Things to Know
What is a Virtual CISO?
vCISO (Virtual CISO) is a service but is also a real person with extensive security background assigned for your organization to provide support from top-tier security experts who support him that are made available to organizations who need security expertise and guidance. The vCISO works with your business objectives and shows measurable improvement to security posture, maturity in your risk management, and assurance and management of your compliance levels.
How much does a Virtual CISO cost?
vCISO services can cost as little as $30k per year and as much as $225k per year. Our typical vCISO engagements are tailored with security strategy and budgets in mind. We calculate the engagement cost based on needs, a timeline that is aligned with your roadmap and budgetary plan, approach, and overall ROI keeping in increase the overall value, profitability, and sustainability of the business. This cost is guaranteed to decrease over time as your security posture and programs go into �maintenance mode�, where the constant building or rehaul of risky practices and process efforts are no longer a factor.
What are the responsibilities of a vCISO?
C’S|3 vCISO (Virtual CISO) offering is meant to be flexible in order to meet the needs of each of our clients. Engagements typically follow a cycle of assess, plan, remediate, and build 36o degree feedback and double loop feedbacks post implementations.
Our vCISO provides engagements from different tiers based on the nature of engagement. This could be at high-level guidance provided on a monthly or quarterly basis or extending the support of C’S|3 cybersecurity consultants that will provide hands-on help several days per week. We pride on building tailored vCISO engagements based on security needs that provide optimized solutions that fit your needs and budgets.
Typical objectives of vCISO engagements include:
- Security assessment
- Internal audit
- Information security leadership and guidance
- Incident response planning
- Steering committee leadership or participation
- Security compliance management
- Security policy, process, and procedure development
- Security training and awareness
- Board and executive leadership presentations
- Penetration testing
- Social engineering
- Vulnerability assessments
- Risk assessment
- And much, much more.
What are the benefits of vCISO over a CISO?
Lower Cost Over Time
The current reality of the market with increased risks and exposure has driven the costs of CISO’s and security experts.� Most of the most between $150k and $250k when you factor in salaries and benefits. Small to medium scale organizations do not factor these salaries in their risk management or IT budgets and this cost comes to bite them with risks exposures, sustainability, and survival of the business. C’S|3 vCISO personnel and service supports and helps you provide a predictable cost and longevity for administering your security program. With our expert’s guidance and instituting our security program approach, these costs go down over a three to five-year cycle.
Limited Turnover
The security market and the need for security professionals in changing environments of risk exposure and managing of those risks has created a situation where security professionals are easily job-hopping and there is a high turnover. C’S|3 vCISO personnel and service help you mitigate this risk where we provide the stability of cybersecurity professionals that are available for you and our cross-training from the beginning of the engagement always ensures you have personnel at your disposal. Our vCISO’s also bring a team of resources that support them so you get a secure business model that extends your security team and strengthens your bench.
Your Situation
We can not afford/do not need a full-time CISO
Most small and middle-sized organizations don’t have the money to hire a CISO or enough work to keep one busy. vCISO service is a great way to apply verifiable industry experience to clarifying your needs and apply scalable bandwidth and flexible costs.
I am in IT/HR/Finance/Compliance/Business and I do not know where to start
Most organizations’ appointed security officers have very little formal security training and would not count security as their primary job function. Hiring a vCISO will bring access to a team of experts with a wide range of specialized expertise to help augment internal capabilities.
We had a person who did this stuff, but they left and we do not know what we want to do
The market for security talent is tough. No turnover is a vCISO advantage as is the application of a proven methodology. Whether you decide to hire another full-time security professional or not, a vCISO can bridge the gap and make sure that expertise isn’t lost in the transition.
Whatever your security challenge, it never hurts to talk to an expert. If we can’t address your need directly, we’ll get you pointed in the right direction.
