Do We Need a Virtual CISO? Or a Virtual Security Team?

February 20, 2025

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Do We Need a Virtual CISO? Or a Virtual Security Team?

Many companies need cybersecurity advice and guidance beyond what their current staff can provide. Yet they may be unable to justify the high cost of a full-time Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or a similar expert

A virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO), also called a fractional CISO or CISO-as-a-Service, can handle all the duties of a typical CISO, but in an pay-as-you-go model that reduces the cost, stress, delays, and risks of hiring and retaining the right CISO in the current cybersecurity job market.

For businesses that need to address rapid growth in your cybersecurity and/or compliance requirements, a vCISO can often be the ideal change agent and trusted advisor. But what about all the specialized skills and experience you might additionally require to operationalize your new cybersecurity plan?

This article explains what a vCISO typically does and how organizations can successfully augment this role with a virtual security team.

What is a vCISO?

A virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO), also called a fractional CISO, is a broadly experienced cybersecurity leader who can provide the same level of strategic advice and guidance as a full-time, in-house CISO, but is available on-demand and/or is not on-site all day, every day. Especially for SMBs, a vCISO can be more cost-effective than a permanent CISO, and can eliminate the hiring hassles and business risk associated with employing a senior cybersecurity professional whose tenure on the job is often under two years.

Like a full-time CISO, the vCISO role centers on helping a business strategize, plan, and execute an efficient and effective cybersecurity program that aligns with business goals and addresses business risks. A vCISO embodies both the strategic vision of executive leadership and the practical/technical depth required to develop an actionable cybersecurity implementation plan.

What does a vCISO do?

Some of the many functions a vCISO typically performs include:

Managing the information security team.
Planning the organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure in alignment with business goals.
Interacting with the client’s executive management.
Attending board of directors’ meetings to provide updates on the client company’s evolving security posture.
Planning and writing policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines and presenting them to management for approval.
Overseeing a security awareness training program.
Acting as the point person for cybersecurity audits and assessments.
Spearheading an ISO 27001, SOC 2, HITRUST, or CMMC certification/compliance effort.
Advancing a new or revised third-party risk management (TPRM) program.

What is a virtual security team?

What a vCISO generally does not do are the many hands-on, tactical and specialized technical tasks associated with implementing and operationalizing a cybersecurity plan, such as installing and configuring software or analyzing log data from cybersecurity tools.

This is where a virtual security team can pick up the slack and fill in skills and/or bandwidth gaps as needed to keep your cybersecurity program moving forward while optimizing overall costs.

Some vCISO offerings (such as CBIZ Pivot Point Security’s) include the option to leverage a broader virtual security team under the direction of your vCISO. Using the analogy of erecting a building:

The vCISO is the architect who designs the building, develops the blueprints, and oversees the layout of electrical, plumbing, and other systems.
The virtual security team members are the contractors and tradespeople who install the lighting, hang the sheetrock, service the elevators, and so on.

Are your expectations for a vCISO engagement aligned with those of your advisory partner?

According to Matt Webster, Partner at Harbor Technology Group, a common problem with vCISO engagements is that clients think their vCISO will be an “army of one” who fills the full spectrum of strategic and tactical/operational roles.

“Cybersecurity, governance, and all the compliance ramifications therein are no longer just a technical issue or an operational issue,” says Matt. “Organizations really need that [vCISO] architect to help them understand how to build an approach to security and understand the risks and threats the organization faces. It’s very similar to what a CFO would do when analyzing financial risks.”

Matt emphasizes that firms looking to hire a vCISO must understand clearly what their consulting partner is bringing to the table. What advisory and tactical services can this person or organization provide? Are there capabilities you believe you need that they cannot sign up to deliver?

Do you know what your virtual cybersecurity staffing needs really are?

To know if a vCISO engagement will meet your needs, your business may benefit from some advisory or scoping support upfront to accurately define your requirements. This step has become increasingly important to successful vCISO engagements as cybersecurity gets more fractured into specialized subdomains—privacy, AI, compliance/audit, incident response, application security, cloud security, business continuity/disaster recovery, third-party risk management, and identity & access management to name a few.

No single person can be great across all these domains. So be aware of any specialty areas where your vCISO will need some extra depth, such as application security and cloud security if your business provides software as a service (SaaS).

Ideally you have someone on your team who knows enough to identify what expertise you need to achieve your various cybersecurity goals. If not, this capability falls squarely within the core advisory competency of most vCISOs.

“A vCISO can really help guide you in the right way to make decisions on how to accomplish individual cybersecurity tasks,” Matt offers.

Based on your vCISO’s advice, you may end up engaging a virtual data privacy officer (vDPO), virtual incident response team lead, or other domain experts to ensure success. In Matt’s experience, using subject matter experts where possible often saves money and leads to a better result.