Easing the Top Five CISO Pain Points as their Job Role Evolves
FACT: 100% breached organizations had some form of cybersecurity and data protection policies/programs in place and were nevertheless victimized.
As CISO, preventing breaches and protecting the IT ecosystem in your organization is one of your most important responsibilities. How long before it is you and your company in the news for having been breached? It’s only a matter of time unless you understand why this is happening in spite of all the hard work and expertise you and other IT leaders bring to the position. There’s a truth you need to understand about your job.
If you’re a CISO or other IT leader, and if you haven’t already, you will likely soon be compelled to change what you do in your role and how you do it. Some of you may already be acutely aware of how the role of CIO of CISO is being transformed. For others, it may be a vague and uneasy sense that things have changed around you while you were busy working. Your existing efforts and activities no longer feel fully effective at achieving effective information security and other operational goals. Even worse, some of you may not even be aware of the enormous wave growing beneath the placid surface. But the energy is building and threatens crest, wiping out all you have been working so hard to achieve on the job.
No matter how relatively aware you may be of this challenge, getting your arms around it and being able to make the right strategic moves to adapt and overcome might seem like an impossible task. Especially with the rigorous workload you already shoulder. Privacy Bee is here to tell you it is not.
Four in Five IT leaders said their role had changed drastically over the past few years. “
Snow’s 2024 IT Priorities Report
Logic dictates, a dizzying array of factors – from unpredictable external stimuli, rapid technological evolution and an explosion of novel threat vectors – is forcing CISOs to transform their roles if they’re to remain effective. Certainly, some of the infosec practices and processes CISOs have developed for their respective organizations are still quite viable and productive (albeit with diminishing returns). These facets of the job must continue to be applied and managed as they are still effective at delivering some degree of protection. Yet at the same time, today’s fluid operational and technical environment demands rapid adoption of new solutions to address an increasing number of emerging, new pain points.
CISOs like you are being forced to navigate this process of determining which existing practices and solutions are still useful and which are no longer relevant – while at the same time, finding the best practices and solutions to address the explosion of novel threats.
This document catalogs the traditional challenges and well-known pains facing the contemporary CISO. It also articulates a list of the novel and emerging threats (and the technologies behind them) which CISOs need to address if they wish to successfully evolve with the rapidly changing nature of their roles.
Though this may seem like a daunting challenge, don’t be troubled. Because there is a singular common thread, that – once revealed – illuminates the way forward for a CISO to retain the viable pieces of existing practices while effectively addressing the pains caused by a new breed of threats and challenges.
Evidence Supporting the Changing Role of the CISO
What’s that? You say you don’t believe your role as CIO or CISO will be subject to significant changes? Whether you’re already aware of the dynamic facing IT leaders or just suffering that vague feeling of uneasiness or without any inkling that change is afoot, here are some data points worth ingesting. The following strong evidence was cultivated from current surveys of your colleagues in the field.
Respected IT asset management solutions company, Snow Software polled more than 800 IT leaders in the US and UK to produce its 2024 IT Priorities report. The document contained a trove of information highlighting the challenges facing CISOs and other IT leaders as the ground continues to shift beneath their feet.
Explaining the forces at work driving change to CISO roles Snow’s 2024 IT Priorities Report says, “2023 has been a year filled with continued uncertainty from further market turbulence, geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather events, mass layoffs, wavering confidence in the technology industry and more. Yet, IT leaders seem to be either gaining resilience or just settling into a role entrenched in transformation. Four in five (82%) IT leaders surveyed said their role had changed drastically over the past few years.” This number has been fairly consistent across the last 3 years of this report’s publication.
Other revealing data points from the Snow report include:
56% – of respondents reporting being required to learn new skills for new technology
86% – of respondents saying they’re asked to innovate faster and demonstrate ROI
82% – of respondents reveal their evolving roles mean they must change their approach a great deal
91% – reported innovation is a top priority of their organization, yet…
48% – say IT spends too much time reacting to emergencies/problems to be innovative.
100% – of breached organizations had some form of cybersecurity and data protection policies/programs in place and were nevertheless victimized.
Analysis
The need for learning new skills and new technologies is driven in large part by the emergence of an entirely new attack surface. One driven exclusively by unsecured external data. Lack of awareness of its critical importance is what drives that growing wave beneath the surface. Social engineering is the primary vector for one of the most damaging threats facing organizations – data breaches! And social engineering runs on unsecured external data.
