Frank starts his day with a hot cup of coffee and a glance through the latest cybersecurity news .
Each headline is a potential signal of his company’s next big security challenge. Mindful of this, he takes a few notes that he’ll revisit later.
Soon enough, Frank’s phone is buzzing with regular updates from his security operations center, and he’ll head off to his first strategic meeting on his calendar—a calendar packed with security strategy discussions, crisis management sessions, and meetings with other C-suite executives.
In the afternoon, Frank’s team informs him of an unusual spike in network traffic that morning. He responds by holding a brief meeting with his security analysts to determine whether the event was a cyberattack or simply an anomaly before creating an appropriate action plan.
Before the day is through, Frank will have met with the executive team to discuss a new and promising cybersecurity platform, run a security breach drill, and taught a class on ongoing compliance for junior staff.
Frank is a Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO . It’s a demanding yet rewarding role that uniquely blends addressing immediate concerns with deeply strategic planning. Every decision Frank makes as a CISO is critical to safeguarding the organization’s reputation and financial stability.
You might be an IT professional looking to become a CISO or a business leader looking to add a CISO position to your organization. Either way, this brief guide will help you understand what the CISO role is, what responsibilities it entails, the differences between CISO vs. CIO (and CISO vs. CSO), and one possible solution for those on the fence about hiring a CISO.
What is a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)?
A Chief Information Security Officer is a senior-level executive who develops and implements an organization’s information security program. The CISO is dedicated to the specific area of information security, which involves mitigating the risk of cybersecurity breaches that affect organizational data, systems, and networks.
It’s a role that has never been more vital, especially since cyber attacks have risen dramatically over the past few years. In fact, Truesec’s recent 2024 Threat Intelligence Report notes that cyber attacks have increased by 221% in 2024 compared to 2022.
This number is staggering, and, if nothing else, it tells us that businesses have underestimated cybersecurity threats. If organizations want to take this issue seriously, hiring a dedicated cybersecurity leadership position, a CISO, is a great start. Especially since the average cost of a security breach was $4.45 million in 2023 (and that doesn’t even cover the non-monetary damages like reputational damage, loss of customer and shareholder trust, etc.).
What Qualifications Does a CISO Need?
The single most important qualification for CISOs is their experience in infosec (information security) roles. The best of them come with extensive experience spanning a decade (or more) with demonstrable leadership skills and a proven track record in managing security teams and projects.
If you’re looking for the very best, you should seek candidates who can consistently handle high-stakes security challenges, especially those that reflect the evolving threat landscape.
If they prove to be qualified in terms of experience, you can then consider their certifications, as these are proof of their experience and knowledge in the field. Highly valued certifications for this role include CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) , CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor), and CCISO (Certified Chief Information Security Officer), each of which provides validation of expertise across a variety of information security and risk management expectations.
What’s the Difference Between CISO vs. CIO?
The CISO’s primary focus is information security. The Chief Information Officer or CIO role differs because it focuses more broadly on the overall information technology (IT) strategy and infrastructure.
So, a CISO manages the organization’s data and systems by building a cybersecurity plan and implementing it to security programs or responding to information security threats. A CIO manages IT budgets, oversees technology projects, and works on keeping IT systems and services in optimal operation. In many cases, the CISO reports to the CIO.
What’s the Difference Between CISO vs. CSO?
Likewise, the Chief Security Officer or CSO role differs from the CISO because they focus on the organization’s overall security position, covering everything from physical to digital security.
While the CISO handles IT security, the CSO’s broader role involves protecting the organization’s personnel, assets, intellectual property, and facilities. The CSO typically reports directly to the CEO.
Why Are CISOs Important in Protecting Company Data and Assets?
CISOs are crucial executive team members because they leverage their extensive, specialized expertise in information security to prevent breaches, cyber attacks on sensitive company information, and unauthorized access to data.
They do this by strategically creating security programs to address and mitigate cybersecurity threats through policies, procedures, controls, and meeting regulatory requirements.
