report, and Act On

How confident are you that your cybersecurity metrics reveal what actually puts your utility at risk?

Most executive dashboards are cluttered with blocked attempts, alerts, and acronyms. But none of them show how vulnerable your infrastructure really is or how fast your teams can respond when it matters.

In 2024, ransomware was the most pervasive threat to U.S. critical infrastructure. Complaints from critical-infrastructure organizations rose 9% year over year, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. That trend should concern every board responsible for resilience, recovery, and regulatory compliance.

If your cybersecurity metrics do not clarify exposure, readiness, and impact, they are not supporting the decisions that matter. This article outlines the cybersecurity KPIs utility executives should be tracking to lead with clarity, reduce risk, and protect operational continuity.

Why Cybersecurity Is a Board-Level Issue in Utilities

Cybersecurity now sits squarely in the boardroom. For electric utilities, a breach is not a technical failure. It is a business risk that can trigger regulatory penalties, operational downtime, and long-term reputational damage.

Boards are expected to oversee cybersecurity programs with the same rigor they apply to financial and operational risk. That oversight requires more than surface-level dashboards. It demands security metrics that reflect actual readiness, exposure, and resilience.

Executives must evaluate whether their cybersecurity posture can withstand targeted attacks, manage third-party risk, and protect data privacy across the supply chain. High-level metrics must track trends in vulnerability, detection, and response times, and the overall ability to sustain operations under pressure.

Utility companies face growing scrutiny from regulators, investors, and customers. Clear, strategic cybersecurity KPIs are no longer optional. They are a baseline expectation for leadership.

The Executive Gap in Cybersecurity Reporting

Many cybersecurity reports fail to support executive decision-making because they are structured around technical activity rather than risk insight.

Security teams often report on patch counts, flagged emails, or scan results. These metrics show effort, but they do not explain exposure, readiness, or potential business impact. As a result, CIOs and boards are left reviewing dense data without a clear sense of priority or consequence.

This gap is rooted in how reporting is produced. Metrics are collected to satisfy operational teams, auditors, or tools, then passed upward without translation. Over time, reporting becomes a compliance exercise instead of a management asset.

Cybersecurity reporting should give executives a clear view of where cyber risk threatens operations, revenue, and regulatory performance. Anything less is noise.

Core Categories of Cybersecurity Metrics for Executives

Executives do not need technical noise. They need cybersecurity metrics that provide a reliable view of risk, readiness, governance, and business impact. These categories form the foundation for strategic decision-making and long-term resilience across the utilities sector.

1. Risk Exposure Metrics

Risk exposure metrics reveal where vulnerabilities exist across systems, third parties, and critical infrastructure. They help leadership identify where to focus mitigation efforts before a cyber incident escalates.

It’s important to monitor the percentage of critical systems without multi-factor authentication, the volume of unresolved high-severity vulnerabilities, and risk scores across the supply chain. These indicators reflect how exposed the utility is to exploitation by threat actors, especially across third-party access points and operational networks.

When properly benchmarked, exposure metrics enable leadership to reduce inherent risk while supporting broader risk management programs.

2. Incident Readiness and Response Metrics

Detection and response metrics help gauge whether the cybersecurity program is proactive or reactive. They show how well prepared the organization is to contain cyber threats before they become operational failures.

Metrics such as mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) reflect the utility’s speed of action. Executives should also monitor the frequency and outcomes of incident response exercises and the resolution rate for detected threats. These figures reflect the maturity of internal processes and the strength of cross-functional coordination.

In a high-risk environment, slow detection leads directly to greater damage. These KPIs ensure that response strategies match the scale of cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure.

3. Compliance and Governance Metrics

Governance metrics demonstrate whether the organization is meeting both internal policy requirements and external regulatory expectations. For utilities operating under mandates such as NERC CIP or ISO 27001, these metrics are essential to stakeholder trust.

Executives should review audit pass rates, security training completion, and policy violation trends. Together, these indicators reflect how well cybersecurity measures are integrated across departments and whether employees are aligned with risk management goals.

Strong governance metrics reinforce credibility with regulators and demonstrate a commitment to sustained compliance across the cybersecurity program.

4. Business Impact Metrics

Every cybersecurity KPI must ultimately map to business risk. Metrics in this category translate technical threats into financial, operational, and reputational consequences.

Executives should monitor the estimated financial exposure from top-ranked cyber risks, the number of unplanned outages linked to cyber incidents, and the alignment between insurance coverage and projected loss scenarios. These indicators clarify the real-world cost of a weak security posture and guide investment in stronger cybersecurity infrastructure.

By focusing on impact rather than activity, utilities can build management strategies that protect revenue, service continuity, and customer trust.

Industry Benchmarks and Peer Comparisons

Cybersecurity metrics lose value without context. Boards cannot evaluate performance without knowing how it compares to industry standards, peer utilities, and regulatory expectations. Benchmarking brings that context and turns raw metrics into strategic signals.

Executives in electric utilities, like those in financial services and other critical infrastructure sectors, are increasingly expected to use benchmarks in budget planning, vendor due diligence, and risk communication. Boards now ask how security performance compares across the utilities industry, not just how many controls are in place.

NERC CIP: Security Measures for Critical Infrastructure

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) standards set baseline expectations for securing bulk electric systems. These guidelines define mandatory security measures and patching protocols to prevent attacks on critical operational assets.