The need to speed innovation and quickly demonstrate ROI is largely also driven by the need for cost effective solutions to address rampant data breaches, other cyber attacks, physical attacks, productivity drains and even staffing turnover.
The need to adopt a proactive posture and approach to problems once they arise requires a clarified grasp on the drivers of change – in terms of novel threats and effective responses.
Unsecured external data is the key commonality behind the preponderance of pain points and intractable challenges facing CISOs.
The new skills/technologies necessary for CISOs to proactively speed innovation and quickly demonstrate ROI are those focusing on external data privacy. Unsecured external data is the key commonality behind the preponderance of pain points and intractable challenges facing CISOs. Embracing External Data Privacy management disciplines holds the key for CISOs seeking to adapt to the changing requirements of their roles. Those that embrace this truth will succeed in evolving with the changing environment. Those that fail to see External Data Privacy as the singular common thread spurring change to their roles within the organization will continue to suffer the damaging consequences of data breaches, productivity drains, staffing problems and reputational damage for themselves and their employers.
Many may be skeptical of this claim regarding unsecured external data being the central driver of change in the information security career field. To those we offer the following rundown of traditional CISO pain points and how applying an umbrella of external data privacy practices and policies neutralizes the threat and demonstrates the CISO’s adaptability to evolving role requirements.
Rundown of the Pain Points Facing CISOs
Pain Point #1 – Sprawling InfoSec Stack
The myriad threats the CISO must contend with did not all materialize at the same time. Today’s known threats were yesterday’s novel attack vectors. As a result, the strategies used to mount defenses were developed independently, over time. Older threats and corresponding defenses like network security, firewalls, and endpoint security are managed alongside newer threats. Cloud/cyber security, antivirus and anti-malware are younger concerns arising during the internet era and involve different tools and methods.
Today’s threats come from social engineering attacks perpetrated by threat actors using widely available and unsecured external data on the workforce within any organization. Personally identifiable information is harnessed to craft convincing scams, tricking permissioned employees to allow unauthorized access to secure systems. Phishing, Vishing, Pretexting, Deepfakes, Ransomware and other types of social engineering attacks remain among the leading source of data breaches in 2023 according to Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report.
How Privacy Bee for Business Plugs the Gaps Between Multiple InfoSec Practices
To put it simply, threat actors have successfully weaponized unmanaged privacy and effectively leverage it to perpetrate attacks on any or all the individual defenses the typical CISO has put in place. To avoid the pain of trying to plug individual holes in the sprawling InfoSec Stack, CISOs must begin to look at the entire InfoSec stack as an ecosystem. Applying Privacy Bee for Business acts as an umbrella of external data privacy defenses covering the existing InfoSec stack. Privacy Bee’s external data privacy solution bolsters all the systems already deployed while also proactively guarding against the emerging threats and strategies used by hackers and other threat actors.
Privacy Bee offers an entire white paper on this discipline. Read: CyberSecurity Isn’t Enough – The Information Security Ecosystem Dies Without External Data Privacy
Pain Point #2 – Sprawling Tech Stack
Information Week defines the pain of effectively managing and protecting the integrity of the “mix of legacy technology, like on-premises servers, and new cloud and SaaS systems.” Noting that “CIOs and CISOs are faced with the operational and security challenges that come with this disparate tech stack and the migration to new systems.”
Nearly all organizations employ a disparate array of software solutions accommodating the business requirements of each individual internal function. HR software, procurement and fulfillment tools, accounting platforms, marketing and sales software, etc. are typically delivered by unaffiliated vendors. It is the responsibility of the CISO or CIO to integrate these divergent tools and to ensure the security and integrity of the data. Compounding the challenge is the fact that many of these applications are provided to external third parties – vendors, customers, channel partners etc. This expands the vulnerability, rendering the unsecured external data of third-party users with any modicum of systems access a target for exploitation by threat actors.
It is worth noting that for the CIO or CISO, managing the tech stack involves much more than just the security requirements. There is also the mechanical aspects of the job such as server load balancing, workstation maintenance, and other hardware-focused tasks associated with maintaining an enterprise tech stack. Adding an entirely new attack surface to manage would seem to stretch the CIO’s bandwidth even further.
