- 100% of organisations have granted security or compliance exceptions to allow high-risk digital work to proceed despite acknowledged risk
- 20% of organisations have cancelled strategic initiatives, and 39% delayed growth projects due to a lack of secure technology environments
New research from Replica Cyber, a secure environment platform for high stakes work, reveals that businesses are universally trading security for speed when conducting business-critical, high-risk digital work*, with every organisation surveyed granting security exceptions to keep projects moving forward. The study findings also demonstrate that a lack of available, secure digital environments is slowing business growth.
Based on a survey of 200 U.S. cybersecurity leaders undertaken by independent research company, Opinion Matters, ‘Trading Safety for Speed: The Rise of the Exception Economy’ delivers clear evidence that the need for organisations to undertake high-risk digital work is expanding faster than infrastructure can keep pace. As a result, organisations are caught between business urgency and secure, compliant execution.
Key findings include:
- Exception culture is now standard operating procedure. 100% of organisations granted security or compliance exceptions in the past 12 months (63% formally, 33.5% through informal workarounds).
- Strategic initiatives are stalling, not just slowing. 39% of organisations delayed or cancelled market expansion, product launches, M&A, or AI deployment because the work couldn’t be conducted securely. Twenty percent of high-risk work was cancelled entirely.
- Confidence in protecting critical assets during high-risk work is virtually non-existent. Just one in three cybersecurity leaders feels confident their IP, identities, or infrastructure are adequately protected during high-risk work.
A Visibility Crisis at the Top
The research also reveals a disconnect between leadership perception and operational reality. While 20–27% of C-suite leaders believe secure environments are ready when needed, only 5.3% of VPs of Cybersecurity agree, suggesting that leadership may be unaware of the friction that forces teams into risky workarounds.
“The Exception Economy is a system under pressure,” said Kristopher Schroeder, CEO at Replica Cyber. “When 100% of organisations are granting security exceptions, they’re not choosing speed carelessly. They are responding to a structural problem that forces a choice between greater exposure, or stalled growth and missed opportunity.”
The report examines where high-risk work is happening, how it’s protected, and what’s slowing teams down. It finds organisations improvising across fragmented environments, delaying critical initiatives, and abandoning roughly 1 in 5 high-risk projects due to exposure or compliance constraints.
While exceptions are keeping work moving, the data shows they’re also driving measurable business impact. There is no cost-free path: every choice has a price. The full report explores how these trade-offs are playing out across environments, leadership roles, and risk decisions, and what organisations can do to break the cycle.
Download the full report: https://replicacyber.com/the-exception-economy/
*High risk digital work examples including: sensitive business projects (strategic research, innovation lab, IP development, high-stakes partnerships, M&A, etc), AI / LLM experimentation with sensitive data, AI agents or automation with some decision-making authority, Threat intelligence & open-source investigations (OSINT), Incident response / digital forensics, Fraud and financial crime investigations, Malware analysis and detonation.