Managed service providers (MSPs) offering virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO) services are rising. Businesses sometimes combine these services in good faith to save on costs, eliminate multiple vendors, and simplify management. After all, outsourcing information technology (IT) is extremely popular, with 45% of businesses delegating IT tasks to third-party vendors. However, these two critical cybersecurity services are inherently different, and combining them often leads to a conflict of interest with a lack of expertise.
First, let's define exactly what these two different roles entail. Overall, MSPs are external third parties that focus on general IT support and needs, alleviating time-consuming tasks for the internal team while reducing the risk of business downtime. A vCISO is a more integrated security expert providing strategic cyber security leadership.
An MSP is outsourced IT that offers monitoring, threat detection, patch management, help desk support, incident response, and compliance support. These partners ensure that infrastructure is operational and secure, and they typically provide services like network monitoring, data backup, disaster recovery, endpoint security, and cloud support.
Businesses typically spend between 2% and 5% of their annual revenue on IT, depending on their size, industry, and goals. Outsourcing to an MSP typically reduces costs, simplifies management, and alleviates administrative burdens on internal teams. Whether running a proactive patch management system to detect third-party risks or transitioning to new cybersecurity frameworks like the Compliance Risk Index (CRI), an MSP is a "boots on the ground" partner for day-to-day operations.
On the other hand, a vCISO brings in crucial strategic cybersecurity leadership, specializing in implementation, managing risk, conducting cybersecurity assessments, and overseeing general security operations. These leaders are typically in more of an advisory role as fractional or part-time support. Typically, a vCISO is brought in for earlier-stage companies that aren't ready to dedicate the budget and resources to full-time executive IT security leadership. CISO salaries often exceed $300,000 annually, making it a costly in-house hire for many businesses.
Integrating vCISO services means improved scalability, expert guidance from an experienced leader, adherence to industry regulations, strategic tool and framework recommendations, and more formalized and documented policies like incident response plans.
It seems like an easy service to bundle into an existing package with an MSP. While some MSPs offer vCISO services as part of a broader IT management package—and some do it well—this approach often introduces complexity and potential risk. It's important to carefully evaluate whether combining operational IT services with strategic security leadership creates blind spots or conflicts of interest. From a lack of compliance experience to a disjointed effort with the overall business strategy, inadequate security leadership can have real-world consequences.
A helpful analogy: you wouldn’t ask your accountant to audit their own books, and similarly, it can be problematic when the same partner is responsible for both implementing and evaluating your cybersecurity posture. Independent oversight is a fundamental principle of effective security strategy. The role of a vCISO should be unbiased and strategic—ensuring your organization is protected not just in theory, but in practice.
Take a look at the risks below.
MSPs typically shine at basic day-to-day IT operations like account lockouts, password resets, user permissions, software updates, and hardware management. Also, MSPs often see their own goals against service level agreements (SLAs) that monitor system uptime and ticket resolution, which are not the key metrics for more extensive security operations. Security leadership is an entirely different realm, needing proactive strategic foresight on big-picture business objectives and industry trends.
MSPs aren't typically expert compliance partners. Their expertise often doesn't deal with SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or other industry regulations, creating a significant risk for audits. An audit failure can lead to financial consequences, reputational damage, and a critical loss of customer trust. While an MSP can support creating audit logs or managing de-provisioning for ex-employees, they're not strategic compliance advisors and risk managers.
This doesn’t mean MSPs are negligent—many are excellent at what they do—but it underscores the importance of independent strategic leadership. A vCISO brings objectivity and ensures that cybersecurity decisions are made based on what's best for the organization, not what’s easiest or most convenient to implement.
Security leadership shouldn't be another invoice line item from your MSP. True cybersecurity strategy requires independence, compliance expertise, and business alignment across the highest levels of leadership. vCISOs are typically business-minded security experts who know how to align security with business growth and customer retention, and independence is a crucial factor of a vCISO's success.
Businesses need independent and virtual CISO services with decades of expertise and experience in their specific industry. At Vistrada, instead of a singular individual, we take a team-based approach. We provide clients with a collective force of senior cybersecurity specialists, bringing deep real-world expertise and specialized knowledge across multiple security domains.
Not all MSP-led vCISO services are ineffective—but separating the two roles helps preserve objectivity, accountability, and strategic alignment. At Vistrada, we believe the best approach to cybersecurity leadership comes from independence, deep expertise, and industry-specific experience. That’s why our vCISO services are delivered by a multidisciplinary team of seasoned cybersecurity leaders, not generalists stretched across multiple responsibilities.
When vetting the right provider, ensure the budget, expertise, and goals align. At Vistrada, we offer a free consultation to determine whether a vCISO is the right fit for you.