With new resilience regulations and financial risks taking center stage amid ongoing cyberattacks, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) role is rapidly changing.
While all CISOs are upskilled to become business-first leaders, some even advocate splitting their roles into two or more distinct positions to meet the growing complexities and demands of the modern risk and regulatory environment.
To quantify this shift, a recent survey of global CISOs found that 84% believe their roles should be split between technical and business-focused.
It’s clear that CISOs today are at a critical crossroads: They must evolve and diversify their role, potentially sharing the decision-making and accountability among several officers, or risk being left behind.
Leaders who take steps now pave a smoother pathway toward collaboration and more effective risk management as their roles and responsibilities change to meet today’s risk challenges.
Here are three shifts CISOs can make to better adapt, collaborate, and succeed in responding to cyber risk.
The Regulatory Shift
Regulatory changes have emphasized two key competencies for CISOs and their risk teams in 2024 and beyond: cyber transparency and digital resilience.
Under relatively new regulations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), publicly traded companies must disclose significant cybersecurity incidents and outline their approach to managing cyber risks.
At the same time, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in the EU has set new standards for organizations to focus on risk resilience with flexible and durable risk systems, not just reactive risk prevention strategies.
These major regulatory changes have accelerated the need for CISOs to level up their responsibility and accountability for risk, requiring expanded communication with other leaders. Under the new regulations, the broader C-suite and board play a more significant role in how an organization responds to risks internally and externally; it falls to the CISO to pave the path for success for the rest of the leadership team.
Modern CISOs are advised to communicate cyber risks in language that the board and the rest of the C-suite can understand. By quantifying risk exposure in monetary terms, leaders without a technical understanding of GRC can understand risk events more clearly than through highly technical reports or vague risk heat maps.
A next-gen, cyber-prepared CISO’s role also includes enabling continuous regulatory compliance across all digital assets and processes and updating the organization with standards and regulatory changes in real time.
The AI Shift
When potentially everything is at risk, CISOs have a big job. Enter artificial intelligence to help lighten the load.
AI presents immense opportunities for CISOs with its real-time prediction, detection, and response capabilities to threats in the risk system. But new technologies come with their own set of risks. Bias in datasets, AI-generated vulnerabilities, and the need for specialized talent to manage these advanced tools are all potential challenges leaders must consider when integrating AI into their workflow.
The next-gen CISO can neither ignore the role AI will play in the future of risk nor downplay the potential for new challenges that AI poses. CISOs must address these two realities proactively, continuously, and in a connected and cognitive way.
One approach: tackle GRC for AI with… AI for GRC. CISOs can thrive on risk by turning the efficiencies of machine learning, AI, and even generative tools toward identifying and setting clear policies and guardrails around AI usage and enabling a deeper understanding of how users will interact with these tools. With this knowledge, CISOs and their teams will be better prepared to identify high vs. low-risk scenarios, and organizations, in turn, can find a more substantial balance between innovation and tech usage. Ultimately, these efforts will ensure teams are empowered by effective and responsible AI usage.
Leverage AI to help the risk management team with tasks like documenting, investigating, and resolving IT compliance and control issues. The systematic and automated process of AI-powered intelligence helps the team avoid new risks and allows human experts to stay focused on higher-level decision-making and strategic projects.
The Shift in Customer Trust
One of the most significant challenges risk leaders face today is data privacy and security: What data can be seen, and by whom?
Trust in data privacy is a top priority for a business’s customers. In today’s digital economy, consumers expect organizations to securely manage their data and operate transparently with their data practices.
The organization must share a commitment to upholding data privacy to keep the trust of its customers, at the risk of losing business or compromising long-term resilience. From the broader leadership and board’s perspective, cyber risks directly impact operational and financial outcomes for the business.
As a result, CISOs play an increasingly important role in responding to customer expectations for data protection by guiding their organization’s business strategy toward information security.
Internally, modern CISOs should sit at the strategy table, leading high-level business discussions, guiding digital transformation projects, and steering the organization toward developments or acquisitions that mesh with or advance the existing risk system.
Externally, CISOs are crucial to shaping consumer trust. Communication is key to this role, as CISOs advocate for and externalize any privacy-focused solutions and robust data protection policies they implement. CISOs are also central to the public response effort in the event of a data breach, shoring up consumer trust.
When CISOs champion information security and data protection, they establish a foundation for meaningful cross-functional collaboration. Aligning security objectives with business goals allows them to break down silos and foster partnerships, prioritizing both innovation and risk management. This collaborative approach ensures that security is not seen as a barrier but as an enabler of opportunity, mitigating risks to critical assets.
In Conclusion: the CISO Shift
Today, CISOs are advised to move beyond traditional governance and compliance reporting and the siloed risk management practices of the past. As regulations, digital capabilities, and customer expectations shift, CISOs should be ready to shift into a higher leadership gear.
Organizations may increasingly expand C-suite representation of risk officers through new roles that split responsibilities. Titles like Chief AI Officer, Chief Data Officer, or Chief Compliance Officer may be seen alongside the CISO, working in tandem to adapt to changes in risk. Depending on the organization, this can work well if risk management practices remain connected, continuous, and cognitive.
When more eyes, ears, and insights are focused on the role risk plays in a business's operation and operational resilience, organizations, through their leaders, can thrive on risk.
