Kayla Williams , CISO , Devo , discusses the next stage of CISO evolution . She tells us : “ The CISO role has become more than just cybersecurity ; it ’ s about enterprise risk management .”

he role of CISO has evolved rapidly

Risk management has become an increasingly important part of CISOs ’ jobs ; attack surfaces are larger than ever with the growing reliance on thirdparty tools , and changing regulations have upped the stakes for liability if and when breaches occur . mitigate potential threats and develop incident response plans to manage and minimise the impact of breaches .

CISOs are also held to the highest standards of documentation and compliance , facing nearconstant audits . Some juggle regulations across state , federal and international borders . While most CISOs ’ primary focus is on securing their organisations ’ assets , their expertise in risk assessment , mitigation , and reporting is easily transferable to managing broader business risk .

Kayla Williams , CISO , Devo

Highly regulated industries like financial services already have dedicated Chief Risk Officers , but in other areas , we ’ re likely to see CISOs increasingly taking on the responsibility of enterprise risk management leadership .

This next stage of CISO evolution could even include a name change : Chief Information Security and Risk Officer . This shift will enable organisations to adopt more comprehensive risk management strategies , helping to strengthen their overall security posture .

The CISO ’ s current role in risk management

The core principles of risk management already underpin CISOs ’ everyday responsibilities . Their teams conduct assessments to identify vulnerabilities , implement security measures to

This is especially true of CISOs with backgrounds in Governance , Risk , and Compliance ( GRC ) and auditing . A CISO with foundations in GRC is already skilled at risk management within complex regulatory and compliance frameworks , enabling them to extend their oversight beyond IT and security . They can assess risk from a holistic perspective encompassing nearly every business area .

Drivers of the CISO ’ s evolution to CISRO

There are three main reasons why CISOs are evolving into CISROs . The first is that risks are no longer isolated to specific departments or functions but instead ripple throughout the entire organisation . For example , a data breach at one software vendor can jeopardise thousands of clients ’ data , exposing sensitive information from millions of users .

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