Nikoleta and Associates

Market signals | Cybersecurity leadership

Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

Helping leaders understand security choices and their implications for the business.

Overview

The CISO’s remit: protecting the business through informed choices

The Chief Information Security Officer leads the organization's approach to information and cyber security. The remit includes understanding exposure, shaping protective controls, coordinating detection and response, and advising leaders on priorities. Its purpose is to protect the information and services the business depends on while enabling people to work within clear, usable boundaries.

Today, the role spans more than a security operations team. Identity, software delivery, cloud services and supplier access all affect the organization's protection. The CISO works with their owners to establish appropriate safeguards and tests whether those safeguards operate as intended, rather than relying only on a policy or a dashboard of activity.

Accountability must remain clear. Security specialists can identify exposure and recommend action, but business leaders own decisions about the services and commitments they manage. The CISO brings technical judgement, challenge and an enterprise view, helping executives understand what is protected, where uncertainty remains and which improvements deserve attention first.

For a practitioner, the strategic test is whether security priorities connect to critical business outcomes. Can the team make clear why a particular access pathway, supplier dependency or recovery weakness matters? Clear answers allow the CISO to discuss investment and responsibility constructively with operations, technology and the board, without reducing security to either compliance paperwork or technical volume.

Role signals

What is shaping the role now

Business protection priorities

What needs protection most

31% of recorded breaches began with attackers exploiting software vulnerabilities.

What this asks of the role

Identify the information and systems essential to serving customers and running the business, then prioritize their protection.

2026 | DBIR breach dataset.

Safeguards and assurance

Access to sensitive systems

48% of recorded data breaches involved a third party.

48% of recorded data breaches involved ransomware.

What this asks of the role

Keep access appropriate to people's responsibilities, especially for accounts that can change systems or view sensitive information.

2026 | DBIR breach dataset | Separate findings; not parts of a total.

The role today

  • What needs protection most

    Identify the information and systems essential to serving customers and running the business, then prioritize their protection.

  • Relevant security threats

    Focus security work on ways the organization's actual systems and working practices could be compromised.

  • Access to sensitive systems

    Keep access appropriate to people's responsibilities, especially for accounts that can change systems or view sensitive information.

  • Security built into delivery

    Work with technology teams to include usable security checks as systems are designed, changed and released.

  • Detecting relevant activity

    Check that monitoring can identify the types of suspicious activity most relevant to essential business systems.

  • Practical security advice

    Help teams understand which safeguards their work needs and how to apply them while design choices remain open.

Pressure Points

The CISO’s pressure: consequential exposure amid constant demand

The CISO faces a difficult balance between the volume of security work and the need to concentrate on what could materially affect the business. Findings, alerts, reviews and exceptions compete for specialist attention. The number of items completed can therefore say little about whether the organization's most important services are better protected.

Many improvements depend on teams outside security. A platform owner must schedule a change, a business leader must approve disruption or a supplier must alter access. When these responsibilities are unclear, temporary exceptions can persist. The CISO is left describing an exposure while lacking the authority to complete all the work that would address it.

Incident readiness brings another form of pressure. Technical containment may require decisions about customer service, communications and operational continuity. Investigators need appropriate evidence, and recovery teams need confidence that restoration is safe. These demands are difficult to coordinate for the first time during a live event with limited information.

A practical leadership review looks at material pathways and decision readiness together. Identify the services involved, the owners who can act and the choices requiring executive agreement. Rehearse those choices with relevant functions. This gives the CISO a more useful basis for prioritization than a long technical list detached from business consequence and delivery capacity.

Common pressure points

Protection priorities competing for attention

  • Assets without business context

    Technical inventories can list systems without showing which customer or operating activities depend on them.

    What to look atCheck whether important assets are connected to business services and owners.

  • Exceptions becoming permanent

    Temporary permissions or safeguards may continue beyond their intended review date without renewed business agreement.

    What to look atReview exception owners, expiry dates and the conditions originally accepted.

Safeguards across systems and suppliers

  • Permissions outlasting responsibilities

    People can retain access after their work changes, particularly across several connected systems.

    What to look atCompare current access with role responsibilities and recent team movements.

  • Supplier assurance without current evidence

    An earlier assessment may no longer reflect a supplier's access or the service it now provides.

    What to look atReview changes in supplier access and the age of supporting assessments.

Response under operating pressure

  • Unclear authority during response

    Teams may understand technical steps but lack agreement on who can interrupt a business service.

    What to look atReview decision authority for containment and service restrictions.

  • Pressure to restore too soon

    A service may be requested back before teams have confirmed that the security exposure is managed.

    What to look atReview the checks and approval required before service restoration.

Influence and specialist capacity

  • Advice disconnected from delivery

    Teams can receive security recommendations without enough practical detail to implement them.

    What to look atReview requests for clarification and recommendations waiting for a delivery owner.

  • Specialists spread across too much work

    The same people may handle monitoring, projects and response preparation without enough time for each.

