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Risks and threats to cybersecurity are among the top three in all sectors. Often, companies face the fact that security staff cannot fully solve the problems of cybersecurity due to the lack of qualified personnel in the market, a huge number of expertise areas, cybersecurity industry dynamic development and other factors.
To keep up with information security trends, companies are trying to hire a cybersecurity manager (Chief Information Security Officer, CISO), who thoroughly knows all the industry components and specifics. Often such position obtains meaning of “Universal security expert” and the duties description includes practically full range of tasks and activities in the cybersecurity field:
- cybersecurity strategy development and management
- cybersecurity program planning and development
- cybersecurity risk management
- legal regulations compliance monitoring
- documentation development
- raising personnel awareness of information security
- information security incidents management and response guidance
- monitoring of assets, physical and network security
- monitoring and maintenance of software and hardware implementation to ensure cybersecurity
- other requirements that companies have found applicable to CISO
To meet this description, a person needs not only the skills of an experienced leader and knowledge of the specifics of a particular industry, but also experience in documentation development and maintenance, deep technical knowledge, knowledge of implementation and maintenance of complex cybersecurity management systems. Naturally, there are very few such specialists and the cost of their services is extremely high.
That is why, for many small and medium-sized businesses, hiring a qualified CISO is often impossible or unprofitable. But even if the company can afford it, they cannot find the right person often, despite the efforts and working conditions proposed.
That is why CISO as a Service or the so-called Virtual CISO popularity grows. This service is provided by certified experts in the cybersecurity field. Thanks to today’s remote work capabilities, CISOaaS or Virtual CISO will not differ from the activities of a “local” CISO, except for permanent physical presence in the office.
By hiring a “virtual” CISO, the company resolves:
- The problem of the narrow knowledge area of the position, gaining access to experts with experience in nearly all areas and all positions (from management to technical specialist)
- The problem of load balancing: there is not a huge number of tasks per person – the work is carried out by a qualified team
- The problem of a single point of knowledge and failure. If the full-time information security director disappears, the corresponding processes stop and the business may sustain losses. With CISO as a Service the inaccessibility of expert’s possibility is excluded.
- The problem of the high cost of services – depending on the specifics of the business, CISOaaS can cost 75% cheaper than a staff member.
- The problem of the need for additional competencies to perform all services and processes.
Outsourcing of information security services may concern not only CISO, but the whole team. Now, instead of looking for employees to fill out your security department, you can choose the Virtual Cybersecurity Team service.
Experts of the “virtual” team fulfill responsibilities:
- Monitoring of the company’s cybersecurity status
- Support of the data protection, preparation for incident response, threat and vulnerability management processes
- IT assets management
- Ensuring compliance with legislation and international security standards
- Cyber risk management processes development and maintenance
- Management of internal information security controls
- Support in creating and updating documentation governing cybersecurity
Virtual security team has several advantages over the full-time team, because it helps to get rid of the difficulties of finding personnel, salary and advanced training costs, and costs during the team “downtime”.
Therefore, if a company decides to use the services of virtual CISO or a security team, it receives a set of qualified and certified specialists who perform all the necessary activities in the information security field and pays only for real labor. This allows the company:
- Get the necessary expertise in all areas without hiring a large staff of highly qualified employees
- Radically reduce costs. The company pays only for what is necessary, whether it is the advice of a specialist to improve the skills of current staff or conduct a technical security assessment
- Reduce business risks. Hiring a key employee is an important decision and a serious investment. A mistake can cost a company amount of several CISO salaries. With the right choice of Virtual CISO service provider or team, the risk is much less, since you can choose the optimal level of service from a number of offers and terminate agreement at any time if your needs are not met.
