Threat Exposure as a Narrative: If Attackers Tell a Story, Why Don’t We?
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Security teams are losing the communication battle to cybercriminals who intuitively understand something we’ve forgotten: humans think in stories, not spreadsheets. While we present fragmented vulnerability counts and compliance metrics, sophisticated attackers craft coherent breach narratives that unfold like compelling thrillers. The solution extends beyond improved dashboards, requiring a shift toward attacker-centric thinking by framing threat exposure as narrative threads rather than isolated data points.
Research into recent high-profile breaches reveals that successful cybercriminals operate as master storytellers, creating campaigns with clear setup, escalation, climax, and resolution phases. Meanwhile, security teams fragment their communications across dozens of tools and metrics, losing executives in technical noise when they should be crafting compelling business narratives about organizational risk.
Attackers as narrative architects
Analysis of the LinkedIn (2021), MGM (2023), and MoveIt (2023) breaches reveals remarkably consistent story arc patterns, despite completely different attack vectors. Each breach demonstrates how cybercriminals think sequentially and narratively when planning and executing campaigns.
The LinkedIn breach followed a classic data harvesting narrative: reconnaissance and API discovery (setup) → systematic data collection using sophisticated scraping infrastructure (escalation) → data processing and cross-referencing with other breach datasets (rising action) → public release of 700 million profiles (climax) → ongoing impact on user privacy (resolution). The attackers made strategic decisions at each stage, choosing comprehensive data collection over stealth and public release over private monetization.
MGM’s breach exemplified social engineering mastery: extensive employee reconnaissance via LinkedIn (setup) → 10-minute vishing call to IT help desk impersonating an employee (initial access) → immediate exploitation of obtained administrator privileges to compromise Okta and Azure environments (escalation) → ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware deployment across 100+ ESXi hypervisors (climax) → $100 million in damages over 12-day operational shutdown (resolution). Each phase built logically on the previous one, with attackers adapting their narrative when MGM attempted containment.
The MoveIt supply chain attack showed patient, strategic campaign development: two years of zero-day research and tool development (extended setup) → coordinated exploitation of CVE-2023-34362 across thousands of servers (initial access) → rapid data exfiltration before patch deployment (escalation) → supply chain cascade affecting 2,700+ organizations and 93.3 million individuals (climax) → ongoing extortion campaigns (extended resolution). The attackers understood that compromising one managed file transfer system would create cascading narratives across hundreds of victim organizations.
The CTEM model outlined by Gartner reflects exactly what these breach case studies reveal: attackers act continuously, contextually, and with clear objectives. CTEM calls for five stages: scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization. But to be fully effective, those stages must be communicated not as workflow steps, but as evolving narratives. Exposure programs that frame these phases as a story, beginning with what adversaries see, escalating with what they can exploit, and resolving with what can be mitigated, achieve faster buy-in and tighter alignment between teams. Modern cybercriminals increasingly use “narrative attacks”: deliberately crafted stories that enhance technical attacks through pre-attack narratives for social engineering, campaign coherence across multi-stage operations, and post-attack disinformation to cover tracks or amplify damage. Advanced Persistent Threat groups demonstrate sophisticated long-term planning with strategic objective setting, target ecosystem mapping, resource allocation across custom malware families, and operational security planning for persistent access.
The fragmentation crisis in security reporting
While attackers think in coherent story arcs, security teams present threat exposure through fragmented approaches that obscure rather than illuminate risk patterns. Current risk management frameworks: NIST CSF, ISO 27001, provide technically comprehensive risk assessment but lack narrative coherence for effective organizational decision-making.
Research shows 78% of organizations use more than 50 different cybersecurity tools, with 37% using over 100 tools. This creates disparate data sources requiring manual correlation, inconsistent risk assessment methodologies, and siloed reporting that lacks unified context. Security teams struggle with technical versus business language barriers, reactive rather than proactive messaging, and compliance-focused rather than risk-focused communication.
