The swift digitization of businesses has revolutionized how Indian publicly listed firms utilize their financial resources, engage with stakeholders, and generate value in an organizational context. The increased reliance on digital facilities has exposed corporations to cyber-attacks, data thefts, ransomware, and financial scams. Henceforth, cybersecurity is no longer just an issue for IT but has turned into a significant part of corporate governance and financial accountability. The research work aims to explore the relationship between cyber governance and financial accountability in Indian listed firms, covering board supervision, cyber-risk, internal control issues, governance of cybersecurity investment, and compliance and reporting. It proposes an Integrated Cyber Risk Governance Framework to help firms align cybersecurity decisions with financial governance. In this study, a quantitative and cross-sectional research design is recommended. The research uses responses from the directors, CFOs, CISOs, risk managers, internal auditors and compliance officers of the listed firms in India, followed by analysis through SEM. A representative dataset is used for this, which shows that all of the five dimensions of cyber-governance are good predictors of financial accountability. In this regard, the dataset shows that the cyber-risk management proves to be the strongest set of predictors of financial responsibility. Thus, the contribution of this research is both the theoretical and practical insertion of cyber governance into the framework of financial responsibility, thereby building the governing framework suitable for digitally dependent listed companies.

References

 Alsadoun, A. A., &Albaz, M. M. (2025). The impact of cybersecurity risk disclosure and governance on firm value and stock return volatility. Journal of Governance & Regulation, 14(1), 194–205.

 Cortez, E. K., & Dekker, M. (2022). A corporate governance approach to cybersecurity risk disclosure. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 13(4), 709–725.

 Dacorogna, M., & Kratz, M. (2023). Managing cyber risk, a science in the making. Risks, 11(2), 32.

 Elsayed, D. H., Ismail, T. H., & Ahmed, E. A. (2024). The impact of cybersecurity disclosure on banks‘ performance: The moderating role of corporate governance in the MENA region. Future Business Journal, 10, Article 115.

 Franco, M. F., Künzler, F., von der Assen, J., Feng, C., & Stiller, B. (2023). RCVaR: An economic approach to estimate cyberattacks costs using data from industry reports. arXiv.

 Frimpong, E. T., Schindlinger, D., Vadala, D., Ciccarelli, K., Olcott, J., & Barnett, J. (2024). Cybersecurity, audit, and the board: How does board oversight impact cybersecurity performance? Diligent Institute/Bitsight.

 Gordon, L. A., Loeb, M. P., & Zhou, L. (2010). The impact of information security breaches: Has there been a downward shift in costs? Journal of Computer Security, 19(1), 33–56.

 International Organization for Standardization. (2022). ISO/IEC 27001:2022: Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. ISO.

 Jiang, X., Martin, X., & Smith, J. (2022). Cybersecurity risk and the cross-section of stock returns. Journal of Financial Economics.

 Liu, C., & Babar, M. A. (2025). Corporate cybersecurity risk and data breaches: A systematic review of empirical research. Australian Journal of Management.

 Maréchal, L., & Celeny, D. (2024). Cyber risk and the cross-section of stock returns. arXiv.  Maréchal, L., & Monnet, N. (2024). Disentangling the sources of cyber risk premia. arXiv.

 Matemane, R., Denhere, V., Mokabane, M., &Ojeyinka, T. A. (2024). Cybersecurity risk disclosure, board characteristics, and firm performance in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era: Evidence from an emerging economy. African Finance Journal, 26(1), 34–53.

 McIntosh, T. R., Susnjak, T., Liu, T., Watters, P., Nowrozy, R., &Halgamuge, M. N. (2024). From COBIT to ISO 42001: Evaluating cybersecurity frameworks for opportunities, risks, and regulatory compliance in commercializing large language models. arXiv.

 Modi, A., Kuzminykh, I., & Ghita, B. (2023). Data driven approaches to cybersecurity governance for board decision-making: A systematic review. arXiv.

 Oktavendi, T. W., &Kholmi, M. (2024). How important is cybersecurity disclosure for firm value? JurnalAkuntansiMultiparadigma, 15(2), 377–386.

 Rahmah, S. A., &Mahastanti, L. A. (2026). Do risk disclosure and firm value drive Indonesian bank stock returns? Review of Management and Entrepreneurship, 10(1), 109–128.

 Securities and Exchange Board of India. (2024, August 20). Cybersecurity and cyber resilience framework (CSCRF) for SEBI regulated entities (REs) (Circular No. SEBI/HO/ITD 1/ITD_CSC_EXT/P/CIR/2024/113). SEBI.

 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2023). Cybersecurity risk management, strategy, governance, and incident disclosure. U.S. SEC.  World Economic Forum. (2024). Global cybersecurity outlook 2024. World Economic Forum.

 World Economic Forum. (2025). Global cybersecurity outlook 2025. World Economic Forum.