A mature cybersecurity program requires coherence and continuity of vision.
For many organizations, hiring a full-time CISO to direct current security initiatives and establish longer-term risk management goals is a prohibitive expense. Smaller, often overtaxed Security Teams often self-govern but would still benefit from the coherence of vision and executive advocacy typical to the role of CISO.
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A Virtual CISO service provides a cost-effective solution for many organizations with additional benefits unique to a fractional but collaborative resourcing and service delivery approach. A vCISO will help executives, security, and operational teams to manage cyber risk, mature their cybersecurity program in the context of business requirements, and foster committed buy-in from stakeholders.
Collaborative leadership that never leaves you in the lurch.
Beyond the cost associated with hiring a full-time CISO, a key challenge for organizations when it comes to cybersecurity leadership is that the average tenure of a CISO is, on average, 18-26 months. Turnover in any role can be disruptive, and this can be especially true for turnover in leadership roles shaping the overall direction of a security program.
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There's something to be said for having fresh eyes on a problem, but not at the expense of disruptions or setbacks to critical projects or operations. A vCISO service offers the best of both worlds when it comes to role continuity and access to additional expert perspectives. While a vCISO service will typically assign a singular, qualified resource to bring coherence and familiarity to the role, that individual will also have a host of supporting experts at their disposal including analysts, engineers, project managers, finance and legal support. vCISO customers reap the benefit of an extended team at a single, predictable cost, without hiring FTEs and without the risks associated with employee turnover.
How Heighten can help
At Heighten, we are predominantly practical security practitioners who matured through experience and training to learn classical risk management principles and business and legal requirements. In our opinion, expertise rooted firmly in 'doing security' assures the best ROI to our clients when it comes to cybersecurity governance, planning, and accountability.
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Your Heighten vCISO will assume overall accountability for the governance of your cybersecurity program. We will provide focused direction, assessment of current requirements and gaps, road mapping of prioritized initiatives, and management of organizational cyber risk. Your assigned resource will assess and measure program successes, representing your security program at an executive level, and level setting for the operations teams.
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Our approach begins with an organization-wide, industry-standardized assessment of your security posture, but beyond that, we employ additional discovery processes to ensure that we rapidly and continually learn about your business, your people, your technical and physical environments, and their needs. Heighten also provides a variety of related and tightly integrated managed and professional services should they be of value.
Talk with an expert today
Elevate your cybersecurity by having a conversation with one of our experts. We are ready to help Heighten your view of what a true security partner looks like.