Cybersecurity cannot be siloed off, whether it’s from the rest of information technology or from the executive suite – it’s a risk management exercise that spans the organization and requires collaboration.

In smaller organizations, cybersecurity may be the responsibility of your IT team, or you may have dedicated personnel or a virtual chief information security officer (vCISO). Regardless, giving cybersecurity its due can be challenging for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), as members of your IT team may wear many hats.

If you do have dedicated cybersecurity roles, it’s critical that they are integrated into your IT team – collaboration is critical for both efficiency and effectiveness. Collaboration requires both best practices and technology.

Because the members of small IT teams tend to be multi-functional, it’s essential that everyone is clear on their responsibilities. You need to have a shared vision for your cybersecurity strategy that clearly defines goals and roles related to assessment, protection, and response.

It’s extremely easy to fall into the trap of thinking that adding more technology tools will make your organization more secure, but when you are resource constrained, it you must reduce complexity by streamlining security tools and employing a network management platform that centralizes visibility and control.

Centralizing data and automating alerts give you the agility to quickly and more effective identify threats, respond to any incidents, and mitigate risk, even if you have few in-house IT staff dedicated to security.

Cybersecurity collaboration should extend to the C-suite by keeping executive management in the loop as well as to every employee through regular security awareness training so they can play their role in preventing incidents caused by social engineering attacks such as phishing scams.

You should also conduct regular security drills that simulate cyber attacks or other disruptions to business operations to keep everyone on their toes and ensure that everyone can respond to a security incident smoothly and collaboratively.

Collaboration on cybersecurity is especially critical for SMBs but can be challenging given the inherent resource constraints. Working with a managed service provider with a focus on security that can provide a vCISO can help your inhouse IT and security staff collaborate more effectively.