How Privacy Bee for Business Streamlines Privacy Management for Complex Tech Stacks
Using Privacy Bee for Business, CISOs can bring all the disparate technologies at work in their tech stack under a single management protocol. Eighty-five percent of data breaches involve attacks exploiting employee PII according to IT Certification leader, CompTIA. Whether on-premise, in the cloud or even on site at a third-party partner location, the Privacy Bee coverage ensures external data privacy, minimizing the potential for breaches occurring through any facet of the tech stack. Risk mitigation is delivered via perpetual scanning for privacy exposures of every employee with access to any application in the tech stack. Privacy Bee Vendor Risk Management performs the same mitigation process for any third-party agents with any access to your information systems.
As adoption of external data privacy increases, the probability of falling victim to a breach via attacks on the tech stack decreases in correlation. Putting all information systems under the protective umbrella of Privacy Bee for Business also has the effect of freeing time for the busy CISO to address the hardware aspects of the role. Most importantly, by achieving demonstrable reduction in risk (using the data derived from Privacy Bee’s External Data Risk Audit and Privacy Risk Assessment tools) the CISO can deliver data-driven evidence of their innovative capability and strong ROI into new information security solutions.
Privacy Bee offers an white papers on Vendor Risk and Supply Chain Risk Read: External Data Security and Vendor Risk and Supply Chain Attacks are On the Rise – A Primer on Supply Chain Risk
Pain Point #3 – Being On-Call 24×7
Logrhythm blogger James Carder articulates this pain perfectly writing, “Alerts at 3 AM. Christmas day zero-days. Threat actors don’t sleep, and holidays are nothing more than a day when a hacker knows your organization might be off its guard. The reality of the profession is that there’s no such thing as a real day off — you’re the first line of defense 365 days of the year.”
This pain is largely the result of the fact that many IT leaders still address the manifold threats aimed at different segments of their information systems through a siloed prism. Treating the baker’s dozen security elements – cybersecurity, employee security, simulations, anti-virus protection, penetration testing, endpoint management, email security, employee training, patch management, firewalls, risk audits, physical security and attack response – as individual and unrelated liabilities is a recipe for never enjoying a moment’s peace. At any given time of any day, your phone can be lit up by an emergency in any of these individual areas.
How Privacy Bee for Business Eases Demands on CISOs’ Time
Privacy Bee for Business delivers a comprehensive solution covering both the proactive and reactive needs of contemporary information security. And it does so with such efficacy that the CISOs using it actually find emergencies and infringements on their free time decline in volume and frequency the longer they use the solution.
The proactive elements of Privacy Bee for Business focus on risk mitigation factors like employee risk management, vendor risk management, effective privacy and cyber risk awareness trainings from Privacy Bee University. They also focus on threat intelligence factors with real-time exposure monitoring and risk modeling. Using easy visualizers and dashboards to scan, quantify and catalog unsecured employee data, CISOs gain visibility into doxed employee info, dark web exposures, and more so they can eliminate these data before hackers can use it to breach systems.
Soon to be released incident response solutions address the reactive side of the CISOs job. Delivering powerful tools to help respond to, contain, remediate and harden protection, Privacy Bee for Business
Just because the infosec environment is evolving rapidly and the nature of your role is being forced to modulate in real time doesn’t mean you’re going to get even less free time. In fact, by adopting an offensive posture and engaging external data privacy methodologies, the typical CISO can actually reduce the number of attacks and zero day events that have historically caused their phones to ring in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.
Pain Point #4 – False Alarms
Dedicating a portion of your already crowded daily schedule to probe a potential threat that ultimately proves bogus is always exasperating. The frustration extends beyond the mere loss of time; it encompasses the missed opportunities to engage in meaningful tasks during the diversion to address the perceived “fire.” The occurrence of false positives not only disrupts momentum but also intrudes upon crucial meetings and drains the energy of your team. Furthermore, when your team becomes fatigued by frequent alarms, there is an increased likelihood of overlooking genuinely critical, true positive alerts.
How Privacy Bee for Business Eases False Positives and False Alarms
It may seem obvious, but reducing the overall potential for attacks decreases the number of alarms – both genuine and false. With the time recaptured by reducing information security threats by as much as 90% (which is typical for CISOs who use Privacy Bee for business for one full year or more), you’ll be able to focus on reducing the discomfort discussed in the next segment.
Pain Point # 5 – Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) is increasingly important as both consumers and regulatory bodies are demanding to know more about how organizations are approaching privacy and protecting sensitive user data. Developing an effective set of GRC policies means navigating the cultural, human, and procedural aspects of a company. Developing and enforcing security policies, standards, and guidelines necessitates extensive documentation and securing the support of key internal stakeholders. Achieving consensus can be difficult.
