To maximize their influence, CISOs need diverse skills

<p>For a long time, the main skill that CISOs needed was the ability and readiness to resign gracefully in the wake of a major cybersecurity incident. Joking aside, early CISOs did tend to have short tenures due to the distressing regularity with which systems were compromised on their watch. The buck stopped with them — and their jobs often did, too.</p>
<p>This paradigm has shifted in recent years thanks to the following converging trends:</p>
<ul class=”default-list”>
<li>The number of organizations that suffer breaches continues to grow rapidly and includes businesses of all types: big corporations, small startups, governments and non-profits. As a result, the stigma is less.</li>
<li>Organizations big and small now depend on increasingly complex hybrid IT service delivery and data environments, leading to new and evolving security challenges.</li>
<li>The <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/How-to-calculate-the-cost-of-a-data-breach”>financial consequences of breaches continue to climb</a>, making business leaders more interested in preventing and mitigating them rather than just finding someone to take the blame.</li>
<li>The financial, operational and even existential threat of <a href=”https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/ransomware”>ransomware</a> has increased as the number of attackers and the sophistication of attacks continue to grow.</li>
</ul>
<p>As a CISO, the responsibility for protecting an organization’s systems and data is, in effect, the responsibility to protect the company’s ability to function and even to continue to exist. As a result, the rest of the C-suite and the board are more ready than ever before to hear from — and really listen<i> </i>to — the CISO.</p>
<p>The iron is hot, and if security leaders want the best chance to shepherd their organizations safely through increasingly dangerous times, then they must strike. In the past, CISOs have focused primarily on identifying and mitigating threats to IT resources. To meet the current moment, however, CISOs need a broader perspective and the right set of technical, leadership and business skills, as well as a mindset centered on risk and reward.</p>
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