Plus, they create and execute incident response plans and crisis management to reduce the amount of damage done in the case of an incident. Since CISOs are so experienced, they’re qualified to help train the rest of the organization on information security awareness and to foster a security-centric company culture.
What Are the Responsibilities of a CISO in a Company?
Fundamentally, CISOs are executive-level leaders of an organization. The key expectations and responsibilities of the role reflect this.
Report to Senior-Level Leaders, CEOs, or Boards of Directors
CISOs will keep all senior leadership updated with regular reports on incidents, vulnerabilities, incident response plans, updates to the security program, emerging threats, and more.
As touched upon above, the CISO is in a position to recommend technologies or strategic changes but it may not be approved by leadership, in which case the CISO will have to reconsider their plan.
Keeping everybody updated is an important part of that cycle, especially when it comes to reporting on which security investments are producing the best returns.
Granted, this only briefly touches upon the responsibilities of the multifaceted role of a CISO. Even now, as the external threat landscape changes along with compliance expectations, so do the CISO’s responsibilities.
The position requires somebody well-grounded in a deep understanding of information security (and best practices) yet dynamic enough to swiftly adjust their strategies to account for seen and unforeseen changes.
Manage Security Operations
The day-to-day tasks of managing security operations include security monitoring, vulnerability management, access control, and incident management, to name a few.
Security monitoring – It’s up to the CISO to stay on top of the Security Operations Center (SOC), should their organization have one, as it keeps track of suspicious network activity.Vulnerability management – Due to internal and external changes regularly occurring in the business, systems must constantly be checked for new potential vulnerabilities. The CISO will usually coordinate with the IT team to stay on top of system updates.Access control – User access is a crucial factor in keeping information safe, and the CISO is responsible for implementing necessary protocols like role-based access controls and authentication to stop unwanted intrusions.Incident Management – One of the more pivotal aspects of being a CISO is developing and executing incident response plans. Their expertise is crucial in having a plan and resorting to that plan if something goes wrong. The benefit of having a clearly defined plan is that it’s communicated to the entire organization to ensure the response is swift and coordinated.
Develop and Implement Cybersecurity Policies
Developing and implementing a comprehensive, company-wide cybersecurity program is one of the primary responsibilities of a CISO.
Policies and procedures are the bones of a good cybersecurity program. This involves documenting the company’s current practices and assessing future compliance needs, so that the CISO can create and implement policies that drive the organizational change needed to meet them.
For example, a CISO preparing an organization for TX-RAMP certification may create a policy that says all company-owned mobile devices must have full-disk encryption.
Once the CISO has established the policies, they must be implemented. This might be deploying new security tools like mobile device management (MDM) to enforce the policy. These policies must be distributed to relevant staff as often as they’re updated. Employees will be required to sign off that they’ve read, understood, and agreed to them. These policies will need to be easily accessible to staff at all times. Especially big or important policy updates should be accompanied by training sessions.
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Conduct Security Audits and Assessments
Security audits and assessments ensure that the organization is holding to its security program and the relevant compliance requirements. The CISO is responsible for leading the process of managing both internal and external audits.
Most compliance frameworks require internal audits, which are designed to regularly review the effectiveness of the overall security program and identify potential areas for improvement.
CISOs will also project manage or lead the external audit process, which is a rigorous process involving an unbiased, third-party auditor. The CISO will coordinate with external auditors to define the scope of the audit, provide documentation and access, and keep all parties informed and communicative throughout the (usually lengthy) process. The CISO must ensure the audit is conducted to satisfy specific frameworks such as ISO 27001 or GDPR.
Incident Response and Management
We touched on this earlier, but the best CISOs are able to work quickly in response to an event, partly because they’ve thoroughly developed an action plan ahead of time.
The response plan is important but so is the ability to detect an incident in the first place, and this is one area where tools like intrusion detection systems (IDS) prove super useful.
These tools track network traffic, access logs, and more to detect and alert the security team of potential issues in real-time.
