Security Brutalism: A CISO's Guide to Operational Clarity

This is the second post in a series exploring the concept of Security Brutalism and its real-world applications. It focuses on helping CISOs grasp the significance of Brutalist Security and communicate its value effectively to executive leadership to gain buy-in.

Executive Summary: Cutting Through the Complexity

Today’s enterprise security landscape is paralyzed by complexity. It is bloated with overlapping tools, legacy controls, and compliance theater that distract from true risk reduction. For CISOs and security leaders, the result is a program that’s difficult to manage, harder to explain, and nearly impossible to measure in terms that matter to the boardroom.

Security Brutalism is a response—not a rebellion. It doesn’t throw out frameworks or maturity models, but it demands that they be subordinate to effect. It is a strategic mindset for CISOs who want their security programs to be lean, fast, and outcome-driven.

Just as special operations doctrine values simplicity, precision, and speed over mass and bureaucracy, Security Brutalism insists that security must be functional, visible, and decisive. At the end of the day, we are at war—and we must structure our approach, programs, and teams to combat an adversary that is agile, relentless, and equipped to strike at any time with whatever tools they have at their disposal.

Core Principles: The Strategic Doctrine of Security Brutalism

These principles map directly to executive priorities: risk reduction, operational efficiency, and trust with the business.

1. Simplicity of Form, Clarity of Purpose

Security programs must be legible to executives, understandable to engineers, and actionable at every layer.

• Executive Translation: If you need a 30-slide deck to explain your IAM strategy, it’s too complex. Clarity accelerates alignment.
• Operational Application: Replace sprawling access policies with concise standards that teams can apply and audit in real time.

2. Intentional Friction

Some friction is essential to risk reduction. Brutalism doesn’t remove all obstacles—it ensures they’re strategically placed.

• Executive Translation: Protecting critical workflows with gates (eg. approvals, MFA) at key risk junctures is smarter than enforcing blanket controls.
• Operational Application: Insert friction only where decisions carry high impact (eg. production access, privilege escalation).

3. Operational Minimalism

Your toolset should shrink, not grow. Each platform must be accountable to a measurable outcome.

• Executive Translation: You don’t need 20 tools. You need five tools that perform.
• Operational Application: Conduct quarterly security stack reviews. Eliminate low-impact tools to reduce spend and cognitive load.

4. Strategic Visibility

Security must provide signal, not noise. Executives should see key risks in real-time, not buried in dashboards.

• Executive Translation: Focus on telemetry that drives decisions: privileged anomalies, asset exposure, production changes.
• Operational Application: Build dashboards with five executive-ready questions: "Who touched prod?”, "What changed?”, "What’s broken?”, "What’s vulnerable?”, "What’s anomalous?”

5. Decentralized Defense, Centralized Doctrine

Empower product teams to move fast—but within a small set of non-negotiable standards.

• Executive Translation: Speed without doctrine breeds chaos. Doctrine without flexibility breeds stagnation.
• Operational Application: Define a short list of critical security rules (eg. secrets must be vaulted, all infra must be tagged), and enforce them with automation.

CISO Case Studies: Brutalism in the Field

Case Study 1: The Fast Review Program

Challenge: 25+ fragmented engineering teams. Security reviews were slow, inconsistent, and business-blocking.

Brutalist Move:

• Built a tiered intake using Slack and ServiceNow (or similar tools).
• Empowered engineers with a 10-question self-assessment.
• Created a 5-minute rubric for low-risk reviews.

Results:

• 70% of requests cleared in under 24 hours.
• Security team approval rate dropped—because incoming requests improved.
• Product teams praised security as an enabler, not a gatekeeper.

Case Study 2: Kill the Dashboard, Elevate the Signal

Challenge: SOC overwhelmed by false positives. Executives lost visibility into real risks.

Brutalist Move:

• Cut 80% of noisy alerts by employing cutting-edge automation and domain-specific AI to efficiently filter out noise and highlight critical information.
• Deployed an executive-facing command dashboard tracking privileged access anomalies, open threats, and mitigation status.

Results:

• Triage time dropped from 3 hours to 10 minutes.
• Executive briefings became data-driven and focused.
• SOC morale recovered; productivity surged.

Case Study 3: The Doctrine Wall

Challenge: Inconsistent security practices across business units. Policies ignored.

Brutalist Move:

• Replaced policy bloat with a single-page doctrine: five rules, zero exceptions.
• Embedded doctrine in every engineering team’s space, wiki, and team communication channels.
• Aligned all audits to these five principles.

Results:

• 90% drop in misconfigurations.
• Engineers took pride in compliance.
• Security transitioned from enforcer to operational partner.

Conclusion: Security Brutalism as Executive Strategy

Security Brutalism is not about austerity. It’s about clarity of mission. It’s about making security measurable, operational, and integrated into how the business wins.

We are not building cathedrals. We are building bunkers. Strong, clear, and unapologetically purpose-built.

As a CISO or executive leader, ask yourself:

• Where is my program performing theater instead of producing results?
• What doctrine can I clarify and enforce without compromise?
• How can I empower speed without surrendering control?

Security doesn’t need more layers. It needs stronger bones.

That is the way of Security Brutalism.