🇬🇧 CISO as a Service: when security becomes strategic infrastructure

For a long time cybersecurity was treated as a technical matter, confined to the digital basements of organizations, alongside servers, firewalls and backup systems. It was an operational function, often delegated to IT managers, considered an accessory discipline compared to the major strategic decisions of companies. Then something changed.

Over the last twenty years cybersecurity has moved from machine rooms into boardrooms. Cyber crises have begun to produce geopolitical, financial and social effects comparable to energy crises or disruptions in supply chains. Ransomware attacks have paralyzed hospitals, digital sabotage has struck energy infrastructure, cyber-espionage campaigns have reshaped the balance between technological powers.

In this new context the role of the Chief Information Security Officer, the CISO, has taken on a different dimension. No longer simply the technical manager responsible for system security, but a governance figure responsible for digital risk management. The CISO has become a kind of architect of informational resilience.

However, precisely at the moment when this function became crucial, an economic paradox emerged. Large multinational corporations can afford complex security teams, SOC operational centers, cyber resilience programs and dedicated governance structures. Small and medium-sized enterprises, which constitute the backbone of Europe’s economy, almost never possess the resources required to support a full-time security executive.

It is within this space that the CISO as a Service model was born, often abbreviated as CISOaaS.

The idea is not entirely new. In the nineteenth century, during the industrial revolution, many companies did not possess advanced engineering expertise internally. Consulting engineers travelled between factories and construction sites, designing infrastructures, machines and production systems. In the twentieth century the same model was applied to financial, legal and strategic consulting. Today cybersecurity follows a similar trajectory.

CISO as a Service essentially represents the transformation of security from an internal function into an external strategic service.

The company does not hire a permanent executive but accesses senior expertise on a modular basis. An external CISO intervenes to define the security strategy, analyze risks, build the governance framework, support the organization in regulatory compliance processes and supervise incident response.

This model has found particularly fertile ground in Europe, where the regulatory landscape around digital resilience has progressively become more complex. The General Data Protection Regulation, known as GDPR, introduced direct responsibility in personal data management. The NIS2 directive expanded the perimeter of organizations considered critical infrastructures. The DORA regulation, applied to the financial sector, imposed a strict framework for ICT risk management.

These regulations do not simply require the installation of security technologies. They require governance.

And it is precisely here that the role of the CISO takes on an almost philosophical dimension. Security no longer consists of blocking an attack, but of governing uncertainty. It is not a matter of tools, but of responsibility.

In classical strategic thinking this distinction is well known. Carl von Clausewitz, in his treatise on war, observed that military command does not consist in controlling every variable of the battlefield, but in making decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Modern cybersecurity follows a surprisingly similar logic.

An organization cannot completely eliminate digital risk. It can however govern it.

CISO as a Service arises precisely as a response to this need. It is not a technician configuring systems. It is a leadership function.

In practice the model allows companies to access high-level expertise without bearing the structural cost of a permanent executive position. The international CISO market indeed shows extremely high average salaries, often exceeding 180,000 euros per year in Western economies. To this amount must be added bonuses, stock options and indirect costs related to security teams.

For a European SME this investment is rarely sustainable.

CISOaaS therefore introduces a logic of expertise fragmentation. A security executive can oversee multiple organizations, dedicating to each a limited number of operational days per month. The result is a more efficient distribution of expertise.

But the most interesting aspect does not concern only costs.

The model also produces a cognitive effect.

An external CISO brings a comparative vision. Having worked with many different organizations, such a professional possesses a broader perception of the threat landscape, defense strategies and regulatory dynamics. In a certain sense the external CISO acts as a vector of knowledge between different corporate ecosystems.

This transfer of experience becomes particularly valuable in an era where threats evolve with almost biological speed.

Criminal organizations today operate like technology companies. Ransomware groups maintain hierarchical structures, software development divisions and business models based on shared criminal platforms. Some analysts now speak of a true cybercrime economy.

According to several international estimates, the global cost of cybercrime could exceed 10 trillion dollars annually by the end of the decade. This figure surpasses the gross domestic product of many national economies.

In this scenario cybersecurity is no longer only a technological problem. It is an economic and geopolitical issue.

Companies become nodes within a global network of vulnerabilities.

For small organizations the risk is even more evident. Many cyber attacks do not directly target large multinational corporations but companies within their supply chain. An SME with weak security systems can become the entry point used to compromise an entire industrial ecosystem.

CISO as a Service therefore emerges as a systemic response to this structural fragility.

In its most advanced form the model does not limit itself to episodic consulting. It becomes a real program of continuous security governance. The external CISO establishes risk indicators, defines policies, supervises audits, coordinates cyber crisis exercises and ensures alignment with regulations.

In other words it represents a form of distributed strategic leadership.

In the initial phase the intervention almost always begins with a cyber risk assessment. This analysis identifies organizational, technological and procedural vulnerabilities. Yet what most often emerges is not a lack of technical tools. It is a lack of vision.

Many organizations possess sophisticated security technologies but lack a coherent strategy that integrates them into a risk management system.

CISO as a Service intervenes precisely at this level.

It transforms a collection of tools into a program.

In the final part of this reflection it is useful to observe the model from a quantitative perspective.

The economic difference between an internal CISO and a CISO as a Service can be represented with a simple comparison.

This structure allows SMEs to progressively build a mature security system.

From an operational point of view CISOaaS operates across several layers of digital risk governance.

A comparative analysis also shows that the majority of cyber incidents in SMEs do not derive from sophisticated attacks but from organizational vulnerabilities.

These figures reveal a reality often overlooked in public debate. Cybersecurity is not dominated by brilliant hackers penetrating impenetrable systems. It is often the result of human errors, incomplete processes and fragile governance.

In this sense CISO as a Service represents a cultural response even before a technological one.

Cybersecurity is not a matter of tools.
It is a matter of responsibility.

And like every form of responsibility, it requires leadership.

Raffaele Di Marzio
Executive Cybersecurity Consultant
raffaele.dimarzio@cyberium.limited

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