Why CISOs need authority, resources and direct access to the executives and the board

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, September 11, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In an article published on Business Reporter, Illumio, the breach containment company, talks about how cybersecurity failures are increasingly exposing the discrepancy that CISOs can be held accountable for risks they were neither empowered nor funded to solve. The biggest stressor is this mismatch between responsibility and authority. A global survey of security chiefs found that only 5 per cent of CISOs report directly to the CEO, highlighting the disconnect between the accountability placed on security leaders and the authority they have to influence enterprise-wide risk. As the threat landscape has expanded, many CISOs have seen their view of the role deteriorate, shifting from strategic adviser to the person expected to explain why controls, budgets or organisational decisions failed. The direction of travel should be different. CISOs should report directly to the CEO and have a standing seat in board-level risk discussions, ensuring security priorities and investment decisions are understood before incidents occur.

The SEC already requires public companies to disclose how their boards oversee cybersecurity risk, as well as management’s role in managing it. In Europe, NIS2 goes further, imposing duties and potential personal liability on boards and senior management to break with the practice of directors’ claiming ignorance after the fact. In the long term, the answer is not to blame CISOs, but to give them the authority and access required to manage enterprise risk. Cybersecurity must become a board-level responsibility, with accountability matched by genuine decision-making power and investment.

To learn more about how liability for cyber risk and agency to mitigate it should be aligned, read the article.

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About Illumio

Illumio is the leader in ransomware and breach containment, redefining how organizations contain cyberattacks and enable operational resilience. Powered by an AI security graph, our breach containment platform identifies and contains threats across hybrid multi-cloud environments – stopping the spread of attacks before they become disasters.

Illumio enables Zero Trust, strengthening cyber resilience for the infrastructure, systems, and organizations that keep the world running.

https://www.illumio.com

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