Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

Cybersecurity needs are congruent with the size of your organisation, understanding your organisation's threat environment should be the first thing you do before you decide to hire a chief information security officer. Depending on the intricacy of your threat environment, your organisation can prioritize its security.

Improved cybersecurity policies can help employees better understand how to maintain the security of data and applications. For your business to have effective information security policies and procedures in place and for it to be maintained, you may require the expertise and experience of a CISO. 

Organisations in certain industries handle and on some occasions store extensive amounts of sensitive information, for example in the healthcare and finance industry. This causes them to be heavily regulated, therefore they require an extensive and comprehensive cybersecurity solution compared to regular businesses.

Cybersecurity has become a top priority of business around the world, this has led to an increase in demand for experts. Unfortunately, the demand for business information security professionals exceeds the available skillsets. Finding the right experience and expertise at an affordable cost may be a challenging task for businesses, which is why a Virtual CISO may be the perfect solution.  

A key role for a CISO within your organisation is to provide guidance on your cybersecurity program on a strategic level. Along with guidance, it is a CISO’s responsibility to make sure organisations remain compliant with cybersecurity standards, policy, regulations and legislation.

Make sure that the objectives of your organisation’s cybersecurity program are in line with the objectives that your organisation hopes to achieve. One key function of this role is to ensure clear communication between security personnel and key stakeholders.

CISOs play an important role when it comes to providing business leaders with intelligence on key cybersecurity trends, in addition to providing upper-level management with a consolidated and comprehensive view of their organisation's cybersecurity posture.

A CISO oversees how well internal teams handle a cybersecurity incident when it is identified. If needed a CISO is expected to step in and manage incident response, i.e. in a major security breach
crisis management is the responsibility of the CISO. During a security incident, it is the CISO’s responsibility to bring a level of clarity to the key internal and external stakeholders.

Implementing existing business continuity and disaster recovery plans is another key role of a CISO. Security incidents can have numerous effects on an organisation’s wellbeing, for example, ransomware incidents can cause downtime as the business recovers. A CISO can play a vital role in managing business continuity in the aftermath of a security incident.

Another key role of a CISO is to promote a culture of strong information security, to facilitate broad security cultural change across their organisation, the CISO should act as a thought leader, continually communicating their strategy and vision. This can be effectively achieved by tailoring communications to different parts of the organisation and being topical for the intended audience

There is a significant risk to your organisation’s information security via the suppliers and service providers you work with. A CISO can help ensure that consistent vendor management processes are in place to mitigate these information security risks.

It is also the responsibility of a CISO to use the allocated budget towards an organisation's cybersecurity program efficiently and effectively. A CISO can help an organisation make decisions when it comes to investing in cybersecurity smartly.