Chad Knutson
CEO and Co-Founder
The job of securing a bank or credit union has always come with pressure, but the sources of that pressure have changed. Attack tooling has gotten cheaper to produce, technology adoption cycles have compressed, and a growing number of security leaders are weighing personal exposure on top of everything else. In a feature for FinXTech on rising CISO stress, SBS CyberSecurity CEO and Co-Founder Chad Knutson explains what that shift looks like from the inside.
Knutson pointed to the pace of change as the hardest part to manage.
"You can write ransomware with AI and make it new every time," he said.
That speed collides with how quickly financial institutions now adopt new tools. "You merge that with the trend in technology adoption, we adopt things fast now," he said. "I mean, bankers used to sit around and think about mobile deposit capture for years before they did something. Now, if you thought about AI for years, you'd be behind the curve. So just the rate of change is hard to keep up with."
He also described a structural problem he hears about often: Security leaders carrying accountability without the authority to act on it. They tell him, "'I'm expected to make sure this place is secure, but I don't have authority. I don't control the budget. I don't make the decisions on spend. So, while I'm responsible, I'm unable to address it,'" he said.
Personal liability is now part of those conversations as well. "CISOs ask me, 'should I get my own D&O (directors and officers) insurance coverage?'" Knutson said.
His question for institutions with the means to invest: "Spending is probably going up, but is it going up at a rate that keeps pace with the issue?"
For organizations that need experienced security leadership without the cost or capacity of a full-time hire, SBS offers Virtual CISO services across three levels of partnership, from mentoring an existing team to serving as dedicated security leadership. Institutions sorting out AI governance specifically can pair that with a Virtual Chief AI Officer.
FinXTech's full feature includes perspective from a former bank CISO and an insurance attorney on what institutions can do about it.