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Security Strategy & Virtual CISO (vCISO)
Tailored strategies to help your organisation achieve its cyber security objectives.
Our Advisory services are designed for organisations who need strategic and technical support to accelerate from their current cyber security posture to reach their target state. We’ll help you analyse, understand, and document applicable cyber threats, risks and likely cyber-attacks that could impact your organisation today and in the future.
Working closely with your Technical and Executive teams, we can design a roadmap to help you strengthen your cyber resilience and keep you on track on the journey.
A comprehensive range of Security Advisory Services
We provide a wide range of strategic advisory, risk assurance, technical engineering, and offensive security testing services to help you manage your exposure to cyber risk over time, increase resilience to business disruption, and achieve measurable returns on investment.
Assess your current security posture and map out a risk-benefit balanced journey to achieve your desired security posture
Identify the stakeholders to be kept informed, updated and consulted about the engagement, and establish the right communication levels between Executive, Operational and Technical teams
Clearly illustrate the value of changing the status quo and tangible (usability, compliance and other) benefits resulting from putting plans in motion
Demystify cyber security issues, taking all stakeholders on board
Ensure that issues are addressed efficiently, with clearly identified metrics
Clearly map your requirements and relevant threats to secure the executive sponsorship and changes in culture you need for cyber security initiatives
Your Virtual CISO (vCISO)
Obtain the strategic support you need without the associated costs of a full-time Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Our Virtual CISO (vCISO) service helps organisations who are struggling to mature their security capabilities sustainably, including their adoption of cloud technology.
Our vCISO will embed into your organisation from the outset to analyse and document risk exposure, drive the creation and delivery of a risk-based security strategy, and communicate effectively at board level, ensuring a pathway towards improving organisational maturity. This service is commonly carried out in a part-time capacity and often remotely.
Your vCISO will assist with several functions for your organisation including security architecture, cyber risk and threat analysis (based on MITRE ATT&CK) and governance and compliance. Common outcomes include:
- A strategic cyber security roadmap
- Policy reviews and updates
- Gap analysis against a well-known framework such as ISO27001 or NIST CSF
- Regular risk reviews
- Board presentations
- Help with technical steer on key security controls (including Microsoft Defender, data loss prevention (DLP), access management etc.)
Your on-demand vCISO service from Quorum Cyber
You’ll have access to experienced vCISOs within our team as and when you need them, so you can maximise your investment and achieve your desired results. With our flexible and scalable service, you’ll be able to call upon our expertise on demand on an ongoing basis.
Increase capability and capacity of information assurance and cyber security expertise
Improve ability to meet changing compliance or audit demands
Improve ability to meet your regulatory requirements
Reduce management overheads, employment costs and the total cost of ownership (TCO) and increased utilisation
Virtual CISO as a Service FAQs
What does a Virtual CISO do and why should I consider this service?
A Virtual CISO (vCISO) is an outsourced, external security practitioner or service provider who offers their knowledge, time and expertise to an organisation on an ongoing basis. This is commonly carried out in a part-time capacity and often remotely.
A vCISO provides organisations who, generally, cannot afford, or are not in a position to employ, the services of an in-house Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), with both strategic and operational leadership with regards to their security.
Organisations that employ a CISO are more likely to have the correct and most adequate governance, operational and technical controls that are necessary for the mitigation of cyber security risk.
By engaging with a vCISO you will significantly reduce your overall cyber risk and make a considerable financial saving for your business by not having to employ such a highly skilled individual directly.
A vCISO will guide and advise the leadership team on best practices for continued cyber security maintenance and compliance. Typically, a vCISO will perform several functions for your organisation:
- Security operations
- Cyber risk analysis
- Security architecture
- Access management
- Data loss prevention
- Governance and compliance.
How do I know if I need a Virtual CISO?
There are various reasons why a Virtual CISO might be a good option for your organisation:
- Your organisation is very large and complex. A large organisation has more employees, more complexity and, generally, more risk to consider. A vCISO can provide an objective, outside perspective on how best to safeguard the business’ various IT architecture, services, and applications.
- Low-risk tolerance. All organisations have differing tolerance levels when it comes to risk. Sectors which typically have higher risk levels – such as finance and healthcare – also have lower tolerance levels for perceived threats.
- Budgetary constraints. Paying for a full-time CISO position for your organisation can be costly and may be counter-productive with respect to a limited budget. Individuals who possess the necessary skills and expertise required to fulfil the role of CISO are very valuable and in extremely high demand. A vCISO is a cheaper alternative while also retaining many of the indicative benefits of an in-house CISO.
- You have an issue which needs to be resolved immediately. The scouting for, and hiring of, the right person to come in and do the work of a CISO can take many months. If an organisation is responding to an immediate threat, then a vCISO can be available much more quickly.
- Your business has a lot of data to protect.
- Your industry is highly regulated. A vCISO is an expert of all things regulatory and compliance related. Any industry/sector that deals with data that is considered to be more sensitive – healthcare, legal etc. – are bound to much tighter regulatory constraints.
What are the benefits of a Virtual CISO?
There are several benefits to hiring a Virtual CISO:
- Access to more than just one individual. Most vCISO service providers will give you access to an entire team of specialists when it comes to security. This can also have an increased impact when it comes to the overall monitoring of your organisation’s cyber security needs. A team of people can, as a general rule, comb through more data and cover more ground than any one individual.
- Faster than the internal recruitment of an in-house CISO
- Far cheaper than paying for the recruitment of an internal CISO
How do I select a Virtual CISO provider?
There are several qualities that should be considered when selecting a vCISO service provider:
- Adequate security experience. It is important to ensure that any service provider has an adequate background in the discipline of security. When someone is examining your operations, it is essential that they do so with cyber threats in mind.
- Knowledge of how to report in terms of return on investment (ROI). Any service provider should be immediately able to answer the question “What effect does cyber security have on my business’s ROI?”
- Ensures regulatory compliance. They will scale the cost of any implemented security strategy to match the size of your organisation. This also works in reverse order in so far as any good vCISO will make you aware of any areas where you may not be putting the necessary time, money or energy and that may, as a result, be increasing your overall risk.
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