Virtual CISO

A SMART and STRATEGIC SOLUTION TO OPTIMIZE YOUR SECURITY POSTURE

Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated each year which can be challenging for IT departments to keep up with the rapid changes while ensuring daily operations are running smoothly. Experts predict costs could reach up to $6 trillion per year - that's $11.4 million per minute.  On top of that, it will continue to grow 15% per year!* It's critical that your IT departments are continuously assessing their security programs to identify the risks and develop a plan to address the risks head-on.

Nowadays, not every organization will have the ability or resources to bring in a new full-time skilled employee to address important security issues. That's why companies are starting to take a pragmatic approach when it comes to solving security challenges by leveraging a Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (VCISO) - bringing outside expertise to strategize, oversee, and optimize security programs.

*Cybersecurity Ventures Report

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Hiring the right talent with extensive cybersecurity experience is a challenge for most businesses. Gartner reported a 65% increase in demand for cybersecurity professionals worldwide. 

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Table of Contents

Common Cybersecurity Challenges

The world is changing rapidly - businesses are shifting to remote work, the number of connected users and devices grows, cyber threats skyrockets and become more advanced, hybrid combinations of on-premise and cloud infrastructure changes IT structures and technologies and tools that are being used don’t always integrate with one another. All those challenges make running a business seem impossible and IT teams – regardless of size – face more demand than ever before, often resulting in security gaps that leave your organization vulnerable. Organizations need senior-level direction and a proper security program in place that effectively protects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their data and assets. For larger organizations, this is generally the responsibility of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). A CISO is a senior-level executive who is responsible for reducing IT security risk, advising on governance and policy, security architecture, incident response, and remediation.

Cybersecurity is no longer a should  have function for organizations, but a must-have function. Every organization, no matter how big or how small can be breached. According to the Verizon Report, 72% of breaches involve large businesses and 28% involve small business victims. 

Most organizations can’t afford to hire a dedicated, onsite CISO, especially small and medium-sized businesses, who are already trying to manage their increasing cybersecurity budgets. Even if your organization can afford a CISO, it may be difficult to keep them on staff due to the highly competitive security labor market or, depending on your industry, it may be a challenge to find the appropriate individual with industry expertise. Without a CISO, your organization runs the risk of becoming a target and victim of a cyberattack.

Regardless of what your organization does, chances are it will be become a target and if you’re caught without the proper protection, a breach can cost your company millions of dollars. While a CISO doesn’t completely prevent cyberattacks, they will reduce the risk of one happening and help limit your exposure. Not only will your CISO prioritize risks and remediation efforts, but they will also be able to keep up to date on the latest trends and be proactive against potential threats.  For those organizations not able to have an in-house CISO, Bulletproof has options available. 

How Your Company Can Benefit From A vCISO Service

COVID-19 was a major disruption to the world and forced businesses to shift their internal operations. While most businesses slowed down, cybercrime only grew and became stronger than ever before. The pandemic created the perfect environment for hackers to strike. Companies are turning to outside experts for opportunities to strengthen their security posture from a strategic standpoint. 

an investment worth making

Investing in a Virtual CISO can help your organization by providing:

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An experienced cybersecurity expert who has deep knowledge working with other industries similar to yours. According to a Cybersecurity Ventures report, it's estimated that 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs will remain unfilled by 2021 because organizations are struggling to hire candidates with the right cybersecurity and technical skillsets.

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Flexibility and optimizing your business to ensure the security programs and strategies are secured and compliant. Virtual CISOs can be set up on an annual part-time basis (e.g. 10 hours per week). The vCISO role is a security executive role that focuses on security strategy, program development, overseeing implementation work performed by others, providing risk advice to executives and the board.

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No additional expenses for your organization that relates to recruitment, training, or paying a high-salary full-time employee. This could save your business thousands or even millions if your company was breached. 

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Faster onboarding and fully operational, our vCISO will already come with years of experience and share best practices and regulatory requirements or standards that will ensure your organization mitigates risks. 

 

Tackling Security Challenges Through Bulletproof's Virtual CISO Service

Bulletproof’s Virtual Chief Information Security Officers have over 20 years’ experience helping organizations of all sizes and industries build and manage their IT Security Programs to ensure it's secure and compliant. In addition to their direct experience, we hold security certifications from world-renowned institutions including ISACA, SANS Institute, and CERT. They leverage best practices and standards based their insights on leading frameworks like ISO/IEC 27001 and NIST.

