Cybersecurity and the evolving challenges facing the CISO:

Cybersecurity has become increasingly critical for many organizations, with the effect that Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) find themselves in prominent positions, often reporting directly to the Board and working with CEOs and CFOs on a daily basis.

As the threat landscape becomes more complex, the risks to the business and the associated costs of those risks are also increasing to an extent that mismanagement can have a serious effect on the organizations bottom line.

Organizations now rely more and more on IT, Digital Transformation programs with initiatives in areas such as cloud, IoT and mobile computing, allowing anytime/anywhere/any device access. This brings greater complexity and expands an organization’s attack surface.

Figure 1 CISO Security Challenges

No longer is the boundary a corporate firewall, it’s now down to an individual and their device. The increasingly complex IT landscape has resulted in a complex security landscape characterized by a range of point security solutions often deployed quickly to address new security concerns. This results in the CISO having to manage an often non-aligned security infrastructure which reduces the organization’s overall security posture.

This coupled with an ever-evolving compliance landscape and rapidly changing threat landscape means that the CISO cannot rely on conventional security practices and must look to put in intelligent, integrated and automated security solutions to handle the increasing volume of threats.

Only by doing this can the CISO deploy a holistic overall risk management strategy that supports and doesn’t hinder business objectives.

Achieving 100% security protection is close to impossible and so you need solutions that look to proactively prevent threats and work to detect and respond to them in a timely manner. At Ward Solutions, we have identified a four-stage security lifecycle to help the CISO to protect from, detect and respond to cyber threats.

Figure 2 Security Lifecycle

Despite being a critical role, many organizations cannot afford to retain or simply do not have a business justification for a full-time, in house Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).

 

CISO as a Service (CISOaaS)

Ward Solutions CISO as a Service provides your organization with the retained services of a highly trained and experienced senior consultant offering you a tailored and flexible strategic service.

The service may either be a full CISO service resource who is effectively your organization’s CISO or an augmentation resource, or a resource who can deliver their skillsets to compliment the delivery of your information security program.

If you would like to speak to our security consultants on best practices to keep your business secure, please contact us to discuss your unique requirements.