When an attack is detected, the CISO will initiate the incident response plan and coordinate across the organization to contain and mitigate the threat. One of the most important aspects of this plan is that they keep lines of communication open and consistent so that everybody involved stays informed.
This response plan usually starts with identifying and understanding the threat, then containing and removing it, and then system recovery, all while documenting every step in the process.
One highly valuable way to ensure these response plans will be effective is to run regular incident response exercises, ideally between once per year and once per quarter. This helps to practice the response and to identify any weak spots in the plan. These response tests might include phishing simulations, ransomware drills, or data breach scenarios.
Security Awareness Training
CISOs are uniquely positioned to foster a culture that takes cybersecurity seriously. They can do this through several means, including training programs, cybersecurity breach drills, and regularly updating the teams on the latest threats and relevant policy changes.
Training programs should be used for new and existing employees to keep everybody well informed so that everybody (junior staff to senior leadership) knows the policies and their role in keeping the organization’s data safe.
Vendor and Third-Party Risk Management
Working with vendors and third-party service providers can be tricky because they need to be thoroughly vetted before working with the CISO’s organization. If a third party poses a potential threat and has access to sensitive information, it could lead to a security breach.
Vendors have to be assessed against high security standards, which involves background checking each vendor and running a third-party risk assessment.
The CISO conducts these assessments to review the vendor’s security program (especially concerning information) and, from that review, create a plan to manage those risks. This is usually done through contractual agreements to specific controls and regular audits to hold vendors accountable if they want to do business.
Evaluate New Cybersecurity Technology Investments
New cybersecurity tech is coming out all the time, and CISOs play an important role in determining which solutions are worth pursuing.
To do this, they are continually on the lookout for new solutions to understand how they might fit in their cybersecurity program and whether or not they are worth the investment.
They might have the provider run demos or conduct a trial test to see how much impact the solution has on their security position.
If they decide to move forward and the tech is approved by the necessary parties (executive leadership, the board), they will coordinate with the IT team to implement and configure the solution.
CISO vs. Virtual CISO
While the role of CISO used to imply a full-time, in-house employee, you can now consider hiring a virtual CISO .
As far as their role and responsibilities, they are the same. The biggest difference is that a virtual CISO is a part-time contractor (or firm) you hire rather than a full-time employee. Otherwise, they provide the full extent of services offered by a traditional CISO.
If you’re on the fence about hiring a CISO on a full-time basis, now is the best time to consider working with a fractional (contracted expert or firm) CISO. Why?
Delegate the CISO Role to a Fractional CISO
Hiring a fractional CISO comes with several benefits over the full-time alternative, including:
Cost savings (typically a fraction of the cost)
Better scalability (adapt to changing needs or project size)
Specialized expertise (they’ve worked with multiple organizations in one industry)
Varied experience (they’ve worked with different organizations with unique security challenges)
If you want to learn more about hiring a fractional CISO to effectively address the current cybersecurity threat landscape and prevent breaches, reach out to us today or check out our vCISO services for more information.
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Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) FAQs
Is CISO Considered C-Level? Yes, the CISO role is considered C-level, making them part of the executive leadership team. The role is significant because the CISO’s strategic decisions affect the entire organization. The CISO will regularly meet with other C-level executives to collaborate and refine information security initiatives and to ensure they align with key business goals.
How Much Does a CISO Make? On average, CISOs in the United States make between $200,000 and $300,000 depending on experience level and other factors like industry. Top CISOs can make $400,000 or more.
Does CISO Require Coding? No, coding isn’t required to be an effective CISO, as it’s more about understanding information technology and the ideas behind cybersecurity. That being said, a background in coding can be useful to CISOs so they can leverage their technical expertise when understanding and communicating with their IT teams.
CISO vs CTO The role of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is focused on the overall technology program of the organization, which distinguishes it from the CISO’s focus on information security. One is not necessarily higher than the other as they can sometimes be peers, but some CISOs report to the CTO. Other CISOs report to CEOs or other roles. It all depends on the organizational structure, and this differs across businesses.