We have extensive experience with working with highly regulated industries, including government, lottery and gaming, healthcare, education, and utilities, and will tailor our solutions to your industry and unique requirements. We know from experience that listening to and understanding your business goals and requirements is the first step in building successful client relationships. This process leads us to customized solutions that address our clients’ specific challenges and opportunities. Our Bulletproof vCISO service will give you the right customized solution to meet your business needs. Every organization is different, with unique business and security requirements. Our vCISO will act as an extension to your team, tailoring advice to your organization and developing short-term and/or long-term roadmaps to ensure your security programs are successful and compliant. Our vCISOs will work closely with your upper management team (C-Suites) to communicate and translate your IT department's strategy, requirements, and tactics to ensure alignment.

security governance

Proper security governance starts from the top down. But, for many organizations without a CISO, understanding where to start and how to effect organizational change can be a challenge. Bulletproof’s vCISOs will help ensure that your organization has effective security governance, aligning your security program with your organization’s strategies and business objectives. Effective security governance is based on three core pillars: confidentiality, integrity and availability – also known as the CIA triad. These form a roadmap for the security policies that should be put in place throughout the organization. 

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Confidentiality

The confidentiality pillar is essentially a set of organizational rules that prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing sensitive information, without limiting access to those individuals who require access. This is generally accomplished by classifying organizational information based on the level of damage that would be caused by the information falling into the wrong hands, and then creating a set of policies and procedures around right to access. Examples of these types of policies and procedures is data encryption, two factor authentication, etc.

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Integrity

The integrity pillar assures that organizational information is trustworthy and accurate. This is accomplished by effecting policies and procedures that data isn’t changed in transit or by unauthorized personnel. Examples of these types of policies and procedures are file permissions, user access controls, and backups, and redundancy.

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Availability

The availability pillar ensures the proper policies, procedures, and technologies are in place to maintain a functioning system environment and that there is reliable access to organizational information by authorized people.

While the CIA triad pillars are standard, security governance isn’t one size fits all – business size, organization type and services, and industry are all elements that should factor into your security governance. Our vCISOs have experience with myriad IT Security Governance models (i.e., ISO/IEC, NIST, CIS, CERT, etc.), and will work with your organization’s key stakeholders to truly understand your organizational strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, and how to effectively overlay security governance across the organization to limit risk, without sacrificing productivity.
We will assist you in developing the roadmap needed to steer your security program, policies, procedures, resources, management and technologies.

security program definition, design, & implementation

While Security Governance sets the accountability framework and provides oversight and direction for how your organization’s security should function, the security program puts this to action. Whether you already have a Security Program in place and need to bring it inline with industry best practice, or you’re starting from the ground up, Bulletproof vCISOs can steer you through the process.

Similar to how Security Governance isn’t one size fits all, neither is a Security Program. Bulletproof vCISOs will work with your organization’s key stakeholders to ensure that the Security Program fits your organization’s unique needs. Our approach assesses your security practices against industry best practice, using the right mix of Control, Program, and Risk frameworks that will enable you to adapt and mature your program and security posture over time.

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At Bulletproof, we do not rely exclusively on a single framework when conducting an IT Security Practice analysis or building a Security Program from the ground up. Rather, we use a blend of Control, Program and Risk frameworks that are most appropriate to your business and industry. This allows us to provide you with a more accurate assessment and a relevant Security Program in context of your day to day operations, along with a better understanding of the actions required to improve your security practices, identifying areas for improvement that carry the most risk if left unattended, and the level of effort required to make the recommended improvements. We will work with you to understand where you’ve been, how you operate, where you are strong and weak, and where you plan on going. By integrating our understanding of your business goals with our understanding of industry best practice, we will provide a tailored Security Program built just for you.

Whether it’s based on NIST, ISO/IEC or CIS – or a blend of all of the above – our vCISOs will define, design and implement a Security Program that has you covered, top to bottom. This will encompass the proper governance and management, security and technical controls, the appropriate resources and user awareness, required policies and procedures, and the underlying technology (i.e., monitoring, vulnerability management, etc.). Ensuring these are in place and aligned with industry best practices. Further, understanding that Security Programs aren’t built in a day, we will help you navigate the process, planning and tackling those requirements that are more urgent based on areas where you’re most exposed or there’s greatest risk. We will define action items and program requirements based on prioritization, levels of complexity, and effort to implementation. This will act as a short- and long-term roadmap to tackle urgent and low hanging fruit that will result in getting a proper Security Program off the ground in the most efficient manner possible.

