cyberscale Services

VIRTUAL ciso (vCISO)

Within many organisations, a gap exists between Senior
Management and IT, especially when it comes to Security.

Our Virtual CISOs (vCISO) help to bridge that gap.

Want to know more about our vCISO service?

Get in touch to talk with the team

A bespoke solution for your business

Like a full-time CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) commonly employed in enterprise businesses, as a vCISO we work in partnership with your teams to understand your business, your risks and goals. From the information we gather, we will formulate, direct and implement your cyber and information security strategy.

All businesses are unique and operate differently, that’s why it is important that our flexible Virtual CISO service is tailored to your specific needs and requirements, and encompasses the right blend of responsibilities for you. Our service offers a level of investment, flexibility and collaboration suitable for your business and its needs. We will work with you from the outset to establish the most important and cost-effective mix of service elements for your business.

We understand completely the delicate balance between the need to be secure and the ability to be responsive and agile. We want to enable you to use IT securely, not prevent innovation and agility.  When not working with you, our advisers are constantly keeping up to date with the latest threats and how to deal with them, so your team can get on with running your business.

All service levels start with an initial assessment and the planning and creation of your cyber security scorecard and cyber security road-map. We will monitor and drive progress against your plan throughout our engagement with you, constantly improving your security and reducing the risks to your business.

There will be many things to consider when building this service for your business, and our vCISO can work across multiple areas, such as:

Security Frameworks & Compliance

Should you consider Cyber Essentials? Maybe you’re thinking about ISO 27001? We will help you understand the benefits and work involved based on your individual business and help you get there – if that’s the right choice for you.

Technology Evaluation

From understanding the risk associated with new technology to helping you understand the tools you need and how to choose, our team can work with you through this process.

Executive and staff awareness

A huge part of cyber security management is education for business owners, executives and your team. This is a key deliverable for customers who choose our part-time Virtual CISO service but we can also provide awareness & training programmes on a standalone basis. 

Building training frameworks that fit with your business needs and consider specific threats to your organisation must be supported through ongoing communications, as building a culture of security and being front of mind in staff is not achieved by one off or annual training.

strategy & role definition

Working closely with your existing team we will work on the development of your cyber security strategy and defining the required roles & responsibilities needed within the business to effectively deliver the strategy.

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policies & processes

Ensuring that everyone knows what to do and how to do it is key to a cyber security strategy and our Virtual CISO will work on developing and implementing all required policies and related processes. Also ensuring they remain relevant ongoing will be a part of the vCISO role.

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supply chain governance

Our vCISO will be on hand to ensure you can safely and securely manage your Supply Chain and 3rd Party Governance. As well as this we will be able to work with you on management of supplier relationships, assurance and audits.

ongoing awareness & ad-hoc support

The Virtual CISO service from CyberScale doesn’t stop with fixed responsibilities, we want to ensure your business is as cyber secure as possible ongoing, so we will work with you to increase awareness of risks and opportunities as well as advising on topics as they arise.

As the role of the vCISO develops our team will be able to provide more strategic support and guidance around the below topics, which are becoming ever more important for businesses…

Security Architecture

Designing computer systems to ensure that they meet your organisations cyber security goals, whilst enabling the business to operate as it needs to, is a balance that we work hard to achieve. Strong security architecture leads to less security breaches.

The main focus of security architecture is to mitigate the security risks that threaten your business systems. It focuses on the way that people, processes, and technologies interact and ensures that the needs of your organisation are fully understood and met.  Security services must be designed, delivered, and supported as an integral part of your business and infrastructure, and not seen as a standalone aspect with IT having sole responsibility.

As attackers work to undermine your security, the way that systems and devices are configured must be in constant review without having an impact on the ability of people to do their work.  A key component of ensuring that your security architecture is robust enough for the threats posed by attackers is an ongoing understanding of the threat landscape and how it relates to your organisation.  The need for understanding is constant, and our vCISO service provides this as our consultants dedicate time to understanding all threat types throughout their work.

Our experienced vCISO’s offer a service that help clients tackle the inherent challenges in reviewing your systems architecture, building new systems securely and knowing which security approach to take for your organisation.  The key benefits being an experienced impartial view alongside your staff team, the ability to move quickly in making recommendations and delivering the bespoke approach you need.

Security Audit and Assurance

Any cyber and information security controls a business has in place are going to be ineffective if they are not implemented correctly or maintained to keep them up to date.  This is where ensuring that systems, processes and documentation are reviewed and amended to keep the business secure becomes of great importance.

Our security audit and assurance service support your audit plan or internal compliance programme to assess the design and effectiveness of cyber security controls. This service will typically validate that the required controls are in place and, operating and have operated consistently.  Our vCISO’s will come with a deep understanding not only of what your business needs are but also the regulatory requirements around security both at an industry and national level.

The audit is delivered against a controls framework using one of the three models for sourcing i.e., Insource, Outsource or Co-Source. Insourcing is when we partner with your internal team to handle all their cyber audit/compliance activities. Outsourcing entails hiring us as your partner to build, operate and maintain the cyber audit/compliance programme. The co-sourcing model is a hybrid between the two in which we are brought into the fold, to help get the cyber security audit or compliance program up and running.

Building a bespoke approach for your business is what our consultants are experienced in, with the focus being to ensure your security goals are being met now and ongoing.

Environmental, Social & Governance

The role of the vCISO evolves with the needs of businesses, and the topic of Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) requirements has started to become woven with vCISO responsibilities.  vCISO’s already understand risks within organisations and can report on this to senior leaders, plan mitigations and deliver the strategy to ensure change and protection of a business’s critical systems and information. 

With ESG and the involvement of a vCISO we are not just looking at the capability to deliver technically but also an understanding of how systems and operating practices impact on customers, partners and clients.  One core aspect here is how data management is being increasingly seen as a social responsibility to customers and the general public.  As businesses handle ever increasing amounts of information there comes with it a level of responsibility to not only keep this data secure but to communicate with customers about how this is done.

As your organisation navigates its ESG journey we will work in partnership with you to set up a target operating model bespoke to your needs which covers the areas of process, people, service delivery, technology, insights and governance.

Leadership Development

Once your target operating model is defined we will work with you to achieve this. Our vCISO’s can form a central role in developing your leadership team to become more confident and capable in delivering your cyber security strategy.

Some of the key areas where the vCISO is able to quickly have an impact on an organisations leadership are:

  • Assessing the levels of understanding and assigned responsibilities of the board / senior leaders regarding cyber security
  • Supporting leadership in determining an adequate security posture for their organisation
  • Identification of gaps in security coverage and safeguards based on the risk profile of the business
  • Increase capability to perform appropriate risk assessments and subsequent investments into cyber security
  • Build a top down approach for ongoing preparation around advanced persistent threats, social engineering, and ransomware attacks

CyberScale LTD • Company no. 04493885 • Registered in England

Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association Showground Dereham Road, Norwich, England, NR5 0TT

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