Guide to crafting the ideal cybersecurity team structure

Successful protection against or mitigation of cyber threats relies on the strength of your cybersecurity team. Without a proper team structure, time-critical decision-making could be delayed, and financial and reputational damage from cyberattacks and data breaches could be irreversible. Without qualified and experienced cybersecurity team members on board, you could miss out on important proactive protective measures to avoid these attacks in the first place.

Having the right cybersecurity team structure helps ensure:

• Streamlined decision-making
• Fair allocation of resources and responsibilities
• Better communication and collaboration between team members (and other departments)
• Quick damage mitigation
• Opportunities for mentorship

In this guide, we’ll share the essential steps and considerations in assembling an effective cybersecurity team. It will cover the roles, skills, and organizational positioning needed to build a robust defence against cyber threats.

Understanding key cybersecurity roles

The scope of your cybersecurity team will vary depending on your organization's size and security needs. It may be one combined Purple team (made up of Red and Blue teams) or separate Red and Blue teams:

• Blue team (focused on defence, actively fortifying systems, and responding to incidents)
• Red team (focused on penetration testing and ethical hacking)
• Purple team (combined blue and red teams).

Learn more about Blue, Red, and Purple team structure.

Regardless, an ideal cybersecurity team will likely include a combination of senior staff and technical roles:

Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) should lead your cybersecurity strategy. Their role is strategic planning and policy development for the organization's security measures. This person has extensive cybersecurity experience, usually with strong business operations knowledge.

The CISO is also responsible for:

• Overseeing a larger IT or cybersecurity team
• Implementing cybersecurity standards, policies, and procedures
• Responding to security incidents
• Managing cybersecurity technologies and tools
• Building a security-minded and risk-based culture to protect the organization

Managers and leaders

Your team will likely include other leaders, including a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) a Chief Information Officer (CIO), and managers of specific teams.

CTOs or CIOs play an important role in helping senior management understand cybersecurity. These roles are partially visionary (planning and strategy) and executing (ensuring the right people are doing the right things and assisting when needed).

During a cyberattack, CIOs may support immediate response (assessment and activating teams and plans as needed) and provide strategic oversight and planning. A CTO provides the technical leadership to contain the threat, upgrade systems and infrastructure if needed, and work to enhance future digital security. They are also key advocates with third-party technology partners and usually champion new technological solutions when needed.

Technical roles

These hands-on roles exist under the CISO and leadership in the hierarchy. These technical roles are often suited for early- or mid-career cybersecurity experts:

• Security Analysts are popular entry-level positions that don’t require extensive experience. They monitor security systems for anomalies, conduct risk assessments, and report findings. Hiring recent grads from Cybersecurity Bootcamps is a popular hiring path for this role.
• Security Engineers support cyber defences using insights from Security Analysts to design and implement robust network solutions that can fend off potential cyber threats.
• Security Architects look at the larger picture of digital systems. Their job is to create the organization's goals and vision for its digital assets and provide guidance for other IT team members as needed. They also help develop complex security structures and ensure they function as intended.

Incident response and threat intelligence teams

While most team members will be involved during an active security incident, incident responders and threat intelligence teams may take the lead during these events:

• Incident Responders are responsible for having up-to-date expertise in a wide range of cybersecurity measures and knowledge of evolving digital threats and cyberattacks.
• Threat Intelligence Analysts proactively focus on identifying and analyzing potential threats and supporting cybersecurity teams in preparing defensive strategies.

What is the organizational structure of a cybersecurity department?

Cybersecurity team hierarchy and organization can be easily customized to your company's needs. Three common structures include centralized, decentralized, and hybrid:

Centralized vs. decentralized structures

A popular choice for organizing your security team is using a centralized structure. In this structure, all cybersecurity teams work within the same department and protect the company as a whole. Decision-making is centralized for the entire organization, and each department or business location contacts the centralized team if they have individualized security concerns.

In a decentralized cybersecurity team structure, smaller teams or individuals are placed within other departments or locations. This structure allows these departments autonomy over their security operations without company-wide oversight from a CISO enforcing standards or shared protocols.

Alex Goryachev, AI Keynote Speaker and Digital Transformation Leader, believes removing the silos inherent in decentralized systems may be the key to boosting company security: “To effectively integrate cybersecurity with other business functions, it's crucial to dismantle the silos that traditionally isolate security teams,” he says. “Cybersecurity leaders should be involved in strategic business discussions to ensure security considerations are embedded in decision-making.”

Hybrid approaches

In a hybrid model, you have a mix of a centralized security team that oversees the company and cybersecurity experts within various other departments. Hybrid structures take advantage of the benefits of both models.

