Explained Simply
As technology becomes mission-critical across every sector, the ADAPT™ Cyber Risk Model helps organizations transform cybersecurity from a IT issue into a leadership-level discipline.
Why This Model — and This Moment — Matter
Technology is no longer just a support function — it’s the backbone of nearly every operational, financial, and legal process. But while digital transformation has accelerated, cybersecurity governance hasn’t kept pace.
Too often, cybersecurity still operates in silos:
- Disconnected from leadership
- Treated as a technical cost center
- Driven by compliance checklists instead of business strategy
What Is the ADAPT Risk Model?
The ADAPT Risk Model is a five-stage cybersecurity governance framework designed to help organizations identify, prioritize, and operationalize cyber risk in a way that is defensible, transparent, and aligned with business goals.
Each phase is designed to move cybersecurity away from reactive checklists and toward continuous, strategic execution.
| Stage | Purpose |
|---|---|
| A – Assess | Establish shared visibility and baseline maturity |
| D – Diagnose | Identify control gaps and areas of legal or operational exposure |
| A – Align | Distribute ownership of cybersecurity controls across the organization |
| P – Prioritize | Focus time and resources based on impact, cost, and business risk |
| T – Translate | Convert risk strategy into clear projects, timelines, and metrics |
Each phase is designed to move cybersecurity away from reactive checklists and toward continuous, strategic execution.
Why Organizations Need To ADAPT™ Now
Cybersecurity is no longer just about protecting data — it’s about protecting the organization.
Whether you’re a global company, a regional nonprofit, or a local agency, your ability to maintain trust, deliver services, and meet regulatory expectations is now directly tied to your cybersecurity posture.
But most organizations still struggle with:
The ADAPT model gives organizations a way to move forward — not by adding complexity, but by adding structure.
Whether you’re a global company, a regional nonprofit, or a local agency, your ability to maintain trust, deliver services, and meet regulatory expectations is now directly tied to your cybersecurity posture.
But most organizations still struggle with:
- Fragmented policies and spreadsheets
- Compliance efforts with no lasting structure
- Underfunded IT teams bearing all the responsibility
The ADAPT model gives organizations a way to move forward — not by adding complexity, but by adding structure.
The Shift Is Now - From IT-as-Support to IT-as-Strategic Leader
One of the most critical shifts ADAPT enables is redefining IT’s role:
✅ Visibility
Cyber risk is no longer “owned” by IT — it’s seen, shared, and understood across legal, finance, HR, and executive leadership.✅ Accountability
Control ownership is assigned where the responsibility belongs — not where the technical tools sit.✅ Strategic Focus
Decisions are no longer based on urgency or fear — they’re based on documented risk, budget realities, and organizational impact.✅ Defensibility
Audits, insurance claims, and legal challenges can be answered with records, metrics, and maturity benchmarks — not assumptions.Why Current Governance Models Fail — and How ADAPT Fills the Gap
Most organizations don’t lack effort — they lack structure.
Traditional cybersecurity governance approaches often fall short because they rely on:
The result: a fragmented security posture with no clear accountability — and no sustainable roadmap forward.
| Common Failure Point | Why It Fails |
|---|---|
| Checklist-based compliance | Meets minimums but doesn’t reduce real risk |
| Annual point-in-time audits | Produces outdated snapshots that don’t reflect ongoing change |
| Siloed control ownership | IT bears all responsibility, leaving business units detached |
| Tool-driven strategies | Focuses on software, not on the process or accountability |
| Lack of legal defensibility | Actions may be “best effort” but not measurable or documentable |
The result: a fragmented security posture with no clear accountability — and no sustainable roadmap forward.
Implementing the ADAPT Model with the Minerva Platform: A Step-by-Step Approach
The Minerva Cyber Risk Management Platform — now patented under U.S. Patent No. 12,462,207 — was built to operationalize ADAPT at scale. Here’s how organizations implement the model using Minerva’s platform:
Step 1: Assess
- Conduct a live maturity baseline across all security domains
- Compare results to peer benchmarks and industry frameworks (e.g., NIST, TCF, CJIS, FERPA)
- Visualize gaps across technical, administrative, and operational controls
Step 2: Diagnose
- Use Minerva’s legal-risk lens to identify weak spots in documentation, ownership, or coverage
- Map evidence and risk to specific control families and stakeholder groups
Step 3: Align
- Assign each control to the correct business unit — IT, HR, Legal, Finance, etc.
- Create a cross-functional accountability matrix to establish governance ownership
Step 4: Prioritize
-
Use Minerva’s AI-assisted roadmap builder to sequence projects based on:
- Risk reduction value
- Legal defensibility
- Budget impact
- Implementation complexity
- Eliminate “nice-to-have” noise and focus on what matters most
Step 5: Translate
- Generate real-time dashboards, leadership reports, and project tracking tools
- Monitor progress with benchmarks, milestone check-ins, and evidence uploads
- Support insurance, audits, and board briefings with export-ready documentation
With Minerva, the ability to ADAPT™ is not just a platitude — it transforms culture.
The Organizational Payoff
When organizations adopt ADAPT, they gain:
- ✅ Real-time clarity into where they stand — and where they’re headed
- ✅ Prioritized roadmaps based on business value and defensibility
- ✅ Cross-departmental accountability for managing cyber risk
- ✅ Clear evidence of due diligence for regulators, insurers, and boards
- ✅ A sustainable governance model that doesn’t rely on one person or one tool
Most importantly, they shift from “Are we compliant?” to “Are we in control?”
See how Minerva helps your district take real, measurable steps to protect student data, reduce legal risk, and meet the evolving cybersecurity expectations.