Cybersecurity isn’t just a technical conversation anymore; it’s a financial one.
In healthcare, the cost of cyber risk is measured not only in terms of breached records or downtime, but also in canceled procedures, delayed reimbursements, and long-term reputational damage. When patient safety and solvency are both at stake, CISOs and CFOs must operate as partners, not peers in separate silos.
In 2024, more than 275 million records were exposed at an average cost of $10.1 million per breach, the highest on record. By mid-2025, the Office for Civil Rights had already recorded more than 300 new incidents, underscoring the scale and persistence of attacks. The takeaway: cybersecurity is now a budget-level issue, and CFOs need to see it that way.
1. Speak Their Language: Link Cyber Risk to Financial Impact
For CFOs, every decision comes back to dollars: revenue, EBITDA, and cash flow. When discussing risk, quantify the actual cost of an outage or breach to the organization.
- What does 24 hours of system downtime mean for billing or claims processing?
- How much would a ransomware event delay reimbursements or impact liquidity?
- What’s the financial impact of losing trust with payers or partners?
Translating cyber risk into financial terms reframes the discussion from “IT security” to “enterprise resilience.”
2. Build Trust Through Transparency
CFOs don’t need a crash course in firewalls or zero trust. What they need is confidence — that you understand the risks, have a plan, and can articulate how investments reduce exposure. Bring metrics that show measurable progress, such as mean time to detect and recover, or trends in vendor risk reduction. The goal isn’t to sell fear; it’s to demonstrate control and accountability.
3. Prepare the Financial Playbook for an Incident
When a breach hits, CFOs become first responders too, sourcing liquidity, managing insurer payouts, and coordinating emergency vendor payments. Utilize tabletop exercises to incorporate finance into incident response planning. The more CFOs understand what happens in the first 72 hours, the more aligned your organization will be when a crisis strikes.
4. Frame Security as ROI, Not Overhead
Cyber investments compete with clinical, capital, and IT priorities. To gain CFO support, position security spending in terms of cost avoidance and risk mitigation.
A $1 million investment that prevents $ 750,000 in annual downtime losses pays for itself and protects patient care continuity in the process. When security and finance share a common ROI framework, budget conversations become strategic rather than transactional.
5. Strengthen the CFO–CISO Alliance
The strongest organizations treat cybersecurity as a shared responsibility between finance and security.
CFOs bring financial discipline; CISOs bring operational visibility. Together, they ensure that the cybersecurity strategy aligns with the goals of patient safety, compliance, and sustainability. In 2026, this partnership will become even more critical, particularly as auditors and insurers begin to require quarterly cyber attestations and financial modeling of risk.
The Bottom Line
Cyber incidents have proven they can erode margins just as quickly as they disrupt patient care. CISOs who engage their CFOs early and often will not only secure more effective budgets, but they’ll also build enterprise-wide trust and resilience.
Fortified’s new guide, Fortifying Healthcare’s Bottom Line: Cybersecurity Priorities for CFOs, by Fortified’s CFOO, Greg Breetz, breaks down what financial leaders are prioritizing for 2026 and how CISOs can align their message to secure the funding, visibility, and collaboration needed to defend patient care.
Download the guide here.
