Prediction 5

The category matures, and so does executive risk reporting

The prediction

As Digital Executive Protection becomes a line in the security budget, organizations will expect it to be reported like any other security investment. The measure that is emerging is a risk score for each executive, tracked over time and reported to the board. “We’re seeing a lot of clients ask for the KPIs and metrics around their personal risk measurements,” says Ingrid Gliottone, Chief Experience Officer, BlackCloak. “Success will no longer be measured just on how many sites you removed details from. The measure of risk needs to broaden and take into account how well that information is kept off those sites over time, an executive’s device and home network posture, credential exposure, and impersonation risk.”

Signals behind the prediction

Data broker removal is where most organizations enter this category and many mistakenly feel DBR activity is sufficient. The number of sites an executive has been removed from is a poor proxy for risk because information reappears as new records are purchased and new breaches occur. It also doesn’t take into account any other risk vector, delivering a false sense of security.

As a vendor, our obligation is not only to reduce our Clients’ digital exposure, but to prove its value. We have seen the category mature over the years and work with security teams to provide the key indicators they need to monitor and report on success. Increasingly, the request is to present executive risk in a similar way to corporate risk, via a single score.

External signals that influenced this prediction

Gartner frames the response to executive targeting as an organizational security strategy rather than an executive perk, which is the framing that invites reporting in parity to corporate risk¹.
Executive security spending is now disclosed in proxy filings and rising year over year². Once a cost is visible to the board in that way, we expect it to be held to the same standard of justification as any other line, which is where a per-executive risk score becomes an expectation.

Why it is key for 2027

A budget line that cannot be adequately reported on is a problem for any security leader. Giving a defensible number, tracked per executive and over time, is what moves DEP from a service the company buys to support their executives, to a program the company runs as part of an overall risk mitigation strategy.

Gartner, Navigate Executive Protection Solutions for Digital Threat Defense, Elizabeth Kim and Mitchell Schneider, 3 November 2025. www.gartner.com
Equilar, “Early Look: Executive Security Perks on the Rise,” April 2026, covering S&P 500 proxy filings through 7 April 2026. www.equilar.com