1. You don’t have a designated person exclusively monitoring and managing your biggest risk areas

Data leaks, data loss, wire fraud, ransomware attacks and network shutdowns are all becoming more and more frequent. These are very real threats to your business. Today, more than ever, you need someone completely owning and understanding where your security risks are, and how to reduce them. You need someone with foresight and the ability to plan, inspire and lead. Every organization needs a leader who will be able to help navigate these ever-changing cybersecurity threats sitting at the table.

2. Security risks aren’t being discussed at the leadership level

If your leadership team never talks about cybersecurity and how it affects your overall business strategy, you are missing a critical perspective. Nothing in your business is free of risk: security includes your processes, people and systems. Who is thinking about that risk and how to reduce it? In the event an incident occurs, will your business be able to quickly recover from it?

3. Cybersecurity feels like a black box

Does it feel like you are dumping money down a technology toilet with no return on this investment? Do you feel like you’re paying tons of money for solutions, and not seeing results? Adding security to the leadership team illuminates security risks and allows someone to translate the results and impacts of the investments to your executive team.

4. Your cybersecurity program is either non-existent, undocumented, or ill-defined

One easy sign that you are under-prepared is if you don’t have clearly documented processes for handling sensitive information. Another indicator is your team does not receive any type of security awareness training on a consistent cadence. The bottom line is, if you don’t have a cybersecurity program that is documented and communicated, you are ill-equipped to prevent or remediate an attack or breach.

5. You don’t have a written Incident Response plan known by all

The difference between an immediate, controlled response to an attack and a slow, chaotic, unorganized, messy recovery is the difference between becoming more resilient, or going out of business. Your Chief Security Officer ensures that your incident response plan is not only written, but practiced by your team. They make sure your entire team knows their role and is ready to go when disaster strikes.