The big boss of an IT security department within an organization is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). The main functions for a CISO are to select, oversee and provide appropriate leadership and management for any initiatives that are related to the main cybersecurity of an organization. In such a C-level position in large-scale organizations, you will sometimes consult in critical corporate security matters with the FBI, law enforcement, and government.

You should expect to take a job that provides you with much power as well as freedom. While this is the usual case, you may find yourself with very low or even no power in some organizations. The following list gives you the main responsibilities that you may take while you are the CISO of an organization, leading the entire security domain.

• You are responsible for selecting a bunch of IT security experts and guiding them all the time.
• It is your own responsibility to design a dependable strategic plan that handles the implementations of information security technologies used within the organization. Additionally, your plan shall include the proposed enhancements to be applied to such techniques.
• You have to make sure that all corporate security policies are developed and compliant with the defined security standards. Your supervision should also include all security standards or any procedures undertaken inside the organization.
• You should make sure that all the development of any IT systems within the organization are consistent with security policies and with the strategies set for information protection.
• You have to work with key stakeholders to develop a comprehensive IT security risk management system inside the organization.
• You always have to evaluate the current systems and make sure they are secure according to the defined standards. This could be done through scheduled audits on such systems to ensure that security is well maintained.
• You have to keep always updated with all modern infrastructure for different security systems within the organization.
• You have to always think of potential security threats and predict them by the time they occur for the organization.
• You have to look for any existent vulnerabilities or weaknesses, threats, or events within the networks or systems of your organization.
• You should work on developing a perfect strategy to handle security incidents. Also, you should organize some investigative activities to be performed on the different security systems within the organization.
• You should always be the focal point for any investigations within the IT security department. You should also direct a full study with recommended courses of action.
• You should always work on allocating the resources in the most efficient manner. Using such security resources with maximum efficiency as well as correctness saves your company tremendous amounts of dollars.
• Financial matters are also considered one of your main focal points when it comes to cybersecurity procedures that the organization would undertake. In fact, you should always make cost predictions of every step or project that is about to be performed in the cybersecurity departments. You should also estimate the costs needed for maintenance of all the security assets owned by the organization.
• You should be an actual leader to all the staff working under you in the position hierarchy. This means that you should always hold different trainings for them, provide assistance whenever needed, and enhance their leadership skills such that they are able to take up the ladder of position to higher managerial positions in the short and long run.
• You should always design and implement education programs that aim at raising user awareness and security compliance.
• You should always work senior management to make sure of the implementation, review, maintenance, effective governance of IT security protection policies within the organization.
• You will usually be responsible for many other non-technical tasks within your organization. In fact, in large scale companies, you are not usually expected to deal with your hands on technical matters. However, in fairly small companies, you are expected to work with your hands on some technical tasks as well as your managerial tasks.
• You should always report to either the CIO or the CEO of your organization on security aspects of the organization.

You should expect to stay in the information security for years and years before becoming the CISO of an organization. Throughout these years, you gain experience on technical as well as many other non-technical matters. You will also develop many more skills, and gain accreditations in the field of information security. This section shows you the full paths and the most efficient one that you may take if you are interested to become the big boss of security.

You may consider beginning with an entry-level position such as:

• Security Administrator
• Network Administrator
• System Administrator

You may spend enough time in one of these positions until you have the sufficient confidence to move into the following step. You may now work on many of your interpersonal skills as well as technical ones in one of these positions:

• Security Specialist
• Security Analyst
• Security Engineer
• Security Consultant
• Security Auditor

Your next step after getting experience from one of these jobs is to move into a senior level position within an organization. Such senior level job position will provide you with many diverse skills related to leadership, project management and organizational politics. You may consider one of these jobs for this purpose:

• Security Manager
• IT Project Manager
• Security Architect
• Security Director

Your next step should be the CISO. Good Luck man! Climb on the ladder.