POLICY & PROCEDURE GAP ANALYSIS AND AUDIT

Even if your organization has proper security governance and security program in place, there may be gaps in policy and procedures. The reality is, security best practice evolves as technologies and the threat landscape evolve. If your program, and underlying policies and procedures don’t evolve over time, you’re likely exposed without knowing it. Or, your security program maybe strong in certain areas, and lack policies and procedures in others. Further, for many organizations, there may be evolving industry or regulatory requirements

REGULATORY, LEGISLATIVE, AND INDUSTRY STANDARD CONSULTING

Bulletproof vCISOs will help you navigate the regulatory and legislative requirements your organization is held accountable to, limiting your risk – and cost – of noncompliance. Examples of this are broader regulatory requirements like Payment Card Industry Data Security Data Security Standard (PCI DSS Standard) when dealing with client financial information, or industry specific requirements, such as healthcare organizations’ compliance requirements with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

OVERSIGHT OF CYBERSECURITY, NETWORK, AND THREAT ASSESSMENTS

In today’s cyber environment, there are few organizations that don’t recognize the need for regular security testing or threat assessment. Beyond a need for this at the organizational level, as organization’s grow and roll out new services and products, there is an ongoing need to test the security of these developments as well. Not only for your own protection, but at the requirement of regulators and customers well. Often, the results of security testing (i.e., network risk assessments, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments) and threat modelling reports are very technical in nature and speak purely in security language. Bulletproof’s vCISOs will help you understand the results of these assessments and apply them to your business.

OUR TEAM WILL:

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Convert assessment findings into business needs to allow you to fully understand what your risks are and suggestions and improvement opportunities. 

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Our vCISOs can oversee your IT groups who are responsible for implementing or fixing issues or vulnerabilities. We'll help guide your organization to develop the right security program/policy/procedure to mitigate risks.

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Track remediation activities through to resolution and provide continuous monitoring to ensure your operations are running smoothly. 

Bulletproof also has a dedicated Cybersecurity Assessment and Audit practice, which can conduct technical security assessments and threat modeling against important assets within your organization.

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT & RESPONSE REVIEW AND EXERCISES

Are you prepared to act when faced with a security incident? Bulletproof’s vCISOs will help you assess your existing Security Incident Response Plan to identify areas for improvement, or will help you build and implement a plan from the ground up. Our service will ensure that you’re in a position to better identify, contain, monitor, remediate, and report on information security incidents when they occur.

SECURITY VENDOR SELECTION

There are thousands of security vendors across North America – including Bulletproof itself – understanding the best fit for your organization’s security requirements is no easy feat. Bulletproof’s vCISOs can help you navigate the convoluted market, understanding what aspects to look for in a security vendor that aligns with your business, IT and security priorities, and, importantly, what to avoid.

DUE DILIGENCE ASSESSMENTS

Bulletproof’s vCISOs can assist you with your IT and security due diligence assessment requirements. Whether you’re considering partnering with or acquiring an organization, we will help you conduct your due diligence to avoid exposing yourself to risk. Our Due Diligence assessment will help you understand how the potential partner or target operates in regard to their IT, how it protects its data, and the security threats you may be exposed to in doing business together.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND BOARD CONSULTING

Need help translating security risks and requirements into language that your Executive or Board will understand? Bulletproof’s vCISOs will help move the needle – ensuring that your Executive and Board truly understand that security is no longer just a line item on the budget, but rather a required function that touches all aspect of the organization, and that in today’s environment, your organization can no longer afford to not invest in the proper security controls and technologies – not only does it leave you exposed, but it can be a competitive disadvantage.

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TRANSFORM YOUR PEOPLE FROM CYBERCRIME TARGETS TO ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS TO YOUR CYBERSECURITY

A whopping 95% of cyber-attacks and incidents exploit unsuspecting and uninformed employees.*

Bulletproof’s Security Aware service is the only user awareness solution in market today that solves the difficult problem of end user adoption and buy in. With Security Aware, you can transform your people from cybercrime targets to active contributors to your cybersecurity.

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*IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index

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