The consequences are severe: board support for CISOs dropped from 71% to 51% in one year, with less than one-third of directors satisfied with cybersecurity information received. CISOs typically get only 10-15 minutes quarterly with boards, yet often waste this precious time on technical activities rather than business impact narratives.
Current frameworks present risk as disconnected technical metrics rather than cohesive narratives, static snapshots rather than dynamic threat evolution stories, and compliance checklists rather than business impact scenarios. This approach fails to connect individual vulnerabilities to broader business risk narratives, explain how threats evolve over time, or provide decision-makers with compelling future scenarios.
Narrative frameworks for threat exposure transformation
Security teams can transform their communication by adopting proven narrative frameworks already successful in business and crisis communication. The SCQA framework (Situation-Complication-Question-Answer) can reframe security presentations: establish current security posture (Situation), introduce emerging threats or gaps (Complication), pose key challenges requiring action (Question), and present strategic recommendations (Answer).
The “Exposure Plot” framework adapts a three-act structure for cybersecurity: Act I establishes current security posture with industry comparisons and baseline understanding; Act II introduces threat landscape evolution with emerging risks specific to the organization and potential business impact; Act III presents strategic response with recommended investments, expected outcomes, and implementation roadmap.
Gartner’s CTEM framework is also an integral storytelling opportunity. Gartner defines Continuous Threat Exposure Management as a structured approach to evaluating the accessibility, exploitability, and impact of digital assets continuously and consistently. But too often, CTEM is implemented as just another layer of scans and dashboards. To drive real value, CTEM must deliver narrative clarity: Which threats are approaching, how they will unfold, and what outcomes can be prevented. When CTEM is tied to narrative frameworks like SCQA or the three-act exposure plot, it doesn’t just surface exposure, it explains it.
Research demonstrates that narrative approaches increase comprehension and retention by 40-60% compared to technical reports, engage episodic memory more effectively than statistical presentations, and create emotional connections that drive behavioral change. Security leaders already using storytelling techniques report significantly improved executive engagement and resource allocation.
Practical implementation: from fragmented reports to coherent exposure narratives
Transform vulnerability reports into attack progression stories that connect individual findings to potential business outcomes using timeline narratives showing how threats develop and mature. Instead of presenting “847 critical vulnerabilities,” tell the story of how an attacker could exploit the top three to achieve business impact.
Develop audience-specific risk narratives: technical teams need detailed attack path stories with mitigation narratives, business leaders require strategic risk scenarios with clear business impact themes, and board members need high-level threat landscape stories with financial implications.
Create continuous narrative threads across multiple reporting periods rather than isolated quarterly snapshots. Build cumulative understanding by developing ongoing security story arcs that show how the organization’s risk profile evolves over time and how security investments create positive narrative outcomes.
Implement the ABT framework (And-But-Therefore) for executive communications: “We have strong perimeter defenses AND employee training, BUT insider threats are increasing by 30% annually in our industry, THEREFORE we need zero-trust architecture to protect against internal compromise scenarios.”
Gartner’s CTEM framework has shifted how CISOs approach threat exposure: away from once-a-quarter spreadsheets and toward dynamic, business-aligned risk conversations. But what’s missing is story architecture. CTEM helps teams identify what’s exposed. Narrative helps them communicate why it matters. Without story, CTEM risks becoming yet another siloed initiative, technically sound, but strategically disconnected. With story, it becomes a unified language across security, IT, and leadership. The path from exposure to executive action starts with coherence, and CTEM is the structure that makes it continuous.
The most sophisticated cybercriminals already understand that successful attacks require coherent narratives that unfold logically from initial access to business impact. Security teams must match this narrative sophistication, transforming fragmented risk reports into compelling exposure plots that drive appropriate urgency and resource allocation. When we present threat exposure as coherent stories rather than disconnected metrics, we give executives the context they need to make informed decisions about organizational cybersecurity investments.
The choice is clear: continue losing executive attention with fragmented technical reporting, or learn from our adversaries by crafting compelling security narratives that align organizational understanding around cyber risk. The attackers are already thinking in story arcs, it’s time security teams did the same.
