Top 6 Lessons Learned from Our Clients in 2025

These 6 Things Drove Cybersecurity Implementations in 2025

Whether mandated or elective, building stronger security was on the agenda in 2025. In federal, state and local government agencies, the DIB, higher education and the federal civilian supply chain, implementing standardized, world-class frameworks was a major focus and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

That’s a good thing because cybersecurity threats just get greater and greater with each passing year. Vishing (voice phishing) attacks, access brokers and Gen AI attacks are all on the rise. And here’s frightening statistic: Breakout time, the time it takes an adversary to move laterally across your system once penetrated, has reached an all-time average low of 48 minutes, with one instance as little as 51 seconds. The bad guys have got the goods before most would even know they were there.

From technology and consulting organizations to government and academia, SteelCloud’s clients comprise the most at-risk industries in the world. They rely on NIST-based Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) and CIS Benchmarks to protect their highly sensitive systems. But one of the things that has become evident from our conversations and observations in 2025 is that the framework doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you operationalize it.

With that in mind—and with SteelCloud’s vantage point at the intersection of STIG and CIS Benchmarks automation—here are the 6 biggest challenges and observations that have come across our desks this year. It’s about doing more with less, yes. But it’s also about evolving the mindsets and expectations driving compliance throughout government and industry.

Top 6 Lessons Learned from Our Clients in 2025

1. Manual Compliance is Still the #1 Bottleneck

Across the DoD, SLED, higher ed, and regulated industries, teams are still trying to manually work their way through implementing controls and securing baselines. This results in inconsistent remediation across teams/silos, human error, rework, burnout and skills shortages, all leading to delayed—and even failed—audits.

In short, many organizations are still taking humans to a bot fight. Automation is the only proven and consistent way we see organizations keep up with today’s AI and bot-based threats and shut them down before they happen. Automation enables you to become continuously compliant with very little effort, eliminate errors, scale endlessly and be audit-ready at every turn.

 2. The Biggest Compliance Gaps Are Operational

Whether you’re implementing STIGs or CIS Benchmarks, there are certain patterns that perpetuate when using manual or hybrid methods. One is that manual efforts lead to a lack of repeatable processes. Documentation is fragmented, causing issues with audits. There is a lack of consistency across teams and silos. There is confusion around inheritance, organizational baselines, overlays. Teams are doing a lot of rework, solving the same issues multiple times. And, specifically, during the government shutdown, updates were stalled, putting teams into a holding pattern and causing stress around the timing of current and future updates.

The takeaway here is that frameworks can only do so much. Frameworks tell you what needs to be secure, but operations determine whether you get and stay that way or not. The more you can simplify and accelerate operations, the more secure, agile and audit-ready you will be.

3. Pressure Is Driving Teams Toward Predictability

Most people in the STIG and CIS Benchmarks space are under internal and external pressure to shorten cycles, regardless of whether it’s a first-time implementation or a current need for new audits. And it’s not just about a shorter cycles, but about simplified cycles. They want:

• Clean, continuously updated baselines without adding more manpower
• Evidence generation for reporting and repeating that doesn’t require manual drudgery
• Confidence in what’s actually compliant right now, with dashboards that show what’s working and what’s not

In short, today’s cybersecurity teams want ease with a lot of predictability mixed in. Predictability equals peace of mind. It makes budgets easier to justify. And it results in audit success. If you are implementing now or soon, you can download our 100 Days to STIG Policy Implementation or 100 Days to CIS Benchmarks Implementation eBooks. They will help you implement in a rapid, predictable, and successful way.

4. Centralized Policy Is the New Expectation

We’ve been seeing a trend toward centralization for years. And that need becomes more critical with each passing year. Organizations want enterprise-wide enforcement and “single pane of glass” visibility. They want to reduce drift across silos, such as development, test, production, multi-campus and multi-domain environments. And STIG and CIS Benchmarks require one baseline, repeatable remediations and zero variance to be most successful and manageable.

For years, that wasn’t easy to do, even with an automated solution. Hybrid, virtual and siloed work environments make enterprise-wide compliance a nightmare. But our agent-based ConfigOS MPO automation software fixes all that, automatically updating endpoints as they sign in, enabling drag-and-drop operations and ensuring continuous compliance regardless of the number of endpoints you have or whether or not endpoints are signed into the network at any given time.

5. Teams Who Standardize Early Win Later

Work smarter, not harder. The early bird gets the worm. The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. These are more than just popular sayings; they are popular truths.

Whether implementing and maintaining STIGs or CIS Benchmarks, early baseline alignment leads to fewer POA&Ms. Automation results in faster rollouts of new software tools. Simplification enables easier scaling across new systems. Automated implementations mean less clean up later on. And, with audits increasingly becoming a requirement for compliance and in RFPs, the sooner you standardize and comply, the better for your business and your reputation.

6. Automation Has Shifted from Nice-to-Have to Non-Negotiable

We’ve been hearing the urgency all year. “Our budgets can’t sustain adding headcount.” “Our environments are just too big for manual processes.” “We need consistency now, not in six months.” However, many worry automation will cost them more than maintaining a manual or hybrid status quo. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The market is speaking clearly. Every regulated industry wants consistency. The number of systems that need to be secured and audited is increasing. And, overall, everyone up and down the leadership and supply chains wants more security. Needs are quickening to the point that automation is essential, regardless of the framework.

While many may use automated scanners and other tools, only a unified automation solution can simplify current needs and be there to effortlessly scale for future ones. Unified automation incorporates scanning, remediation, maintenance, reporting and continuous compliance into a single, integrated solution that truly delivers on the promise of compliance automation. The days of doing without are over.

Make 2026 More Secure With 2025’s Lessons

Heeding the Top 6 Lessons Learned from Our Clients in 2025 will help your systems become more secure.

As threats become more complex, the need for a simplified way to neutralize them becomes more critical. STIGs and CIS Benchmarks represent the top tier of standardized cybersecurity frameworks. They are what is going to make you more secure in 2026.

The organizations that are succeeding in using these frameworks cite standardization, centralization and automation as their Top 3 most successful approaches. And, frankly, ConfigOS is the fastest, most customizable and thorough way to get them there. Once you see our demo, you’ll see the possibilities for a more secure 2026 and beyond.