Top 5 Things CISOs Should Focus on, Before Establishing a Cybersecurity Partnership

In today’s hyper-connected ecosystem, a strategic connection between Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and their boards of directors is crucial. It allows businesses to better prevent, respond to, and recuperate from cyber-attacks, as well as mitigate cyber-risks. But even more crucial is having a partnership with likeminded organizations, to join forces in fighting cyber threats.

According to Risk IQ, “The Evil Internet Minute 2019” report, cybercrime costs $2,900,000 each minute and top firms pay $25 per minute for cybersecurity breaches. Companies and their CISOs have banded forces to build cybersecurity partnerships with other companies to combat these attacks, collecting and sharing information about cyber-attacks including potential weaknesses or unusual behavior.

But before securing the much-anticipated cybersecurity partnership between companies, here are five things CISOs should have a common focus on.

Cybersecurity should be a priority in the boardroom – of both

When it comes to cybersecurity, the boardroom isn’t usually the first location that springs to mind. However, as it becomes increasingly involved in cybersecurity, new obstacles develop, and new strategies emerge.

The CISO should communicate and educate their peers and stakeholders across all business divisions about the need of having a cybersecurity program. After all, they are a critical tool for advancing strategic initiatives.  This culture has to be present in both companies, only then the partnership will be beneficial.

Also Read: How to Improve Working Relationships between the CISO and the C-Suite

Investing in a robust cloud security architecture

Most cloud hosting platforms incorporate storage, security, and compliance, trust, and data protection services as part of the managed services package. However, given the majority of events are caused by a company’s lack of a suitable security policy, businesses need to have a solid risk management framework, secure cloud architecture, security governance, and cloud skills competence. CISOs are embracing cloud-enabled technologies that will seamlessly integrate into their enterprise environments as they plan for the future, retooling to support new cloud solutions while also ensuring automated and continuous compliance. When both partners have this strength, the partnership delivers better RoI for both.

Build a borderless security system

Teams are increasingly operating remotely, and more frequently from global locations. The role of IT in ensuring the security of sensitive data is made more difficult by public clouds, untrusted devices, and unsupported networks. When cybersecurity partnership organizations agree that borderless security or remote monitoring is the best technique to protect the safety of the internet infrastructure, both CISOs are able to fully utilize the potential of borderless security or remote monitoring.

Also Read: Building a Robust Cybersecurity Strategy against Rising Ransomware Threat

Invest in new ideas

Cyber-attacks have become increasingly sophisticated over time. Advanced technology such as phishing, denial of service, crypto jacking, spyware, and zero-day vulnerability exploits are among the threats.

To stay one step ahead of cybercriminals, CISOs should invest in developing cybersecurity technologies. AI and deep learning, blockchain, user behavior analytics, next-generation breach detection, and zero-trust networking are some of the options available. Again, there has to be common ground between both organizations for this kind of future planning.

Clearly, cyber security partnerships deliver twice the efficiency of a single IT security team, for both the partner organizations, and substantially reduce the skills, resources and downtime wastages.