When compliance isn’t continuous, that’s a security risk

COMMENTARY: Moving further into 2026, the reality of manual governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) has reached an inflection point.

According to our 2026 State of Continuous Controls Monitoring Report, 95% of organizations have introduced some degree of automation into their GRC processes, but here’s the kicker: only 4% of organizations have achieved full end-to-end automation.

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This "automation gap" has created a workforce breaking point. GRC teams are drowning in manual work, with 83% of security leaders reporting that manual tasks cause moderate or major delays in meeting regulatory requirements. Time spent manually juggling spreadsheets and chasing down evidence is time lost for improving our security posture, implementing new technologies, or taking a proactive approach to risk management

The regulatory landscape has become a treadmill that’s accelerating beyond human capacity. Today, 72% of organizations are juggling six or more compliance frameworks, and 22% are managing more than 10. Even more alarming: more than one-third of organizations report that more than 50% of their current compliance workload has been dedicated to regulatory requirements introduced in just the last five years.

There’s a significant human cost to this complexity:

For small security teams, automation isn’t a "nice-to-have" feature—today it’s survival. When teams are forced to postpone control testing (44%) or policy updates (33%) just to keep up with audit prep, the "compliance checkbox" starts to directly undermine security readiness.

The shift from the "audit loop" to operational assurance

Teams must stop treating compliance as a periodic "event" and start treating it as operational assurance (OA). In a fast-moving threat environment, relying on periodic assessments means our understanding of our security posture will almost always be out of date. While 94% of organizations believe continuous controls monitoring (CCM) strengthens their posture, only 28% of organizations monitor their security controls continuously in real-time.

True GRC maturity means viewing compliance as a "service" that helps the business compete. Security teams need to make GRC the “tip of the spear" for a go-to-market strategy. If the team can prove compliance dynamically, the organization can enter new global markets—from the EU to APJ—at speed. Maturity means we’re not checking our controls because an auditor may pay a visit; we’re checking them every morning to know if our defenses are actually functioning.

The reason the automation gap persists isn't a lack of understanding or demand: it’s a challenge of integration. Today, the average organization struggles with three to four different GRC tools, leading to siloed data and fragmented visibility.

Today’s boards are no longer satisfied with quarterly presentations of "stale" data. Today, 81% of board members view cybersecurity as a fundamental business risk, and they are increasingly demanding real-time risk dashboards and unfettered access to compliance data.

There’s a proven business case for CCM: 97% of organizations saved time by automating some or all of their compliance tasks and processes and 84% reported improved efficiency in audit preparation thanks to automation.

The regulatory treadmill won’t slow down. If anything, it’s speeding up. Now’s the time for real automation.

Dale Hoak, chief information security officer, RegScale

SC Media Perspectives columns are written by a trusted community of SC Media cybersecurity subject matter experts. Each contribution has a goal of bringing a unique voice to important cybersecurity topics. Content strives to be of the highest quality, objective and non-commercial.