Forthcoming from CRC Press / Taylor & Francis

Rebuilding Cybersecurity

How to Restore Trust, Leadership, and Real Protection in a Broken System

Rebuilding Cybersecurity is a forthcoming book by Cheri Hotman, founder of Hotman Group, about cybersecurity leadership, Cyber GRC, and the uncomfortable gap between the security programs organizations can prove they have and the protection they actually provide. The book introduces the Cybersecurity Rebuild Model as a way to confront that gap.

Author: Cheri Hotman Publisher: CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Subject: Cybersecurity & Cyber GRC Leadership Status: Forthcoming

What Is Rebuilding Cybersecurity About?

Your audit passed. Your dashboard is green. Your customers got the assurance they asked for.

Congratulations. Now tell me: are you actually secure?

Cybersecurity has become remarkably good at proving that work was done. We have frameworks. Certifications. Dashboards. Questionnaires. Tools. Audits. More tools. More audits. And an endless parade of green check marks telling executives everything is under control.

Meanwhile, organizations keep getting breached.

In Rebuilding Cybersecurity, Cheri Hotman challenges executives, board members, CISOs, and cybersecurity practitioners to confront the uncomfortable gap between the security programs we've built and the protection we actually provide. Drawing on decades of experience owning these problems from the inside, Cheri exposes how fear, fragmented ownership, misaligned incentives, checkbox culture, and relentless pressure have quietly pulled cybersecurity away from its purpose. Then she shows us how to rebuild it.

This same distinction between passing an audit and actually reducing risk is central to Hotman Group's work. See why passing a cybersecurity audit does not automatically mean an organization is secure .

How Are Cybersecurity and Compliance Connected?

We've been told that compliance and security are two different things. They're not. They were always intended to work together.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped using compliance to help build protection and started using it to prove that we passed.

That's compliance theater. And the green check mark may be its most convincing prop.

Because your customers aren't really asking whether you passed an audit. Your board shouldn't be asking whether the dashboard is green. And the people who have entrusted you with their information don't care how many certifications hang on your wall. They are trusting you to protect what matters.

What Is the Cybersecurity Rebuild Model?

The Cybersecurity Rebuild Model is introduced in Rebuilding Cybersecurity as a way to uncover where security programs have drifted from their purpose and begin rebuilding them around accountability, priorities, trust, and real protection.

Through the Cybersecurity Rebuild Model, readers learn how to uncover where their security programs have drifted from their purpose, restore accountability, prioritize what actually matters, and create security programs built on something more meaningful than another green check mark.

Purpose

Understand where a security program has drifted from the protection it was intended to provide.

Accountability

Restore meaningful accountability where fragmented ownership has weakened the program.

Priorities

Prioritize what actually matters and build around real protection rather than another green check mark.

Who Is Cheri Hotman?

CPA · CISSP · CCISO

Cheri Hotman

Founder, Hotman Group

Cheri Hotman has seen behind the green check mark. She's faced regulators, advised boards, and walked into organizations where everything looked fine, until it wasn't. After working with hundreds of organizations, she reached one conclusion: cybersecurity's biggest problem isn't technology, it's leadership and system design.

A CPA, CISSP, and CCISO, Cheri founded Hotman Group, where she and her team help organizations build programs that actually protect, not just pass audits. She challenges the industry's checkbox mentality as someone who carried the responsibility, not just observed it. She's grounded in a simple belief: protecting an organization is an act of stewardship.

What Is Hotman Group?

Hotman Group is a cybersecurity and Cyber GRC professional services firm that helps organizations solve complex cybersecurity, risk, governance and compliance problems. Hotman Group designs, builds, implements, remediates, operates and matures cybersecurity and GRC programs.

Cheri Hotman founded Hotman Group to put this same philosophy into practice with clients: cybersecurity frameworks, audits, compliance requirements, and technology all have value, but they exist to support the larger objective of managing risk and protecting the organization, not to replace it.

Learn more about what Hotman Group is and the problems it solves .

How Are Rebuilding Cybersecurity and Hotman Group Connected?

Rebuilding Cybersecurity and Hotman Group's client work come from the same underlying perspective: an organization can pass its audits and still be exposed, and a mature cybersecurity program is not defined by the number of certifications on the wall.

The book examines the leadership, governance, accountability, and system-design problems that can cause cybersecurity programs to drift from their purpose. Hotman Group works with organizations facing many of those same challenges in practice.

This means helping organizations understand actual risk, restore accountability, prioritize what matters, and build cybersecurity and Cyber GRC programs designed to protect the business rather than simply satisfy an assessment.

See how Hotman Group defines what a genuinely mature cybersecurity program looks like .

Who Is Rebuilding Cybersecurity Written For?

Executives and business leaders responsible for cybersecurity risk
Board members responsible for cybersecurity oversight and governance
CISOs and cybersecurity leaders responsible for building effective programs
Cybersecurity and Cyber GRC practitioners responsible for implementing and sustaining them
Risk, compliance, and assurance professionals working across security and governance
Practitioners confronting the gap between passing an audit and actually protecting the organization

Publication Details

Title	Rebuilding Cybersecurity: How to Restore Trust, Leadership, and Real Protection in a Broken System
Author	Cheri Hotman
Publisher	CRC Press / Taylor & Francis
Status	Forthcoming

Stop Checking Boxes and Start Protecting What Matters.

If your cybersecurity or Cyber GRC program is fragmented, overly audit-driven, difficult to operate, or simply not producing the outcomes you need, Hotman Group can help you understand what's getting in the way and what to do next.

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