--- title: 5 Signs It's Time to Start Using a CISO as a Service description: While you’re laser-focused on your day-to-day tasks and long-term goals, who’s worrying about your cybersecurity? You may need a CISOaaS. image: https://www.truvantis.com/hubfs/5-signs-its-time-to-start-using-a-cisoaas.jpg --- [![truvantis-logo-reverse@2x](https://www.truvantis.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Truvantis%20Logo/truvantis-logo-reverse@2x.png?width=1117&height=250&name=truvantis-logo-reverse@2x.png "truvantis-logo-reverse@2x")](https://www.truvantis.com) [![truvantis-logo-main@2x-1](https://www.truvantis.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Truvantis%20Logo/truvantis-logo-main@2x-1.png?width=1117&height=250&name=truvantis-logo-main@2x-1.png "truvantis-logo-main@2x-1")](https://www.truvantis.com/) ** ## Blog ![](https://www.truvantis.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Truvantis%20Logo/truvantis-logo-main@2x-1.png?length=200) # 5 Signs It's Time to Start Using a CISO as a Service March 18, 2020 You’re busy at work, focused on meeting daily deadlines and on achieving your overall mission. But while you’re laser-focused on your day-to-day tasks and long-term goals, who’s worrying about your cybersecurity? Maybe it’s a small in-house IT team (or employees from other departments who are juggling your security on the side). **Regardless, how do you know when it’s time to start properly investing in safeguarding your business?** Here are five signs it might be time to outsource your cybersecurity and hire a CISO as a Service or vCISO: ## 1. You or your staff are spending too much time filling out customer security questionnaires. Your potential partners or customers have questions— questions that will determine their level of trust in your business. They send over lengthy questionnaires, often listing hundreds of questions about your products, technology and company, so that they can properly assess [how you manage risk](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/how-to-identify-your-risks-develop-a-plan-you-can-afford) before agreeing to a partnership.  **You and your staff are already busy; you don’t have time to fill out this paperwork. **Nor should it be your job to fill out that paperwork. It’s the job of a vCISO, who will know [what a risk assessment entails](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-risk-assessment), and more about your security policies, protocols, previous audits, etc. to answer the questionnaires quicker, more accurately and in the right language to build confidence with a partner. ## 2. Your sales team spends too much time talking about info security. Sometimes hours of your sales team’s day are packed with conversations and stress about your cybersecurity vulnerabilities and woes— eating time away from their actual job. Your salespeople should be focused on selling the value of your product or service, not on convincing prospects that they can trust you. **By hiring a CISO as a Service, you are removing security discussions from the sales cycle.** Your sales staff can pass the baton off to the vCISO and gain that time back; frankly, a vCISO is more qualified to have those security talks than sales anyway.  [A CISO as a Service can produce marketing assets](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/5-ways-cisoaas-can-turbocharge-your-sales-team) like white papers for your sales team as well and will have penetration test results and other reports to give prospects the hard data they need to get on board. ## 3. The board of directors is asking about how you manage cybersecurity risk and you don’t have anyone on staff that knows how to answer. Decision-makers and money-holders value cybersecurity, or anything that will help to protect their assets and investments. But when the C-suite knocks on your door with questions and you don’t have answers, it doesn’t reflect well on you or your team. **Instead of hiring and managing over an entire IT department to answer these queries, direct stakeholders’ questions to your trust cybersecurity partner.** [The right vCISO will have updates and timetables](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-ciso-as-a-service) for improvements to your security at their fingertips, oftentimes with [access to specialists you otherwise couldn’t afford to hire in-house](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/the-top-benefits-of-using-ciso-as-a-service).  ## 4. Your general counsel is talking about GDPR and CCPA and you haven’t performed a privacy readiness exercise. Your business has numerous levels of compliance to meet, but you’re not sure that you’re hitting all the requirements. [GDPR](https://www.truvantis.com/privacy-standards#_________California_Consumer_Privacy_Act_(CCPA)_______) and [CCPA](https://www.truvantis.com/privacy-standards#_________California_Consumer_Privacy_Act_(CCPA)_______) regulations can be confusing, and you haven’t had any formal assessment conducted to catch any violations. **This is a [job for a vCISO](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-using-a-ciso-as-a-service), who can perform privacy readiness exercises and take responsibility for maintaining your compliance demands.** These protocols aren’t something that you should neglect, but it’s nice to know a [vCISO team has experts to ensure you’re following protocol](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/the-advantages-of-hiring-a-cisoaas-vendor-vs.-an-in-house-ciso). ## 5. You had a breach or other cybersecurity incident. If you’ve had a security problem already, you’re probably worried that a repeat would impact customer acquisition and retention. That’s a completely understandable concern, as breaches and PR issues can be quite damaging to your reputation. **If you’ve already had vulnerabilities exposed in your structure, it’s important to [mitigate your future risk](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/why-you-should-invest-in-a-professional-risk-assessment) so something like this or worse doesn’t reoccur. **Chances are, that wasn’t your only gap, and a vCISO can come aboard to expose other potential threats and weaknesses— then establish a plan for approaching them. ## The Specialists You Need Don’t detract resources from your already overwhelmed team. Let them focus on what they do best while a trusted vCISO focuses on what they do best: cybersecurity. Give us a call at (855) 345-6298 to see how we could assist today. #### Related Articles By Topic [CISO](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/ciso) [vCISO](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/vciso) ### Subscribe Here! ### Recent Posts ### Related Articles By Topic - [Security Program (76)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/security-program) - [vCISO (38)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/vciso) - [CISO (35)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/ciso) - [PCI DSS (28)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/pci-dss) - [SOC2 (28)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/soc2) - [Penetration Testing (27)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/penetration-testing) - [Privacy (26)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/privacy) - [Risk Assessment (19)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/risk-assessment) - [CIS Controls (12)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/cis-controls) - [Red Teaming (8)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/red-teaming) - [HIPAA (7)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/hipaa) - [Threat Intelligence (7)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/threat-intelligence) - [ISO27001 (6)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/iso27001) - [CCPA (5)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/ccpa) - [CPRA (2)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/cpra) - [GDPR (2)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/gdpr) - [Ransomware (2)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/ransomware) - [Red Team (2)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/red-team) - [HITRUST (1)](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/tag/hitrust) [See all](https://www.truvantis.com/blog/5-signs-its-time-to-start-using-a-cisoaas#) Contact Us Chat with one of our specialists about our vCISO service. 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