Meet the Next-Gen CISO: What’s Driving the CISO's Changing Role

Introduction

The role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is quickly becoming one of the fastest-evolving roles in the modern enterprise. Today’s CISOs and CSOs (Chief Security Officers) are responsible for formulating robust cybersecurity and critical cyber risk management strategies that are closely aligned with overall business objectives. Their responsibilities have extended beyond the technical realm and include a strategic presence at the C-level table. So, what is driving this change, and how can CISOs best prepare as they transition into their expanded role?

Top Factors Driving the Change in the CISO’s Role

The role of the CISO is currently being influenced by various regulatory, technological, and market dynamics. Key factors driving this change include:

• Greater emphasis on cyber transparency: New regulations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have placed a greater emphasis on cyber transparency. Publicly traded companies are now required to disclose significant cybersecurity incidents and outline their approach to managing cyber risks. This shift is pushing CISOs to not only focus on safeguarding systems but also on effectively communicating cyber risks and incidents to stakeholders.
• Increased focus on cyber resilience: The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in the European Union highlights the importance of resilience over prevention. This requires a shift in strategy from reactive to proactive, building systems that are flexible and durable. Cyber resilience focuses on the continuity of operations even when an attack occurs, and CISOs are tasked with overseeing this broader, more strategic approach to managing risks in the digital ecosystem.
• Benefits and challenges of AI-powered tools: Artificial intelligence (AI) can now predict, detect, and respond to threats in real time. For CISOs, this presents immense opportunities. However, integrating AI introduces new risks, such as bias in data, AI-generated vulnerabilities, and the need for specialized talent to manage these advanced tools. Navigating the balance between leveraging AI’s benefits and mitigating its risks is becoming a crucial part of the modern CISO’s role.
• Customer Trust Expectations: In today’s digital economy, consumers expect organizations to handle their data securely and transparently. Any breach can not only severely damage a company's reputation but negatively impact customer loyalty. CISOs are now playing a key role in shaping customer trust by ensuring robust data protection policies, communicating effectively with the public when breaches occur, and implementing privacy-focused solutions.
• Influence Business Strategy: Cyber risks directly impact operational and financial outcomes, which means that CISOs are increasingly participating in high-level business discussions. Whether it’s advising on mergers and acquisitions, guiding digital transformation projects, or steering new product developments, CISOs now have a seat at the strategy table, influencing decisions that shape the future of the business.

Meet the Next-Gen CISO

As CISOs and CSOs adapt to the changing landscape and embrace new responsibilities, they have now taken on several roles. The next-gen CISO of today wears many hats.

• The executive sponsor for security change: CISOs now drive security from a business perspective. This requires aligning with and understanding the business strategy, managing end-to-end cyber risk management, and building cyber resilience. As the leader of cyber risk management and GRC at the organization as well as the owner of the information technology roadmap, the CISO must map organizational strategy, technology, infrastructure, compliance requirements, and core cyber risks to embed cyber security into the culture, process, and technology. The CISO also leads security change by maintaining a line of sight into technology trends and disruptions and aligning information security investments and cyber risk mitigation steps with business priorities.
• The builder of information security and data protection assurance: The CISO plays a key role in building a robust information and data protection program, leveraging the information security of the organization to enable business objectives. This includes establishing the cyber risk management framework for sustainable protection assurance for all intangible assets and strategic advantages. Regular network monitoring, performing of cyber audits, and training both cyber security and general employees in security protocols and safe practices are now CISO responsibilities.
• The leader of third-party and IT vendor relationship management: With third and fourth IT vendors now part of the extended ecosystem, the CISO is responsible for identifying risk through third parties and managing third-party security. Identifying and ranking vendor relationships, performing due diligence, conducting regular security evaluations, monitoring vendor compliance with cyber security standards, tracking updates, etc., are some of the key priorities that the CISO steers.
• The director of continuous IT compliance and governance: In the era of cyber GRC, a CISO’s role now includes enabling continuous regulatory and standards compliance across all digital assets and processes. Cyber governance, including overseeing the smooth running of cyber resilience initiatives and regular reporting to corporate leadership, also falls under the purview of the CISO.
• The chief communicator of cyber risk: With cyber risk being such a critical area, the CISO holds the unique responsibility of communicating cyber risk in a language that the board and the rest of the C-suite can understand. Technical cyber security details are often not easily comprehended, and risk expressed in heat maps can be vague. Cyber risk exposure quantified in monetary terms, on the other hand, can effectively paint a clearer picture of the cyber risk.

MetricStream CyberGRC – Empowering Next-Gen CISOs

MetricStream’s CyberGRC, built as an interconnected, intuitive, and intelligent GRC product set, empowers CISOs to connect cyber risk data from across the enterprise, including third and fourth-party vendors, and then use the actionable business intelligence to make data-driven decisions to build cyber resilience.

With MetricStream CyberGRC, you can:

• Quantify cyber risks in monetary terms to assess cyber risks more accurately, communicate the risk more effectively, and make better-informed cyber investment decisions
• Document, investigate, and resolve IT compliance and control issues in a systematic, automated manner with AI-powered intelligent issue and remediation
• Strengthen visibility into the overall IT compliance profile with intuitive dashboards and real-time reports 
• Harmonize controls across multiple IT regulations and frameworks, improving compliance and saving effort and costs
• Protect cloud assets with automated continuous monitoring of controls

Being a CISO is hectic and stressful – but it’s also incredibly important, and I for one look forward to watching the continued evolution of the role, as CISOs grow to become more and more business as well as IT and security champions. Cyber is one of the biggest existential risks enterprises face today. The next-gen CISOs are here to lead us through – even as they dodge the many arrows. We’re rooting for you!

Want to learn more about how MetricStream CyberGRC can help build cyber resilience? Try our customized demo to see how our product works.