Compliance Automation is the Next Biggest Threat to Cyber Resilience, Just Behind the Adversary

Summary: Cyber GRC and Defensible Resilience in 2026

As regulations such as the SOCI Act, NIS, NIS2 and CIRCIA intensify oversight of critical infrastructure, organisations are reassessing reliance on compliance automation software alone. Audit readiness is no longer enough. 

In this article, Ian Yip, CEO and Founder of Avertro, draws on practitioner experience to examine the risks of commoditised trust and outlines how a modern Resilience Command platform must translate technical signals into quantifiable, governance-ready intelligence that empowers you to quantify your risk, and defend your spend.

Reclaiming Strategic Command: Shifting from Administrative Theatre to Defensible Resilience

In the high-stakes theatre of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), there is a widening gap between the reality on the ground and the narrative in the boardroom. For the practitioner, the dashboard has never been truly "green." It is a persistent, flickering sea of amber and red - a reflection of legacy technical debt, evolving threat landscapes, and the staggering scale of assets they are sworn to protect.

However, a new threat has emerged to complicate this reality: "Commoditised Trust." Promoted by the explosion of compliance automation software, this philosophy promises to "solve" the sea of red by turning security into a mass-produced, transactional checkbox. They offer a shortcut to a clean audit, tempting organisations to trade Strategic Command for administrative theatre.

In 2026, as global regulations move from "best practice" to "mandated resilience," this illusion is no longer just a management failure - it is a liability.

Commoditised Trust: The Commercialisation of Risk

The rise of compliance automation was not born in the Security Operations Centre (SOC); it was born in the "move fast and break things" world of venture-backed software. This has created a fundamental misalignment of interests.

In the startup world, trust is a commodity to be optimised for the sake of the sale. Consequently, compliance tools are engineered to remove every point of resistance. They promise a "one-click" path to a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certificate by plugging into an API and verifying that a toggle is set to "On." When trust is commoditised, it loses its connection to the actual state of defence.

Cybersecurity is not a workflow problem to be optimised; it is a survival problem to be commanded.

By treating trust as a commodity, we remove the Integrity Check. It is not the automation of evidence collection that is the threat; that is an administrative utility. The danger is the automation of risk judgment. Strategic friction is the intentional pause where a practitioner asks: "Does this signal actually mitigate the risk, or does it just satisfy the auditor?" By automating this pause away, we are training a generation of security professionals to be administrators of tools rather than commanders of defence. We are creating a "Security-for-Show" culture where the goal is a clean report, not a battle-hardened infrastructure.

Subsidised Audits: The Death of Absolute Integrity

The most cynical evolution of Commoditised Trust is the Subsidised Audit. To close sales cycles faster, automation vendors now bundle the audit itself, partnering with "preferred" firms that use the vendor’s own software to perform the validation.

This creates a closed-loop system of confirmation bias. The auditor operates within a system that inherently incentivises reliance on the software, and the software is designed to provide the path of least resistance. For a CNI practitioner, this is a catastrophic vulnerability. A "guaranteed pass" provides a psychological sedative to a Board of Directors while the actual operational risks - the unpatched PLCs, the unmonitored lateral movement, and the fragile supply chains - remain unmitigated. For example, the automated green light confirms a policy exists, but fails to check that a critical asset is isolated on a proprietary PLC network. A subsidised audit is the ultimate expression of commodified trust; it is not an assurance of security, but a transaction of convenience.

Global Regulatory "Pressure Cooker"

In 2026, global regulators have realised that "best effort" compliance is failing. For CNI, legislation now demands a significant step up from standard frameworks. These mandates focus on Operational Continuity, not just data protection.

United States: CIRCIA, NERC CIP-015, & SEC Mandates 

• CIRCIA Reporting: The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) requires reporting of a "Significant Incident" to CISA. The mandate emphasises providing a detailed narrative of impact, attack vectors, and Indicators of Compromise (IoCs).
• NERC CIP-015 (Internal Network Security Monitoring): The energy sector mandate for Internal Network Security Monitoring (INSM) requires utilities to monitor East-West traffic within their Electronic Security Perimeters to detect malicious activity.
• SEC Cyber Rules: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules on cybersecurity risk management, strategy, and governance require public companies to disclose material cybersecurity incidents on Form 8-K and to periodically disclose their cyber risk management and governance practices.

