How Does a vCISO Leverage AI?

Organizations in every industry have seen the power of AI tools over the past couple of years. In security circles, they give executives new ways to identify risks and mitigate threats. However, it takes sound cybersecurity governance to do so, such as the oversight of a third-party vCISO.

But what is a vCISO, and how can it help your organization? Schedule a consultation to find out!

 

How a vCISO Leverages Artificial Intelligence

In security circles, top-down governance is one of the key requirements of effective and efficient protection. In large enterprises, that governance often comes from a chief information security officer (CISO) who sits on the C-suite. However, a virtual CISO (vCISO) provides much of the same security assurance (if not more), often at a fraction of the price. And, when vCISOs are committed to leveraging the best available technology for security, they provide optimal value.

To understand vCISOs’ uses of AI, you’ll need to take a deep dive into:

• The role vCISOs play in cybersecurity governance
• The positive ways vCISOs use AI for cybersecurity
• The cyberthreats of AI that vCISOs help to mitigate
• The AI compliance considerations vCISOs address

Working with a vCISO, especially a provider who’s dedicated to smart uses of AI—like RSI Security—is one of the best ways to rethink and supercharge your organization’s cyberdefense.

 

The vCISO Role in Cybersecurity Governance

To fully appreciate the impact that vCISOs can have on cybersecurity governance, the context of the traditional CISO role is instructive. As of 2023, about 32,000 organizations worldwide employed a CISO. This figure includes 100% of the 2022 Fortune 500 list, up from 70% of the list just four years earlier in 2018. For these organizations, the CISO role provides ultimate oversight on all security matters, taking responsibility for clientele and personnel protection.

CISOs design and inform policy that shapes security at a company. They inform the priorities of their organizations’ cyberdefense deployment and design, develop, or otherwise acquire the tools needed to achieve the goals they set up. They implement tools and protections, monitor effectiveness, make adjustments, and generally ensure that security functions as desired.

However, all that responsibility comes at immense costs, and CISOs are in high demand. It can be challenging to recruit and retain top-level talent for the role, and many smaller or growing organizations—and even some larger older ones—do not employ a traditional, full-time CISO.

Instead, they often turn to vCISOs. This is far from a compromise, as vCISOs offer all of the same functionality as their traditional counterparts through an entire team of dedicated service providers rather than a single employee. Since vCISOs are available on a fractional basis, organizations only pay for specific services they need. The oversight comes free of potential downsides and problematic dynamics of inter-office politics since vCISOs are third-party.

In the simplest terms, vCISOs provide all of the utility of CISOs at greater value and with more flexibility. This is especially true when they’re open to leveraging new and evolving AI tools.

 

 

Security Benefits of AI-Assisted vCISOs

When organizations work with a vCISO, they bring in top-level governance that streamlines decision-making and execution across all security matters. That means that the vCISO team can determine which ways to prioritize AI solutions in development, acquisition, implementation, maintenance, and training to minimize resource costs while maximizing cybersecurity efficacy.

Three major areas where vCISOs can leverage AI for security positively are:

• Creating and mobilizing threat intelligence tailored to an organization
• Strategizing, implementing, and managing security controls efficiently
• Monitoring for cyber incidents and optimizing response and recovery

Let’s take a closer look at each—

 

Generating Actionable Threat Intelligence

AI tools are able to process quantities of data at rates incomprehensible to human brains. In a security context, this gives vCISOs the ability to create useful threat intelligence that’s tailored to an organization’s unique qualities. Starting from base inputs like threat factors inherent in your location and industry, AI models allow for a much more granular analysis of potential and actual threats to organizations like yours. Accounting for factors like company size, workforce and clientele demographics, and hardware and software infrastructure will create an accurate and dynamic profile of the risks you’re facing and the real impacts they could have if realized.

Beyond generating threat intelligence, AI tools can also mobilize it in targeted penetration tests, simulating what an attack on your organization could actually look like in real time. With AI tools, these tests can be conducted regularly and at a fraction of the cost of fully human-led tests.

 

Strategizing, Implementing, and Managing Controls

Another way vCISOs can leverage AI (and the threat intelligence it generates) is in planning out, implementing, and managing cybersecurity controls for compliance and general cyberdefense.

A vCISO team can use AI in the strategy phase to supercharge program advisory and identify areas to prioritize. For example, your vCISO might leverage AI analytics and find that your access controls are not strong enough for regulatory or other requirements. It might find that a simplistic multi-factor authentication (MFA) scheme needs an update to mitigate phishing and other vulnerabilities, or that existing firewalls should be upgraded to proactive web filtering.

