A CISO is responsible for company security, and the entire process begins with an evaluation of the threat landscape before implementing any tangible solutions. Evaluating the IT landscape helps reveal the various vulnerabilities present in a system and the various attack surfaces present in information assets that can be exploited by attackers. Threats to a company's information assets may come from users who are authorized to use the system or from external attackers. The evaluation process needs to determine all the threats facing a company before it can determine avenues to address these vulnerabilities.

We have now addressed the need for CISOs to evaluate the threat landscape before they can brainstorm solutions to address identified issues. In the next section, we will look into the importance of CISOs gaining in-depth knowledge of company operations to create effective solutions.

Knowledge of company operations

An evaluation of the IT landscape of a company requires in-depth knowledge of the company's operations. With the evolving nature of modern businesses, the duties of a CISO are also evolving, requiring them to have unrestricted access to all departments of a company. Accessing all sections of a company allows a CISO to thoroughly understand all company operations and enables them to perform an effective evaluation of all internal processes. Attackers perform an exhaustive evaluation of a company's system to find vulnerabilities. For CISOs to effectively counter such efforts, they also need to have a full view of a company's systems and operations to determine all avenues and attack surfaces an attacker may use to infiltrate the company's system.

Assessment tools

A CISO also needs specialized tools to conduct a thorough evaluation of a company's systems. These specialized tools should be sourced from proven vendors who trade in network tools for system evaluation purposes. These tools aid a CISO in the assessment of a system including penetration testing and other ethical hacking processes. The result of penetration testing is a report that establishes all attack surfaces as well as revealing all possible vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers.

Internal evaluation of the threat landscape also encompasses an evaluation of a company's own internal control mechanisms in place to protect a company's information assets. A CISO needs to objectively evaluate a company's internal controls that are meant to safeguard the company's system from attacks. These controls apply to both external threats and internal threats. To ensure the effectiveness of the threat landscape evaluation, the internal processes should be evaluated with the standards of external vulnerability assessments. In many cases, companies tend to be complacent about internal systems where company employees are involved. However, reports continue to show that disgruntled employees are one of the leading causes of cyber threats to organizations.

Trends in cyber threats

Understanding trends in cyber threats is an important skill for all CISOs. The IT sector is ever evolving. New attack vectors keep coming up, and CISOs need to be updated about current trends in the IT sector as this will enable them to have an understanding of all the threats they are likely to face and take measures to mitigate such threats. An organization needs to be safeguarded from all common attack vectors as a minimum requirement. Since security mechanisms get outdated quickly, CISOs must keep abreast of changes in the threat landscape. Continuous improvement of skills and knowledge are key traits of an effective CISO in the current times.

This section has addressed the important role of evaluating the cyber threat landscape. The next section will address the role of devising policies and security controls as measures to keep a company safe from threats.

To ensure E2E security in an organization, a CISO is tasked with devising policies and setting up security controls to help mitigate any threats facing a company. The CISO role is an executive role in the management sphere and should have the influence to create policies that safeguard a company's operations. These policies affect a company's internal operations and mainly focus on the company's staff members. A CISO also reviews all interactions of all users within a system and the threat level from all these users. These users also include vendors of all software used within an organization. Some vendors may not be trustworthy and may provide an organization with software that is insecure or that has unaddressed security patches unknown to buyers.

We now have an idea of how security leaders devise security policies and controls in the implementation of their security functions. The next section highlights some of the internal staff policies developed by the security team.

Internal staff policies

Internal staff can be supportive in helping a company address internal threats. Staff members should be subjected to security controls that ensure that they do not have unlimited access to information assets within an organization. Access to information should be on a need-to-know basis to allow them to perform their functions effectively. Database administrators, who are part of the team that works directly under the CISO in an organization, are tasked with assigning privileges in the accessing of information within a company. These restrictions should be strictly reinforced. If an employee is terminated from an organization, their access privileges should be revoked immediately. Disgruntled employees are a known source of internal threats to an organization and have the capability to do major damage to a company's information assets.

Internal policies should be printed and pinned on a board where all employees can access them for reference to remind them of all the security policies. This should include the consequences of failing to adhere to these security policies. Consequences should be in the form of termination, fines, suspension, or legal action against employees violating these policies. These policies should be reviewed regularly to ensure that they continue to effectively safeguard internal operations and ultimately safeguard the company's information assets. In addition, the security team should ensure that employees respect these security policies and thus develop a culture of security. Employee culture is an integral factor in the implementation of security policies. While internal policies should be meant to safeguard company operations, they should not make staff members' execution of their duties unnecessarily difficult.

