Exclusive: OutsourcedCISO's CEO warns of cybersecurity leadership gaps

A significant share of Australian organisations still operate without defined cyber leadership, leaving major gaps in governance, risk oversight and incident readiness, according to OutsourcedCISO CEO Maxime Cousseau.

In a recent interview, he explained that many companies continue to treat cyber security as a technical function rather than a coordinated risk discipline, reinforcing blind spots that become visible only after a breach.

The leadership gap

"A large number of Australian organisations have no cyber leadership, no defined strategy, or very limited visibility on their risks," said Maxime Cousseau, CEO, OutsourcedCISO.

"Without leadership, cyber security becomes a collection of tasks rather than a coordinated risk function. It creates a false sense of confidence that having multiple tools is good enough, but it's not."

He said many companies only recognise the scale of their exposure after an incident.

"Cyber risk feels like someone else's issue until it impacts your organisation," added Cousseau.

"Many businesses assume they have cyber covered. That's not the case. A breach exposes the reality that cyber security is about governance, legal exposure and customer trust. The moment an incident happens, the illusion of safety disappears. When customer data is affected, it impacts the whole organisation."

Regaining trust is possible but far from straightforward.

"It's a very complex problem to solve. It depends on the organisation, industry and the way you deal with the incident," added Cousseau. "Trust can be gained through different actions. Leveraging standards and communicating is often something you need if you want to recover quickly from reputational damage. It's not because trust has been lost that it's not possible to build trust again."

What are the consequences?

Cousseau said the absence of senior cyber guidance leads to misaligned effort and poor prioritisation.

"Without senior cyber leadership, teams follow misleading priorities and invest heavily in controls that don't address their most critical threats," said Cousseau. "It also takes far longer to recover from a cyber security incident because teams are not aligned. Coordination is weak, and lessons from past incidents are not captured or applied."

The national cyber talent shortage intensifies these risks for mid-sized firms.

"Mid-sized businesses are the hardest because they cannot match enterprise salaries, but they face the same regulatory expectations," added Cousseau. "Many end up relying on overstretched IT staff who are not trained to make complex cyber security risk decisions."

Executive teams and boards also continue to struggle with cyber literacy.

"Cyber has become a board issue, but the language is still technical and fast moving," said Cousseau. "Many board directors do not know what a good cyber security posture looks like, or even what questions to ask. They need clear, plain-language translation of cyber risk into business impact."

Misplaced priorities

Many organisations attempt to enhance their defence posture but begin from an incomplete foundation.

"The most common mistake is assuming they already know their assets and sensitive data," added Cousseau. "In reality, many organisations do not have a complete view of what they need to protect, so their risk priorities are built on incomplete or outdated information."

He said a second major gap lies in weak threat modelling.

"They don't link real attack paths to their actual business exposure," said Cousseau. "As a result, they focus on low-value issues, over-invest in tools and under-invest in the controls that would genuinely reduce risk."

Return on investment remains another point of confusion.

"Tools do not create security; people and processes do," added Cousseau. "Many companies have overlapping tools, misconfiguration and alerts that no one acts on. They also fail to track meaningful security metrics or quantify risk, so there is no baseline to measure improvements or reduction in exposure."

Outsourced model

OutsourcedCISO works with organisations across financial services, technology and SaaS, crypto, telecommunications, eCommerce, property, education and local government. It supports companies that need senior cyber guidance to meet regulatory expectations, improve resilience and strengthen executive visibility of cyber risk.

"We provide a highly experienced CISO to organisations that don't need a full-time role but still require cyber security expertise," said Cousseau.

"Organisations get strategy, governance, risk oversight and incident readiness as a service. It's the organisation's cyber security model delivered in a way mid-sized businesses can afford."

The company uses industry frameworks to benchmark and uplift security posture. According to internal performance data, it has increased the average cyber maturity of clients by 34% over the first six months of a vCISO engagement, using standards such as NIST CSF to baseline and track improvements.

He said building resilience before a breach is a matter of structure and focus.

"It looks like clarity and discipline," added Cousseau. "It enables organisations to identify critical assets, understand their real vulnerabilities and build their roadmap focusing on early detection, control access and fast recovery. Resilience is not perfection. It's preparedness."

Speed of deployment is a central selling point.

"Recruiting a senior cyber security leader takes an average of nine months," said Cousseau. "We step in within days. That speed is critical when a company is exposed or recovering from an incident. We stabilise the situation, set priorities and give executive immediate clarity."