The Need for vCISOs By SMBs

What Is A vCISO?
A vCISO can be defined as follows:
“He or she is an outsourced security expert who can remotely set up and lead strategic security initiatives for an organization. vCISOs often work for multiple organizations at once to provide strategic security leadership.”
So, as you can see, a vCISO is like an independent contractor with whom you have outsourced your CISO functions to. This can be an individual or it can be a group of different people in the same organization. They can be hired on a project-by-project basis, or even for the long term, depending upon what your needs are at the present time.

The Benefits Of The vCISO To The SMB
There are a number of key benefits that vCISO brings to an SMB which are as follows:

1. Off the shelf expertise and knowledge:
   A vCISO has offered their services across a multitude of industries and all sorts of business entities. Thus, they offer a deep level of expertise and experience that can be leveraged from the first day that you hire them, without any extended onboarding time that is required.
2. High levels of cost effectiveness:
   The typical salary for a direct hire CISO is on average almost 268,000 on an annual basis. This is without a doubt a huge and unthinkable expense for an SMB. But by making use of a vCISO, it will only cost about 30%-40% of what it would for a full time CISO.
3. Higher levels of scalability:
   When a business attempts to hire a full time CISO, a lot of resources are spent on interviewing candidates and conducting background checks until the right candidate is found. With a vCISO you can hire for a project and if your project expands and you need more resources you simply extend the contract.
   Conclusions

Cybersecurity is not something SMBs can avoid or ignore in today’s technological climate. Cyber criminals are increasing their attacks and do not focus solely on the large targets. While many SMBs rely on their Information Technology team to provide cybersecurity, those teams are often overly busy simply keeping the data flowing and systems operational. Bringing on a vCISO can help build an organization’s strategic cybersecurity vision and direct positive change in the risk management of the company.

If you have any questions on what a vCISO can do for YOUR organization please visit our website for information at www.digitalbeachhead.com or email us at info@digitalbeachhead.com

Mike Crandall

CEO, Digital Beachhead