Then, vCISO teams can also leverage AI tools to actually implement security architecture they’ve identified as optimal and automate management processes like monitoring and regular updates. Minimizing human input in key areas like these reduces the likelihood of human error and makes it so that any mistakes that do occur are caught and addressed fully and swiftly.

 

 

Optimizing Detection and Response Practices

Preventing attacks and other incidents is only one part of effective cyberdefense. Organizations also need to be ready for events that do happen, and vCISOs can leverage AI to that effect.

Resilience comes from monitoring and incident response or incident management systems. A vCISO team that uses AI effectively can automate some or all of an organization’s monitoring capabilities to identify, report on, and address attacks as soon as they occur—if not beforehand.

And then, with respect to response and management, AI tools paired with effective governance should prioritize business continuity and minimize downtime. Threats need to be quarantined, and systems should be restored to secure backups, as swiftly as possible. Once all elements of an attack have been eradicated besides those kept for forensic analysis, notice needs to be sent to all impacted parties and regulatory or other authorities, if necessary. Automation can make all steps in these processes easier with auto-triggering lockdowns, algorithmic response activities, and standardized communication delivery (including chatbots for follow-up support).

 

Biggest AI Risks that a vCISO Can Mitigate

As with all technological breakthroughs, AI is not without its risks and drawbacks. Thankfully, working with a vCISO allows organizations to take advantage of all the benefits of AI while also minimizing its potential downsides. A capable vCISO team doesn’t use AI or any other tool just for the sake of novelty or appearances; their choices are always strategic and risk-informed.

There are two major risk factors related to AI that a vCISO can help you navigate:

• Vulnerabilities and threats related to AI-assisted cyberattacks
• Reputational and other risks from improper uses of AI tools

Let’s take a closer look at each—

 

Greater Volume and Severity of Threats

Unfortunately, the many benefits of data processing and analytics that AI brings to security professionals are mirrored by the new tools it provides to cybercriminals. Attackers can leverage AI to launch many more attacks than they could in previous years and expend fewer resources doing so. Greater volume means that an increasing number of individuals and organizations will be included in wide-net phishing and other schemes that involve “playing the numbers.”

An even more insidious threat, however, is the greater capacity for more complex and intricate cyberattacks that criminals can launch. Multi-stage and multi-vector attacks will only become more common and more sophisticated as cybercriminals learn the ins and outs of AI. These more complicated attacks will make the expertise of a vCISO-level solution more necessary over time as advanced persistent threats (APTs), once relatively rare, become commonplace.

 

Improper Uses of AI Technologies

On a different level, vCISOs can also help organizations steer clear of self-imposed AI risks. If you’re integrating AI tools for the first time, or experimenting more deeply with tools you’ve already gotten comfortable with, there’s a chance you could run into data privacy and ethical issues related to intellectual property (IP). Another consideration is openness and transparency; there are certain regulations requiring notification and consent about the use of automation that you may need to follow (see below). Working with a vCISO is the best way to stay ahead of both legal mandates and emerging norms and best practices. They’ll train models ethically, protect privacy, and communicate effectively with all stakeholders.

 

 

AI Compliance and Other Considerations

Compliance is one of the most straightforward use cases for cybersecurity governance. Most regulatory frameworks have extensive rules about policy and supervision, which necessitate a CISO or vCISO either explicitly or de facto. This is no different for the new AI frameworks popping up around the world, like ISO 42001. While this regulation in particular is not a legal requirement in any country, it is becoming an expectation in several business communities.

Working with an AI-assisted vCISO is one of the best ways to ensure that you meet existing and emerging regulatory requirements efficiently, all while taking full advantage of AI capabilities.

 

Take Advantage of AI-Assisted vCISO Services

Virtual CISOs play an integral role in shaping cybersecurity governance for organizations that don’t or can’t employ a traditional CISO. They leverage AI’s processing and automation power to supercharge security measures while also helping you avoid the pitfalls of careless AI use.

RSI Security offers vCISO and other cyberdefense governance services to organizations of all sizes and across all industries. We’re believers in the transformative power of AI, but we’re also acutely aware of the real risks it can bring if implemented haphazardly. We help you rethink and optimize your security practices for robust, efficient protection.

To learn more about our AI-assisted vCISO service, contact RSI Security today!

 

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