Tracking adherence to NERC CIP offers a measurable way to validate security posture and resilience across physical and digital systems. It also provides external proof of compliance to regulators and insurers.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework: A Universal Risk Management Standard

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) gives executives a structured way to assess maturity in risk identification, detection, response, and recovery. It supports comparisons across sectors and aligns with many global cybersecurity regulations, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

NIST CSF benchmarks help boards determine if the organization’s cybersecurity risk management is reactive or proactive and whether current metrics reflect actual progress.

DOE’s C2M2: Sector-Specific Maturity for Utilities

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2) was built for electric utilities. It evaluates control effectiveness, supply chain risk, threat intelligence integration, and the strength of internal management programs.

C2M2 benchmarks allow executives to compare their own cybersecurity program against national best practices. The model offers a way to identify gaps, justify investment, and communicate readiness to stakeholders with clear scoring and structured goals.

Why Benchmarking Builds Confidence

Without benchmarks, cybersecurity KPIs operate in isolation. Peer comparisons allow leaders to validate their metrics, adjust expectations, and identify the right metrics to track based on risk across the industry. They can also engage regulators, auditors, and investors with greater confidence and clarity.

Executives should treat benchmarking as a core part of cybersecurity governance. It moves reporting from performance snapshots to an informed, defensible strategy.

Red Flags: Metrics That Mislead or Waste Time

Security metrics must sharpen judgment, not blur it. Yet many cybersecurity reports contain indicators that confuse, overwhelm, or send the wrong signal entirely. Executives cannot lead with confidence if the data they are given lacks meaning or alignment with business outcomes.

Poor metrics don't just waste time. They can cause teams to chase noise, overlook critical vulnerabilities, and misallocate budget. The cost of bad information is more risk, not less.

Common Reporting Pitfalls to Eliminate

1. Raw Counts Without Risk Context
Phishing attempts, alert volume, or blocked intrusion events are frequently cited in board reports. But without connection to threat intelligence, detection trends, or known vulnerabilities in the environment, these numbers offer no insight. A rise in alerts could mean improved monitoring or a growing attack surface. Metrics must be paired with analysis to avoid false signals.

2. Logs and Acronyms Masquerading as Metrics
Some reports are simply exports from SIEM tools, patching dashboards, or compliance scanners. They rely on abbreviations and log language that obscure risk rather than reveal it. Executives should never be expected to interpret raw telemetry. Security teams must translate technical data into business risk indicators across internal systems and third-party environments.

3. Metrics That Ignore Security Goals
If a KPI does not map to a specific risk reduction target, resilience objective, or regulatory requirement, it should not be on the dashboard. For example, tracking the number of software updates without linking to patch timeliness or vulnerability closure rates ignores the underlying purpose of that activity. Metrics must reinforce the organization’s core security posture and performance strategy.

4. Security Ratings Without Interpretation
External ratings from third-party assessment platforms can be valuable, but only when paired with an explanation. A score, ranking, or color-coded grade means nothing without an explanation of what it signals or why it changed. Executives need to know whether the rating reflects a rising risk, a change in supplier performance, or a benchmark comparison across the supply chain.

Cybersecurity reporting must focus on risk, not raw activity. A Managed Security Services Provider can help establish metrics that reflect real-world threats, maturity, and operational risk. Reports should clarify where the organization is most vulnerable, how effectively it is responding, and which risks are increasing in severity. The goal is not to report for reporting’s sake. The goal is to improve decision-making and reduce exposure.

How to Present Cybersecurity Metrics That Drive Budget and Decisions

A cybersecurity dashboard should answer questions, not create confusion. Executives need clear metrics that reflect exposure, resilience, compliance, and risk.

Overloaded dashboards filled with alerts, acronyms, or telemetry logs do not help leadership make informed decisions. Leadership needs clarity on where vulnerabilities exist, how risks are trending, and which issues require immediate action. The right presentation turns security metrics into strategic inputs.

Designing Dashboards for Executive Visibility

Limit dashboards to a focused set of indicators. Choose five to seven metrics that reflect risk across critical systems, detection performance, supply chain health, and regulatory posture. Use trendlines and thresholds to show movement and urgency. Avoid heat maps and status floods. A dashboard should highlight what matters, not what is available.

Using Metrics to Justify Investment

Security budgets often face scrutiny. Metrics provide evidence when tied to risk, cost, and business continuity.

If detection times are slow or incidents are rising, readiness metrics can support the case for staffing or automation. Exposure metrics tied to patch coverage or third-party vulnerabilities help justify investment in tools and processes. Business impact metrics, such as projected financial loss from cyber attacks, can support insurance, recovery, or resilience planning.

Boards fund what they understand. As a Managed Security Services Provider, Serverless Solutions ensures that metrics are tied to risk drivers, not just activity logs. Clear, targeted metrics help secure the resources needed to strengthen posture and reduce exposure.

The Right Metrics Lead to Better Decisions

Executives in the utilities industry cannot afford to rely on noisy dashboards or legacy reporting practices. Cybersecurity metrics must deliver insight into where risk lives, how well the organization can respond, and what is required to protect continuity and trust.

With the right metrics in place, utility leaders gain more than visibility. They gain control over risk management, clarity for board reporting, and the ability to align cybersecurity programs with business outcomes.

If you're ready to build a security reporting strategy that supports stronger decisions, we can help. Contact Serverless Solutions to learn how we support executive-level cybersecurity strategy across the utilities sector.