Not all engineers and personnel within a company inherently prioritize security considerations; many may not actively contemplate whether they are adhering to mandates or violating rules. In cases where a company’s culture is unaccustomed to governance or regulation, CISOs might find themselves forced to become behavior police. Mandating new policies to colleagues and ensuring their compliance might not make you the most popular figure among your peers and complicates the timely, effective deployment of GRC.
Managing and sustaining third-party risk is another challenging aspect. Whether you are evaluating the security practices of external organizations or, if you are on the vendor side, completing exhaustive security surveys with numerous questions (e.g., SIG, CAIC, SOC, and other customized customer surveys), the process is inherently time-consuming. Given that overseeing third-party risk is a year-round responsibility, there is no distinct end point to this ongoing task.
Developing an actionable GRC document is one of the tasks that best illustrates the way the CISO role is changing. This kind of documentation was not widely required by organizations a decade ago. And developing this type of material is not necessarily a core competency of many IT leaders whose expertise tends to be less about corporate documentation and more about infosec and IT concerns. A savvy CISO will need significant support to develop an effective GRC and navigate the challenges of gaining buy-in across all functional areas of the organization. The best way to accomplish both these objectives is to start with a clear eyed assessment of the data surrounding existing information security efficacy and the potential for exposure to threats. Luckily, Privacy Bee for Business delivers this visibility.
How Privacy Bee for Business Eases GRC Pain Points
The ongoing activities of Privacy Bee’s Employee Risk Management, External Data Privacy Audits and Privacy Risk Assessments deliver real time data about the risk profiles of every employee, department, third-party partner and the overall organization. This visibility – an innovation in the industry – greatly informs the CISO as they begin to compile the questions, metrics and KPIs needed for effective governance, risk mitigation and compliance rules. Just a handful of examples of how the Privacy Bee platform delivers all the insight needed to develop a GRC document include:
Metrics on Data Subject Access Requests – “DSARs” are the requests consumers lodge with any organization that holds their data and which companies are legally required to answer. A program of External Data Privacy Metrics and KPIs might look at the numbers of DSARs received, closed, in-progress, time to close, percent of requests satisfied within required time, requests by type or region, etc. Establishing tolerances for each of these indicators as part of a robust GRC practice, regular capture of these data points and review of KPIs helps a company ensure satisfactory performance of this element of the individual rights category.
Privacy Awareness Education and Training is a relevant example of a metric falling into the category of “Training and Awareness” typical of a GRC document. KPIs for this metric could include numbers of training events offered, percentage of trainings completed, percentage of employees passing the courses, number of trainings completed on time, and many others. All of these trainings are provided by Privacy Bee and logged in the system. This enables metrics to be established for compliance and performance.
Commercial external data privacy metrics and KPIs are important for re-risking third party vendor relationships, safeguarding supply chains as a potential attack vector, increasing chances of winning new business via RFx process and securing new business contracts for your business.
Some of the indicators for commercial metrics could include the enforcement of data processing agreements, vendor privacy risk reviews and assessments issued and completed, and severity of vendor privacy issues. All of this data is captured by the Vendor Risk Management section of the Privacy Bee solution and can be used to verify compliance with this element of the GRC.
Other emerging compliance requirements for contemporary organizations seeking to demonstrate to the marketplace their adherence and dedication to data privacy are being increasingly demanded by consumers and new government regulations. Cookie consent notifications and trust rankings are both good examples of newer such requirements. Privacy Bee delivers a Vendor & Cookie Consent solution and an e-commerce friendly Privacy Trust Badge solution. Both included in the solution and both are strong indicators of dedication to privacy that defines a successful GRC framework. Best of all, both these solution elements actually drive revenue for the organizations using them. Bringing this kind of option to your executive board demonstrates a CISO’s ability to innovate, adopt/learn new technologies and drive strong ROI on the budget allocated to their departments.
Conclusion
Engaging Privacy Bee for Business helps today’s CISO check all the boxes they need to adapt and evolve with the changes currently occurring in their field. Embracing the critical and essential role that data privacy plays in protecting organizations in today’s environment demonstrates that the CISO is savvy, ahead of the curve and able to rise to the challenge. Engaging these solutions showcases a CISO’s ability to learn new skills and new technologies, speed innovation, quickly demonstrate ROI and to adopt a proactive posture and approach to problems.
Best of all, engaging Privacy Bee for Business reduces pain in so many of the areas currently afflicting CISOs, CIOs and other IT leaders as they struggle to keep their organizations secure and protect their long-term career trajectories.
