Exploring the Benefit of a CISO

With cybercrime more prevalent than ever, the importance of keeping your business protected cannot be overstated. In fact, it is so important that there’s a C-suite level role dedicated to it: the Chief Information Security Officer—the CISO. While such a position is fairly common amongst enterprise organizations, smaller businesses might not be able to implement this role in their own hierarchy… at least, not without assistance.

As the cybersecurity threats that businesses face have expanded in scope and severity, the role of the CISO has only become more crucial. Formerly, organizations didn’t employ a cybersecurity professional, but with the immense amount of cyberattacks that have plagued organizations over the past few years, it stands to reason that a company’s IT strategy should include a decision maker to strictly handle cybersecurity.

The CISO typically reports to the Chief Information Officer (CIO), even though they both share places on the C-Suite, this is because the CIO oversees most of the general technology policies and direction of the business’ technology. The CISO, however, is a specialized position that handles the specific issues relating to cybersecurity and is therefore explicitly responsible for the wellbeing of information systems as much as the CIO is. 

The relationship continues to shift as well, largely due to the circumstances surrounding the advancement of threats from the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s no secret that with more business being handled over distributed means, the potential for data breaches has taken on a new shape. According to a survey conducted by Heidrick & Struggles, CISO responsibilities have shifted from handling “network security, firewalls, security policies, and governance,” to being “tasked with securing connected devices, devising identity and access management systems, implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as risk management, privacy, investigations, and physical security, among other issues.” 

This change is a major advancement of the CISOs’ responsibilities, and for network security policy in particular. CISOs must now consider other avenues to protect their organization, advance training, and find strategies that can advance the data and network security of their organizations.

Unfortunately, hiring a CISO is an investment that not many small businesses can afford, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get the consultation and the coordination needed to ensure cybersecurity is a priority. At BNMC, we have a team of expert IT professionals willing to use their considerable expertise to help your organization deploy the tools and position your business

 to protect against any threat that the Internet has to offer. If you would like to learn more about how we leverage our knowledge of information systems security into a better workplace experience for your staff, give us a call today at (978) 482-2020.