Disclosure Drift: Who Owns Cybersecurity Accountability After SolarWinds

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The SEC dismissed its enforcement action against SolarWinds and its Chief Information Security Officer with prejudice on November 20, 2025.

At the same time, the SEC’s 2026 Examination Priorities reaffirmed cybersecurity as a perennial examination focus, with continued emphasis on cybersecurity governance, controls, incident response readiness, and third-party oversight.

The enforcement signal shifted.
The examination standard did not.

Drift Identified

Audit committees now face a different question.

If individual CISOs are no longer the presumed enforcement target for disclosure failures, who inside the organization can demonstrate formal authority, documented reliance, and insurance alignment for the cybersecurity representations officers continue to sign?

In most enterprises, disclosure accountability was assigned to security leadership by implication, rather than by board resolution, contractual authority, or explicit alignment with D&O coverage.

That ambiguity was never stress-tested while individual enforcement pressure appeared imminent.

Governance Gap Exposed

The removal of personal enforcement pressure does not eliminate exposure.
It exposes a governance gap.

Officers executed cybersecurity disclosures without a documented chain showing:

• Who was authorized to bind those representations

• What security inputs were relied upon

• Where liability was intended to reside

Accountability was assumed.
Under examination, assumptions are not evidence.

Why This Matters to Boards

Disclosure authority, reliance, and liability alignment are governance constructs, not technical ones.

When these constructs are undocumented, cybersecurity representations remain defensible only by hindsight.

Under examination, hindsight is not governance.

Board-Level Question Now in Play

If disclosure accountability is no longer implicitly assigned to the CISO, where has the board explicitly placed it — and can that placement be demonstrated under scrutiny?