Beyond the Cost Center: How CISOs Drive Profitable Growth

While cybersecurity is often perceived as a cost center, CISOs can play a pivotal role in driving a company's profitability. Instead of simply focusing on compliance and minimizing security spending, CISOs can adopt a proactive approach that aligns security measures with core business objectives. Here's how:

1) Enhance Customer and Marking Outreach Through Improving the Customer Experience

A positive customer experience is crucial for attracting and retaining customers, directly impacting a company's revenue. CISOs can contribute to this by ensuring a secure and seamless online experience for customers. For example, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) on company websites and customer portals adds an extra layer of security, safeguarding customer information and increasing trust.

Let's illustrate this with a scenario: Imagine a customer purchasing a car online. The customer would likely interact with the company's website to browse models, request quotes, and potentially even complete the purchase process. A user-friendly website with robust security features, such as MFA, would instill confidence in the customer, making them more likely to complete the purchase. Additionally, employing encryption and data loss prevention (DLP) technologies can protect sensitive data, further enhancing the customer's confidence in the company's security posture. A smooth and secure online experience encourages customers to engage with the company, leading to increased sales and customer loyalty.

Another way to improve the customer experience is by implementing solutions like DocuSign for online signature capture. This eliminates the need for customers to print, sign, and scan documents, significantly streamlining the process and saving time. Integrating MFA into the DocuSign login process further enhances security by verifying the customer's identity. This not only provides a more convenient experience for the customer but also reduces the risk of fraud and protects sensitive information from potential security breaches.

2) Strengthen Service Enablement through Vulnerability Management

Companies often generate recurring revenue by offering multiple services to their customers, such as maintenance alerts, extended warranties, or mobile apps that enhance product functionality. CISOs can contribute to the profitability of these services by ensuring their security and reliability.

Consider a scenario where a car manufacturer offers a mobile app that provides vehicle telemetry, maintenance reminders, and even special offers from dealerships. This app, while beneficial to customers, could also be a target for cyberattacks. CISOs can mitigate this risk by conducting thorough risk assessments and vulnerability scanning on the app to identify and address any potential weaknesses.

Penetration testing, where ethical hackers attempt to exploit vulnerabilities, can further strengthen the security posture of these systems. By proactively identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities, CISOs can minimize the risk of service disruptions and protect revenue streams.

3) Ensure Profit Generation via Enhancing Operational Resilience

In today's business landscape, operational resilience is paramount to profitability. Disruptions, such as ransomware attacks or system failures, can significantly impact a company's ability to operate and generate revenue. CISOs can enhance operational resilience by conducting disaster recovery and business continuity planning exercises. These exercises involve developing and testing response plans for various scenarios, ensuring that the company can quickly recover from disruptions and minimize financial losses.

For instance, in the event of a ransomware attack that cripples a company's primary sales websites, a well-defined business continuity plan would outline alternative methods for taking orders and maintaining business operations. This could involve redirecting customers to a backup website, enabling order processing via fax or phone, or leveraging other communication channels to keep customers informed. The case of CDK Global, a software provider for auto dealers, highlights the importance of such planning. When CDK Global suffered a system outage, many dealerships were unable to process sales because they lacked a backup plan.

In addition to having robust response plans, CISOs can work with the business to conduct tabletop exercises that simulate various crisis scenarios. These exercises help to identify potential weaknesses in the response plan, improve coordination among different teams, and enhance the overall effectiveness of the company's resilience strategy. Moreover, considering potential supply chain attacks is crucial to maintaining resilience. Just because a solution exists doesn't automatically guarantee resilience.

4) Reduce Costs and Technology Debt

While cutting costs is a common business objective, CISOs can contribute to this goal without jeopardizing security or incurring technology debt. One effective strategy is to identify and advocate for the replacement of outdated, high-maintenance legacy systems with more efficient and secure solutions. For example, migrating an application from a traditional server-based architecture to a serverless architecture can significantly reduce maintenance overhead and costs in the long run. This is because serverless architectures automatically scale resources up or down based on demand, eliminating the need for companies to maintain and pay for idle server capacity.

Another way CISOs can contribute to cost reduction is by identifying and eliminating redundant security processes. For example, many companies require vendors to complete multiple security assessments, such as the Cloud Security Alliance Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ), SOC 2 Type 2 audits, and ISO 27001 certifications. However, there's often significant overlap in the information requested by these assessments. CISOs can streamline this process by mapping the controls covered by each assessment and identifying areas of redundancy. This allows them to potentially eliminate unnecessary assessments or reduce the scope of vendor questionnaires, saving time and resources for both the company and the vendor.

CISOs can further challenge the necessity of certain compliance activities if they don't demonstrably reduce the risk of major breaches. By analyzing past breach data and identifying the root causes, CISOs can determine the effectiveness of current security controls and compliance requirements. If a particular compliance activity, such as completing a lengthy vendor questionnaire, has not historically flagged any issues that contributed to past breaches, CISOs can argue for its reduction or elimination. This risk-based approach to compliance allows CISOs to prioritize security measures that have a tangible impact on reducing risk, rather than simply checking boxes to satisfy auditors and regulators.

By embracing a proactive and business-oriented mindset, CISOs can transform cybersecurity from a perceived cost center into a strategic function that contributes directly to a company's profitability.