Australia: SOCI Act Assurance & Risk Management

• In Australia, the SOCI Act Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program (CIRMP) requires entities to adopt, maintain, and comply with a risk management program for critical infrastructure. 
  
  • Material Risk Management: The program requires that a security plan be effective against the entity's specific material risks, shifting focus to demonstrating efficacy against defined threats.
  • Personnel Security: Amendments mandate the management of "Personnel Hazards" (insider threats) as part of the risk management program, introducing a human-centric governance requirement.

European Union & UK: Oversight & Resilience

• NIS2 Directive: The revised NIS2 Directive strengthens cybersecurity and risk management requirements. It places the responsibility for overseeing risk management directly on the Management Body, potentially leading to direct liability for failure to comply.
• DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act): Effective for the financial sector, DORA mandates a comprehensive approach to managing ICT third-party risk. This includes a Register of Information for all ICT dependencies and a requirement to demonstrate a tested Exit Strategy from third-party services.

Practitioner’s Standard: Defence Built by the Defended

There is a fundamental truth in the world of infrastructure that the software industry often ignores: You cannot build what you do not understand.

Critical National Infrastructure is not a laboratory. It is a messy, high-stakes environment defined by legacy technical debt, proprietary protocols, and the weight of physical safety. Yet, the market is saturated with security tools built by "product visionaries" who have never stood in a SOC during a crisis, never had to explain a material risk to a hostile Board, and never felt the weight of a 72-hour reporting window.

When software is built by people chasing a valuation rather than a mission, the product reflects those priorities. CNI organisations must demand a higher standard for their cyber GRC platform. They should demand that their governance and resilience platforms be built by real practitioners - people who have actually done the work. A practitioner knows that "automated evidence" is a liability if it lacks context. When you choose a partner, ask yourself: Are they building for my resilience, or for their next funding round?

Strategic Roadmap: Five Steps to Defensible Resilience

To maximise Security-per-Dollar - the measurable reduction in material risk per investment dollar - a practitioner must move beyond vanity metrics. Real resilience is built through a logical progression of capabilities, moving from administrative order to financial precision.

1. Establish the Master Framework: Consolidate global mandates such as the SOCI Act, NIS, NIS2 and CIRCIA into a single “Source of Truth”.
   
   
2. Activate the Efficiency Engine: Use automation as a utility, not a strategy. Master administrative tasks, and free the team for high-value work.
   
   
3. Build the Strategic Bridge: Map technical controls directly to business strategy to report on service resilience at a board level, not just "patch counts."
   
   
4. Deploy Threat-Informed Command: Integrate MITRE ATT&CK and threat intelligence to battle-harden the defence against specific TTPs.
   
   
5. Achieve Financial Precision: Use Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) to justify spending based on its calculated impact on the balance sheet.
   
   

Practitioner’s Choice: Why We Refused to Stop at Automation

As the founder of Avertro, I’ve watched the "Compliance-Industrial Complex" explode. I’ll be candid: from a purely financial perspective, pivoting Avertro to follow the high-velocity, "one-click" trend would have been the easiest path to a rapid valuation.

We didn't shy away from automation - we mastered it, and then we graduated beyond it.

At Avertro, we have built the same efficiency engines and API-driven evidence collectors that the market expects. We know that speed is essential for administrative tasks. But we refused to make automation the "end-state." In the world of Critical National Infrastructure, an automated "green light" is just a starting point. If a tool only checks if a policy exists but cannot map that policy to the operational continuity of a power grid, it isn't a security tool - it’s an administrative one.

I chose to build for Defensible Resilience because I refuse to be complicit in the hollowing out of our digital defences. We built CyberHQ® to bridge the gap between technical signals and boardroom command. We chose the harder, practitioner-led path because, in 2026, a "passed" audit report won't keep the lights on. Only a battle-hardened, governed defence will.

Reclaiming the Command Centre

The dashboard may be amber, but the strategy must be bold. We are at a crossroads. We can continue down the path of Commoditised Trust and hope that our automated reports are enough to keep the adversary at bay. Or, we can reclaim the Command Centre.

We must demand tools that respect our expertise. We must demand governance that is ready for the boardroom, not just the audit trail. We must move beyond the "Great Automated Illusion" and build a defence that is actually, quantifiably resilient. 

The adversary is moving at the speed of thought. Your governance must move at the speed of Command.