Other company policies

Aside from internal staff policies, CISOs also create policies that affect customers and other people that interact with the company, such as vendors. The main security policies that safeguard a company's information assets from non-staff members come in the form of physical security controls. Organizations will restrict sections of the company from customers and other non-staff members as a form of basic security control to limit the access of unauthorized people to sensitive information assets or simple theft. These are usually implemented through the use of security cards to access some rooms meant for staff only. These security cards can also have privilege access controls to limit even junior staff members from accessing rooms meant for only senior or authorized personnel. The security team is tasked with devising these security policies and continually reviewing them to ensure that they are effective in enforcing security measures within a company's premises.

We have addressed how a CISO devises policies and security controls to keep a company safe. The next section handles the role of auditing a company and ensuring it is compliant with laws and regulations, as the security controls must be able to enforce compliance.

A CISO and an organization's security team are tasked with leading auditing efforts of the company's security systems and ensuring that a company complies with all the security standards and regulations that govern its operations. Auditing efforts include a thorough review of a company's assets to ensure that they perform as they should. It also includes taking an inventory of all the company's infrastructure and information assets to determine all possible attack surfaces. Evaluation efforts also ensure that all software is up to date with the latest security patches to reduce a company's exposure to risk and exploitation of vulnerabilities.

We've touched on how CISOs lead in the auditing and compliance initiatives. The next section addresses examples of some of the IT components that CISOs seek to confirm whether they are functioning properly in enhancing a company's security posture.

Anti-malware and anti-spyware software

These series of software, in addition to firewalls, are critical components of securing a system from cyber-attacks. These series of software are not foolproof on their own but need additional security features. However, they are effective in helping protect an organization against simple and common attacks. Malware is among the most common attack vectors that attackers will use against a system to help gain access. Anti-malware programs and anti-spyware software help organizations in protecting their systems and information assets from many external threats. For internet-facing information assets, these types of software will help in the mitigation of risks and possible malware getting into the system.

An auditing process carried by the security team ensures that these anti-malware programs, as well as firewall programs, are working as intended and that they are up to date. Updating the software ensures that new malware definitions have been included in a database to help a system fight off newer forms of malicious programs that attackers may use.

After understanding the role of anti-malware in an IT system, the next section seeks to address how CISOs ensure compliance with international regulations.

Compliance with international regulations

Modern companies are regulated by many organizations that have been created to protect consumers, as well as firms, from malicious attacks. Many firms engage in the collection of data from their consumers that they use in the dissemination of their services, as well as to improve their products. However, without management, firms have been known to misuse this information. Therefore, governments have been forced to step in to ensure that firms engage in data-collection exercises in a regulated manner that ensures that the data collected is only used for the purposes it was collected and that users are aware of all the purposes. In addition, these users need to provide their consent to these firms before they can use their data. Most of the regulations involve the collection and use of consumer data.

Examples of regulations and regulatory bodies

Some of the bodies whose regulations affect many operations include GDPR and HIPAA. GDPR is an acronym standing for General Data Protection Regulation. These are statutes created by the European Union (EU) to protect European citizens from exploitation by companies that engage in the collection, use, and storage of their data. Any company, regardless of whether they operate within the EU or not that collects information from an EU citizen, is required to adhere to these rules. HIPAA, on the other hand, is an acronym that stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This is a statute that was created to ensure that health and insurance information was protected within the United States (US), and its laws and regulations affect all companies that directly or indirectly through business association deal with such information. These two are some of the many regulations that affect company operations globally, and modern firms need to ensure that they comply with these laws, which the CISO and their team are tasked with.

Consequences of non-compliance

A failure to comply with these laws and regulations jeopardizes a company's existence, and it may be suspended or fined heavily. For instance, all federal firms that deal in health information are governed by the HIPAA statute, and a failure to comply will deny them subsequent federal funding. For other firms, such as those governed by GDPR laws, a failure to comply may lead to heavy fines that could lead to millions of US dollars' (USDs') loss to the company. Adherence to some of the laws is possible through the implementation of various security measures, such as the secure storage of data to keep it safe from possible breaches. While ensuring compliance, a firm also benefits from such actions by protecting itself from successful attacks that could threaten the continuity of operations.

We have now addressed the role of a CISO in terms of auditing the company to ensure safety and compliance with laws and regulations. The following section handles their role in managing various information security initiatives.