How can my organization assess its current cybersecurity posture?

TL;DR: To assess your current cybersecurity posture, use the NIST CSF’s core functions, tiers, and organizational profiles to evaluate where you are today—identifying strengths, weaknesses, and gaps across risk, governance, and technical capabilities.

The 6clicks guide Cyber Resilience in 2025: Your Smart Guide to NIST CSF emphasizes that before any improvements can be made, you need to clearly understand where your cybersecurity program currently stands.

This is the foundation of a mature, risk-informed, and resilient cyber strategy.

NIST CSF offers a structured yet flexible approach to assessing your cybersecurity posture using three key tools:

• Core Functions

• Organizational Profiles

• Tiers

Steps to assess your cybersecurity posture with NIST CSF:

1. Map existing activities to the CSF Core Functions
   Review your Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover, and Govern practices. Where are they strong? Where are they missing?

2. Build a Current Profile
   Document what cybersecurity outcomes you currently achieve and the scope of supporting policies, controls, and resources.

3. Determine your Tier
   Based on governance, integration, and risk-informed practices, select the Tier (1–4) that best reflects your current maturity.

4. Conduct a gap analysis
   Compare your Current Profile to the Target Profile (based on risk appetite, compliance needs, or business priorities).

5. Prioritize actions
   Use this analysis to define quick wins, high-risk gaps, and strategic investments needed to close the maturity gap.

Why a structured assessment matters

• Removes guesswork
  Replaces opinions with objective analysis across all domains of cybersecurity.

• Aligns stakeholders
  Gives executives, IT, compliance, and legal a common understanding of where the program stands.

• Accelerates improvement
  Helps identify low-effort, high-impact changes to strengthen defenses quickly.

• Supports audits and certifications
  Assessment outputs can feed into ISO, SOC 2, CPS 234, or vendor due diligence responses.

Want to simplify cybersecurity assessments and maturity tracking?
Book a demo with 6clicks today to see how our platform automates NIST CSF assessments, scores each function, and visualizes your current vs. target posture.