Cyber Heat Map® relaunches as an open, partner‑friendly platform with cross‑sector benchmarks and the new Cyber Bridge® community for real‑time peer insight.
Two years’ worth of feedback consistently highlighted security leaders’ ongoing struggles: massive spreadsheets and vendor evaluations focused on features, not risk reduction. When potential consulting partners added, “If you could benchmark outside higher education and display our brand in the application, we’d use it with every client,” we knew the tool had to grow.
Today we are relaunching Cyber Heat Map® as an open, partner‑friendly platform that any mission‑driven organization can use to benchmark, prioritize, and plan cybersecurity investments. We are also introducing Cyber Bridge®, a collaboration portal so every Cyber Heat Map user gains an instant peer network.
Higher education was the perfect proving ground for a security planning tool. One university handles HIPAA‑regulated clinic data, PCI transactions in the bookstore, DoD CUI for research grants, and student financial information subject to lending regulations like the Red Flags Rule and GLBA. And they do all of this with a budget smaller than a regional grocery chain’s IT shop. If our model worked there, it could work anywhere.
While talking with IT leaders from municipal government, utilities, and private‑sector teams, three universal headaches emerged:
So we rebuilt Cyber Heat Map to be sector‑agnostic, made it easy for other consultants to license the tool for use with their own clients, and added a community layer for ongoing support.
Cyber Bridge® began as a standalone forum for public‑sector tech professionals. Great idea, but busy CIOs don't need another site to check. They need context and peer input tied to their immediate needs.
The new Cyber Bridge lives one click away from the Cyber Heat Map dashboard. It offers peer Q&A, a growing knowledge base of vendor‑neutral guides, ask‑me‑anything sessions with our team, and private spaces where consulting firms using Cyber Heat Map can promote upcoming events, share resources, and host customer discussion rooms.
The portal keeps leaders connected to fresh perspectives and proven practices long after the first Cyber Heat Map onboarding is complete.
We no longer limit Cyber Heat Map to colleges and universities. Every assessment is tagged by industry and organization size. When a new demographic slice (such as hospitals with 500 beds) reaches critical mass, we create a cohort so users can compare with true peers.
Until a particular segment has enough data, we provide aggregate benchmark data for context. The tool updates this in real time as new assessments are added.
Forget marching through spreadsheets with hundreds of controls. List what you have – technology, processes, and people – and Cyber Heat Map maps those capabilities to NIST CSF, GLBA, CMMC, or any framework we’ve added to the tool. Change one field and the gap analysis, compliance view, and planning roadmap update instantly.
We know many organizations would like to have an outside assessment of their security program, but many public sector and mid-sized enterprises are running on tight budgets. New Cyber Heat Map subscribers begin with eight guided sessions. Dedicate about an hour weekly, and you’ll have a prioritized, board-ready roadmap in eight weeks or less. Some teams complete their first pass in a single afternoon.
Consultants can now spin up a branded client instance in minutes. The client can invite their entire team to contribute data to the assessment. They can also invite consultants from partner organizations to collaborate. Everyone contributes to a single, continuously updated assessment.
The consultant returns the keys to the client data when the engagement ends. The client can update their assessment any time new technologies or projects complete. Clients will always see the name and website of the partner when using the tool. This sets the stage for renewal conversations or discussing future consulting projects.
Think of Cyber Heat Map like a virtual consultant that never leaves. Update a project milestone and your gap analysis, recommendations list, and compliance score refresh in seconds. New frameworks and benchmarks arrive automatically, so you stay current without scheduling another audit or spending weeks of staff time. The return on investment is simple: continuous insight without extra consulting spend.
Need outside help? Invite a partner consultant to work with you in your assessment instance. They can skip weeks of discovery and jump straight to solution design. Remove access when they are done. All progress and evidence stay intact.
A community‑college CIO completed his first assessment in under a week, fine‑tuned the auto‑generated roadmap, and walked into his next board meeting with peer benchmarks. The discussion moved from “How bad is it?” to “Which resources close the top three gaps?” Trustees approved the plan. The team now logs updates regularly, and the board dashboard stays current with minimal effort and zero extra consulting fees.
With over two hundred Cyber Heat Map assessments completed since 2022, two big patterns emerge:
To see Cyber Heat Map in action, start with our interactive tour, then schedule a free consultation or, if you are a consultant, request a partner demo. Each link below takes you to the right next step:
Cyber Heat Map answers the question every security leader asks: where will the next dollar cut the most risk?
By pairing a living assessment tool with a trusted community of peers and consultants, we aim to keep that answer at your fingertips, whatever your sector or budget.
