Fewer CISOs feel aligned with their boards on cybersecurity this year

There’s been a noticeable drop in CISOs who feel they are singing from the same song sheet as their corporate boards when it comes to cybersecurity, according to a new report.

A little under two-thirds (64%) of surveyed CISOs in Proofpoint’s 2025 “Voice of the CISO” report said they saw “eye to eye” with their board on cybersecurity matters. The proportion is a noticeable downtick from the 84% of CISOs who felt aligned with their boards on cybersecurity in 2024—a stat that Proofpoint Global Resident CISO Patrick Joyce notes could be an anomaly— and slight uptick from 62% in 2023.

The findings are based on a March survey by research firm Censuswide of 1,600 CISOs from 16 countries.

What’s got you down? What’s behind this downtick in CISOs who felt they were on the same page as their board about cybersecurity? According to the report, it could be a sense of complacency around the CISO role, given their growing presence at the boardroom table.

“Some CISOs may say, ‘Well, I’m not that special anymore. I’m here all the time. I’m a member of the woodwork, just like the rest of the people that are members of the woodwork,’” Joyce told IT Brew.

Bluefin Payment Systems CISO Brent Johnson said the disconnect could also be a side effect of the growing focus on AI.

“There’s this huge push to get AI into your business plan that I think security is taking a back seat,” Johnson said.

Getting the board on board with cyber. Joyce said CISOs who feel they aren’t aligned with their boards can highlight the need for good cybersecurity by “speaking in the language that the board understands.”

“Keep them engaged by speaking in the language of business and not speaking in technology,” he added.

According to Swimlane CISO Michael Lyborg, CISOs should focus on telling a narrative as opposed to relying on technical statistics.

“There’s that old saying from the military: KISS, keep it simple, stupid,” Lyborg said. “I always have to tell myself that people don’t care about, necessarily, what you use or how you got there. They care [about] where you were at and where you’re at now.”