It’s safe to say that for an organisation to succeed, cyber security must play a leading role in its overall business strategy, says Jordan Schroeder, managing CISO at the cyber firm Barrier Networks.
Cyber crime has the power to destroy organisations. Whether it’s customer trust, sensitive data or the loss of funds, attacks can shatter an organisation’s future in minutes. Furthermore, cyber security is no longer just a nice to have, it is mandatory that organisations meet compliance requirements to keep customer and employee data safe, otherwise they will face immense financial penalties, which can threaten their solvency. It is therefore imperative that organisations understand the criticality of cyber today and embed it into all their processes, to not only safeguard their sensitive assets but also to protect business continuity.
However, for many organisations, delivering this level of cyber resilience is a major challenge. Cyber security is already widely viewed as a heavy drain on internal resources, so building a robust cyber strategy, which underpins all organisational activities is something many businesses struggle to deliver. While many organisations outsource their cyber security to dedicated service providers, many of these offerings only take care of the day-to-day activities, such as detection and response. They don’t help businesses build out corporate security strategies, which are designed to their specific needs – covering all employees, networks and assets with objectives and goals to measure and improve cyber resilience.
But to survive in a hostile digital world, organisations can’t afford to live without these important strategies. Is there a way to bridge the gap? Could a CISO-as-a-Service be the answer?
Role of Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
The CISO is undoubtedly one of the newest entrants into the c-suite. In their role, CISOs are responsible for the overall running of cyber security within a business – ensuring it safeguards critical assets and processes and acts as an enabler for business. The CISO often re-ports into the board keeping them updated on business-level threats, regulatory compliance, security budgets and any upcoming activities which could impact the safe running of their business.
The CISO plays a critical role in driving security within an organisation, but given how new the role is, very few qualified and competent CISOs exist today. This makes them very expensive to recruit, particularly for mid-sized organisations. Furthermore, many of these businesses don’t require a full-time CISO, they only require their services on a contract basis, where they can benefit from the insights and expertise CISOs have to offer without taking on an expensive new recruit. Fortunately for these businesses, the most obvious answer to the problem comes in the form of CISO-as-a-Service packages.
CISO-as-a-Service packages
CISO-as-a-Service packages offer organisations with access to a CISO on a contractual basis. CISO services are designed to bring leadership skills and expertise to organisations at their disposal, helping them to stay secure and compliant. They provide organisations with everything they need to build, implement, and manage a complete information security and threat prevention programme without burdening budgets.
They provide organisations with a flexible, cost-efficient, and seasoned cyber security specialist that can help them build out and manage security and regulatory compliance and they often have invaluable experience in data protection, identity and access management, security test-ing, risk management, disaster recovery and regulatory compliance. This helps to deliver organ-sations with customised services and consulting remotely or on-site to ensure that risks are reduced while continuously improving overall security posture.
The CISO will often work with the organisation to gain a deep understanding of its business model, employees, customers, network and geographical locations and then they work with the business to build out a security program to support their specific needs. They can also act as an advisor on cyber to other C-suite executives and provide expertise to help the organisation improve its resilience against attacks, meet global and local compliance requirements, and embed security across their processes and employees.
Overall, outsourced CISO services support organisations that don’t have a requirement for a full-time permanent head of security, allowing them to stay ahead of threats and build security programs, which help keep them safe and successful in today’s increasingly hostile digital world.