    What to look atReview overlapping commitments and responsibilities with limited backup coverage.

Selected external benchmarks

Research note: These figures describe the groups studied. They do not measure your organization’s performance or set goals for it.

  • Mobile phishing success
    40%

    higher success for conversational attacks on mobile than email phishing.

    2026 – DBIR attack analysis

  • AI agent oversight
    1 in 5

    companies have mature governance for autonomous AI agents.

    2026 – Leaders at AI-active firms

  • Tracking technology deployments
    70%

    say business teams deploy technology faster than IT can track.

    2026 – Global technology executives

  • Service AI security
    51%

    of service leaders say security considerations delayed or restricted AI initiatives.

    2025 – Global service-professional survey

Conditions to Deliver

Security involved before commitment

The CISO contributes best when security joins product, technology and business decisions before designs and deadlines are fixed. Access to credible asset, identity and incident information allows the function to distinguish material exposure from background noise and direct attention toward the choices with the greatest consequence.

The role also needs shared ownership of protection. Business and technology leaders should understand the risk they accept, while legal, privacy, audit and response teams maintain clear escalation and coordination routes. Board access, protected challenge and investment in capable teams allow the CISO to support progress without presenting security as a separate approval stage.

Reflection questions

Is security built into the choices that shape exposure?

  1. Which product and technology decisions still reach security after architecture, suppliers or launch expectations have been fixed?

  2. Can you identify the human and machine identities with consequential access, what they may do and who is accountable for them?

  3. Which leaders explicitly own accepted exposure, and do they understand the service and customer consequences of that choice?

  4. Have technology, legal, communications and business teams practised how they would contain, communicate and recover an essential service together?

  5. What evidence shows that security guidance makes secure delivery easier rather than adding a separate approval stage?

Future Evolution

The CISO’s evolution: security built into how work operates

The CISO's evolving remit may place greater emphasis on protections that are built into ordinary delivery and operating practices. Advising at the end of a project is expensive for both security and the business. Reusable patterns, early design involvement and clear ownership can make secure choices easier before systems and workflows become established.

Automated tools and AI agents introduce questions about machine identities, delegated authority and reviewable actions. The underlying discipline remains recognizable: understand what can access a service, what it may do and who is accountable. Security leadership needs to work with application owners so that permissions reflect the task rather than the maximum capability of a tool.

Resilience also requires a broader partnership. Technical response, business continuity and service restoration need shared exercises and learning, with legal and communications involved where relevant. The CISO can help leaders see how dependencies affect their options without presenting security as the sole owner of enterprise continuity or business decisions.

Preparation can begin with one important workflow. Examine its human and machine access, the evidence available to investigate unexpected behaviour and the route to restore service safely. This connects future capability to an operating responsibility the business already recognizes, while building a security function that can demonstrate effectiveness through evidence rather than control counts alone.

Role evolution

Security as part of business design

  • Protection around essential services

    Connected operations may shift CISO priorities toward the complete business services that must continue and their underlying dependencies.

    What to watchSecurity priorities linked to essential business activities.

  • Scenarios before design

    Changing threats may bring security scenarios earlier into provider selection, product design and business expansion choices.

    What to watchThreat scenarios informing choices before design approval.

Protection across connected services

  • Identities beyond people

    AI agents may broaden CISO oversight toward machine permissions, accountable owners and identity lifecycles.

    What to watchAutomated services assigned specific permissions and owners.

  • Supplier assurance over time

    Growing platform dependence may require supplier assurance to follow changes in access, activity and service importance.

    What to watchSupplier reviews updated as dependence expands.

Prepared response across the business

  • Detection with business context

    AI adoption by both attackers and legitimate users may increase the need to interpret unusual activity in context.

    What to watchDetection distinguishing legitimate automation from unauthorized activity.

  • Recovery of complete service

    Connected workflows may shift recovery assessment from restored systems toward usable, dependable business service.

    What to watchRecovery tests demonstrating complete business activity.

Security leadership as AI use expands

  • Task-specific security guidance

    Varied AI and digital uses may require guidance grounded in the information and actions each role handles.

    What to watchGuidance based on actual tasks and permissions.

  • AI within enterprise protection

    AI access and actions may make the CISO a continuing partner in permitted-use, evaluation and oversight decisions.

    What to watchAI governance including permissions and information protection.

Selected external benchmarks

Research note: These figures describe the groups studied. They do not measure your organization’s performance or set goals for it.

  • Security investment
    84%

    plan stronger cybersecurity in response to geopolitical developments.

    2026 – Global CEOs

  • AI outpacing governance
    77%

    say AI adoption is moving faster than their governance capabilities.

    2026 – Global technology executives

  • Built-in AI controls
    25%

    fewer incidents reported with built-in AI controls than manual governance; an association.

    2026 – Global technology executives

  • Security for AI agents
    59%

    cite security and compliance as barriers to scaling AI agents.

    2026 – Global technology executives