The Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO, is the executive who defines an organization’s security strategy and oversees how it is executed. A CISO typically manages risk, security policy, incident response, vendor oversight, awareness training, and reporting to senior leadership. In practice, the role is both technical and managerial: the CISO has to turn broad security goals into controls that teams can actually operate.
This matters because many cyber risks are organizational, not just technical. Attackers often exploit gaps in ownership, weak oversight, or poor coordination between IT, legal, and business teams. In defense, the CISO helps decide what data may be used, which tools are approved, how systems are monitored, and how incidents are escalated. When new technologies such as generative AI are adopted, the CISO is often the person responsible for making sure governance, logging, access control, and response plans keep pace.