The CISO Exodus: When the Weight Becomes Too Much

‍We're Losing Good People. Let's Talk About It.

There's a conversation happening in security circles that rarely makes it to LinkedIn posts or conference keynotes. It's happening in private Slack channels, over drinks after RSA sessions, and in quiet phone calls between colleagues who've known each other for decades.

CISOs are leaving. Not for better opportunities. Not for more money. They're leaving because they can't carry the weight of the role any longer.

The Human Cost No One Wants to Discuss

Let's be direct about something the industry whispers about but rarely confronts – we've lost colleagues to heart attacks in their 40s and 50s. We've lost others to suicide. These weren't weak people – they were some of the most competent, dedicated security leaders in the industry. They simply broke under pressure that no human being should have to sustain.

The job has fundamentally changed. What was once "protect the company from hackers" has become "be personally liable for every breach, every compliance failure, every third-party risk, every AI experiment gone wrong, every shadow IT deployment you didn't know about, and every board member's nephew who clicked a phishing link."

When Joe Sullivan was criminally charged after the Uber breach, something shifted in the collective psyche of every security leader. When the SEC started naming CISOs in enforcement actions, the message became crystal clear: you are not an executive – you are a designated defendant.

The Great Title Retreat

Here's a trend that tells you everything: experienced security leaders are actively avoiding the "C" in their title.

VP of Security. SVP of Information Security. EVP of Cybersecurity. Head of Security.

These aren't demotions. They're calculated risk management decisions by people who understand risk better than anyone. The C-level title comes with fiduciary duties, D&O insurance implications, and a target on your back that VP titles don't carry – at least not to the same degree.

It's a rational response to an irrational situation. The pressure doesn't necessarily decrease, but the personal liability exposure does. When the breach happens (not if – when), the difference between being a named defendant and being a witness matters.

"Thanks, But No"

I've spoken with multiple seasoned CISOs who've walked away from seven-figure packages. Not because the money wasn't right; it was exceptional. They walked away after due diligence.

The pattern is always the same: they did their homework before signing. They asked to see the real security posture. They discovered years of technical debt, understaffed teams, shadow IT sprawl, compliance theater, and executives who viewed security as a cost center to be minimized. When they asked about budget and headcount to address these gaps, they got vague assurances and "we'll see how Q2 goes."

These are people with decades of experience. They can read the writing on the wall. They know that accepting responsibility without authority is a trap. They know that inheriting a mess without the resources to fix it means they'll be holding the bag when it explodes.

So they say no. And companies wonder why they can't fill CISO roles.

The Impossible Job Description

Let's be honest about what we're asking CISOs to do:

·  Secure an attack surface that expands faster than they can map it

·  Manage dozens of point solutions that don't talk to each other

·  Track compliance across a patchwork of regulations that multiply yearly

·  Assess third-party risk across hundreds or thousands of vendors

·  Govern AI deployments they weren't consulted about

·  Report to boards who want green dashboards, not reality

·  Do all of this with budgets that assume breaches happen to other companies

Meanwhile, the threat landscape evolves daily. Attackers use AI. Nation-states target mid-market companies. Ransomware gangs operate like professional services firms. And every new technology adoption – cloud, AI, IoT, whatever's next – creates risk faster than security can assess it.

It's not about the job being difficult. It's structurally impossible in its current form. I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about how radically different and expansive the role has become, and it got 1.95 million impressions and hundreds of comments. This is a reality that has truly resonated and manifested itself.

The Visibility Problem at the Heart of Everything

Here's what keeps security leaders up at night: they don't actually know their real risk posture.

Not because they're incompetent – because it's genuinely unknowable with current approaches. Security data lives in silos. GRC processes run on spreadsheets and annual assessments. Compliance evidence is scattered across shared drives and ticketing systems. AI governance is either nonexistent or bolted on as an afterthought. Third-party risk assessments are point-in-time snapshots in a continuously-changing world.

When the board asks "how secure are we?", there's no honest answer. There's only the answer the CISO cobbles together from incomplete data, outdated assessments, and educated guesses – knowing full well they'll be held accountable for its accuracy.

This isn't a people problem. It's a systems problem.

A Path Forward

The pressure on CISOs won't disappear overnight. Regulatory trends, litigation patterns, and threat evolution are largely outside our control. But the visibility problem? The fragmentation? The spreadsheet-driven compliance theater? Those are solvable.

Modern GRC platforms – real ones, not the legacy tools that create more work than they eliminate – can fundamentally change the game:

Unified risk visibility. One view across security controls, compliance status, third-party risk, and emerging threats like AI. Not twelve dashboards that each tell a different story.

Continuous monitoring, not annual assessments. Controls drift. Configurations change. Point-in-time assessments are lies the moment they're completed. Continuous visibility means continuous truth.

Automated evidence collection. Security teams shouldn't spend half their lives gathering screenshots for auditors. Evidence should flow automatically from systems of record.

AI governance built in, not bolted on. AI risk isn't a separate domain – it's woven into everything. Modern GRC has to treat it that way.

Clear accountability and audit trails. When regulators come knocking, you need to show not just what you did, but when, why, and who approved it. Documentation isn't bureaucracy – it's protection.

None of these eliminates risk. Nothing truly does. But it does give security leaders something they desperately need: defensible positions based on actual data. When you can demonstrate that you knew your risk posture, made informed decisions, allocated resources appropriately, and monitored continuously, you've transformed from a designated defendant into someone who did their job.

Bringing Them Back

The security industry can't afford to keep losing its best people. We need experienced CISOs in the arena, not consulting from the sidelines because the personal cost of leadership is too high.

That means giving them tools that provide real visibility. Processes that scale. Evidence that's defensible. And a risk posture they can know, not guess at.

The job will always be hard. It doesn't have to be impossible.

If you're a security leader feeling this pressure, you're not alone. If you're a board member or CEO wondering why you can't hire a CISO, this is why. And if you're building or buying GRC capabilities, ask yourself: does this give my security leader ground to stand on, or just more weight to carry?