Comparing centralized, decentralized, and hybrid models

	Centralized	Decentralized	Hybrid
Ideal for…	Smaller organizations, with minor security needs	Larger organizations where departments have vastly different security needs	Larger organizations that require consistency and adaptability in their security
Agility	Not agile as a centralized team. May be viewed as less responsive and lacking context for individual department issues	More agile as teams can make their own decisions and strategy as needed	Agile where needed, with oversight from the centralized team
Decision-making	Decisions are made by the hierarchy in the cybersecurity team	Decisions are often faster, made by on-the-ground security staff in individual departments	Decision-making is possible at different hierarchy levels, based on need or urgency
Consistency	Full consistency in security across the organization	Inconsistency between departments	Ensures high-level protocols are consistent, while individual teams have autonomy to customize to their needs
Resource allocation	All resources are managed within one team	Resources are individual to each team and not necessarily shared across teams	Resources are allocated across the organization to optimize
Scalability	Easier as resources can be optimized and applied company-wide	Difficult with each team managing their own resources	Easiest to scale. Local security team members can act as representatives for their departments

Regardless of how you structure your team, you still need highly skilled individuals. Learn more about the key skills to look for when hiring cybersecurity professionals.

How do you build a strong cybersecurity team?

The cybersecurity team structure you choose for your business can be tailored to your business size, security concerns or risk, and available resources (personnel and systems). Most often, you’d expect to see:

	Micro Business (1-9 people)	Small Business (10-49 people)	Medium Business (50-249 people)	Large Enterprise (250+ people) (250+ people)
CISO, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), or Chief Information Officer (CIO)	✓	✓	✓	✓
Virtual CISO or Cybersecurity Director		✓
Skilled Consultants	✓		✓	✓ (larger team)
Expert Consultants		✓	✓	✓ (larger team)

Smaller businesses may also find a centralized security team most efficient. They can usually get by with more cybersecurity generalist roles unless they have complex security concerns. In contrast, larger companies may have more unique needs and concerns, requiring larger cybersecurity teams with specialist roles like strategy, day-to-day monitoring and maintenance, incident response, and remediation.

Hiring external consultants for some of your cybersecurity needs may also be valuable. Your business may find hiring specialized consultants with more guaranteed, up-to-date industry knowledge more efficient for roles like penetration testing or risk assessment rather than employing individuals in these roles yourself.

Remember that the industry and your security needs may change, and you must adjust your cybersecurity strategy and team to match them.

“Staying ahead of emerging cybersecurity threats requires a proactive strategy,” says Goryachev, “Organizations should invest in continuous monitoring and threat intelligence services to keep abreast of new vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors.”

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Integrating with IT and other teams

IT and cybersecurity teams are intricately linked. They may often both fall under the Information Technology department and share the same senior manager who oversees all the organization's technology needs.

Either way, working together ensures synchronicity in your organization's technology planning, policy, use, and security. Companies with the most effective collaborations between cyber and IT departments focus on establishing clear communication channels. They develop clear protocols to ensure swift responses to security data breaches and can solicit help from IT team members in these scenarios as needed (such as to support password updates amongst staff).

How do you build a cybersecurity department?

Building your cybersecurity team includes the following steps:

1. Understand your security needs.

2. Define your goals and objectives (including creating KPIs and metrics to measure success).

3. Choose a structure (centralized vs decentralized, Red/Blue/Purple teams).

4. Define your necessary roles:

   a. Leadership roles (like a CISO)

   b. Proactive/strategic security roles (like Cybersecurity Strategists and Penetration Testers)

   c. Reactive security roles (like Incident Responders)

5. Ensure the team has the proper tools and ongoing training support they need (Lighthouse Labs’ upskilling programs can be an asset to your team).

When looking for cybersecurity team members, partner with schools that offer comprehensive cybersecurity training. For example, grads from the Cybersecurity Bootcamp at Lighthouse Labs have the most up-to-date knowledge in the industry.

These grads are ready with the fundamental knowledge, technical skills, and practical experience you need to build a strong cybersecurity team. We work with many employers to help them find bootcamp graduates that are best suited for their company.

Building your cybersecurity team through upskilling

You can also reskill or upskill current staff members to better equip them with the latest cybersecurity developments. Through our internal talent development programs, you can give your staff the in-depth training they need to support your cybersecurity issues better now and in the future.

Elevate your business's defence against cyber threats by enhancing your team's skills with the Lighthouse Labs cybersecurity upskilling courses for companies.