After years of leaning into studying the ethos of enterprise management and danger administration, chief data safety officers (CISOs) have gotten their seat on the boardroom desk and the ability to make selections. But even so, many say their jobs are extra arduous than ever, and that is not the way it was purported to occur.
A full 82% of CISOs who responded to a current survey from Splunk mentioned they report on to the CEO, up from simply 47% in 2023. In addition, 83% mentioned they take part frequently in board conferences. For their half, CISOs have needed to ability up in type, honing communications abilities and studying the boardroom lingo of KPIs and ROI, to not point out grow to be extra acquainted with authorized and compliance considerations. In different phrases, the scope of the CISO position has expanded far past simply IT safety.
Source: Splunk, the CISO Report 2025
It’s a giant change; for years, CISOs have been relegated additional down the org chart, receiving mandates with none alternative to supply context to the enterprise. They additionally turned those to take the blame for main breaches, touchdown some in authorized entanglements. And that establishment was resulting in huge burnout, with the common CISO tenure standing at simply two to 4 years in 2020. By 2023, there was widespread consensus the CISO position wanted a rethink.
Hence, extra CISOs gaining a seat within the C-suite. And theoretically, placing a CISO in the course of high-level resolution making ought to assist push the case for extra cyber funding. But that hasn’t been the expertise for a lot of, who discover that board buy-in remains to be a problem. In truth, solely 29% of the CISO survey respondents reported they’ve the required price range to maintain up with the present menace surroundings; in distinction, 41% of non-CISO board members mentioned they’re happy with cybersecurity funding ranges.
In all, 53% of CISO respondents within the Splunk survey mentioned their job has really grow to be “tougher since they took the job,” seat on the desk or no.
CISOs With Board Buy-In Do Better
The knowledge additionally factors to a clear-cut answer: Boards with members with cybersecurity backgrounds make an enormous distinction. Board members with CISO expertise work higher with cybersecurity groups on setting technique, objective setting, and critically, budgeting.
Those outcomes mirror the expertise of Jessica Sica, CISO at software program firm Weave. Although she says her position experiences to the chief authorized officer reasonably than the CEO, she “frequently” meets with the entire C-team, in addition to the board and audit groups. But reasonably than bogging her down, Sica says her relationship with management has made her job simpler. But, she provides, Weave’s board is cybersecurity savvy.
“I’ve a really security-conscious boss, and we now have a security-concerned board,” Sica says. “Having their help and voice makes it simpler to get my job accomplished.”
Her expertise, nevertheless, is a minority one: The survey confirmed solely 29% of CISOs had a board with not less than one cyber professional.
Progress requires CISOs to maintain pushing cyber into the C-suite dialog, and boards to acknowledge the necessity to add extra cybersecurity specialists to their ranks, based on Michael Fanning, CISO of Splunk.
“As cybersecurity turns into more and more central to driving enterprise success, CISOs and their boards have extra alternatives to shut gaps, acquire higher alignment, and higher perceive one another to drive digital resilience,” Fanning mentioned in an announcement. “Bringing these teams collectively requires educating boards on the main points of cybersecurity, and for CISOs to know the language and wishes of the enterprise whereas additionally making safety a business-enabler.”