Cyber risk is no longer just the responsibility of CISOs; it is increasingly becoming a board-level issue that needs to be urgently addressed.

Board directors and business leaders rely on security leaders to keep them informed about their organization’s risk posture. Multiple security leaders, on the other hand, struggle to provide a clear picture of their cybersecurity posture, let alone express it comprehensively. Consider this scenario: the latest vulnerability has been discovered, and the CEO wants to know what impact it will have on the company’s essential operations.

Every CISO faces various problems in today’s volatile economic environment, where change is the only constant. For example, as a result of COVID-19, the remote-work environment has become the new normal, bringing with it new and graver IT risks. For all security teams, preparing for this shift can be incredibly difficult. The complexity is clearly exacerbated by the fact that today’s firms operate in a technologically complicated global economy. Almost every industry sector and company strategy on the planet is completely reliant on technology.

Because of this interdependence, cyber risk has become synonymous with corporate risk. It also implies that today’s CISOs aren’t solely concerned with traditional IT security concerns. The CISO’s role must evolve from that of a technical specialist to that of all fully accountable business-aligned security leaders, advocating for both business and technology security.

The following are the top three techniques for bringing security and business closer together:

Calculate cyber risk in terms of business.

A staggering percentage of over half of the corporate leaders from all industries and around the world are skeptical of their security team’s ability to estimate risk accurately. Because there are neither black and white solutions, considering the business context of any cyber risk can be particularly difficult.

Leaders in security and risk management must first address two critical questions in order to provide corporate context: What is the company’s primary goal? Which assets are essential to achieving that core goal? Will firms be able to combat the greatest danger to their essential assets after answering these questions?

Align your cybersecurity approach with your company’s overall objectives.

Many times, a company’s cybersecurity strategy isn’t totally or tightly connected with its business objectives. Regrettably, less than half of security professionals communicate with business executives throughout or on a regular basis when designing their cybersecurity plans. Simultaneously, the inverse is also true. As per our industry knowledge, we believe that only 40% of corporate executives discuss their security leaders while creating the company’s business strategies, if at all.

This shows that there is a communication gap on both sides of the fence. To fight against any form of cyber risk, CISOs and business executives must work closely together. Only then can the role of the CISO be elevated as a strategic leader, as cyber security priorities must evolve as part of a larger company plan.

Visibility into the attack surface of the organization

Security leaders must have a comprehensive view of their existing attack surfaces in the context of existing business risk in order to be effective strategic partners to businesses. Cybersecurity will never evolve as a company strategy without visibility. As the modern attack surface of businesses keeps expanding, it becomes a very complex and fragmented matrix of on-premises, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud,  IT, and operational technology; this is always easier said than done (OT).

Over half of security executives actually agree that their company lacks a comprehensive awareness and assessment of its complete threat surface. This limits their capacity to assess cyber risks, prioritize them, and implement remediation strategies based on business criticality and threat context.

It’s critical to underscore the need for strategic alignment between business and security leaders as companies continue to invest in cybersecurity.

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