The questions boards and executives ask us most

Cyber resilience refers to an entity’s ability to continuously deliver the intended outcome despite adverse cyber events. Adverse cyber events are those that negatively impact the availability, integrity or confidentiality of networked IT systems and associated information and services.

These events may be intentional, such as a cyber attack, or unintentional, such as a failed software update, and caused by humans or nature or a combination of both.

A Virtual Chief Information Security Officer, or vCISO, is a service designed to provide outsourced executive-level specialist cyber and information security expertise to organisations on a part-time basis.

• A vCISO service is tailored to your organisation’s specific cyber and information security maturity, capability and needs. It can be a combination of on-site and remote access to your own virtual CISO, who provides executive-level advice and steers your cyber and information security strategy.
• The service can range from a few hours per month to a fully outsourced information security function, and can be scaled up or down as your requirements and maturity change over time.

A vCISO service suits organisations facing significant cyber and information security risk, or regulatory and customer obligations, that cannot justify a full-time CISO. Typically that includes:

• Start-ups and scale-ups not yet at the size where a full-time CISO is justified
• Smaller organisations whose requirements or workload do not warrant a permanent hire
• Organisations with a short-term need to lift cyber resilience through a focused programme, which can then scale down once the target maturity is reached
• Organisations with in-house or outsourced technical security resources who need a senior executive to provide oversight and challenge, and make sure there are no blind spots

See our fractional CISO services

AI is reshaping both sides. Adversaries have better tooling — convincing deepfakes, AI-assisted phishing and automation at scale. Defenders have the same tooling available, if they use it well.

The larger exposure sits in the governance gap. Organisations are adopting AI faster than they can govern it, and accountability for AI decisions is often undocumented. Boards increasingly need to evidence oversight, not simply receive assurance.

A 90-minute interactive session for your board and executive team, facilitated by two former Group CISOs. We cover the current threat landscape, AI risk and regulatory expectations as a working conversation rather than a presentation.

Content is tailored to your industry and current board priorities, with a pre-session planning workshop involving your CISO or cyber lead. You leave with an executive takeaway paper, a board briefing pack, and the specific questions to put to management.

More on board briefings

Yes. We work with your legal and compliance team to establish your regulatory and external obligations, assess your current level of compliance, and develop a strategy to close any gaps. Regulatory pressure without a realistic path to a full-time CISO is one of the most common reasons organisations engage us.

The Global Cyber Alliance is an international, cross-sector effort dedicated to reducing cyber risk and improving our connected world. It develops and deploys practical, real-world solutions that measurably improve collective cyber security. Find out more.