Virtual CISO (vCISO) Services
Security leadership on a monthly retainer. One named person who owns your security decisions, answers your customers' questionnaires, and keeps cloud cost and cloud risk on the same review cadence, without a full-time CISO salary.
The Problem
Your first enterprise customer sent a security questionnaire and nobody owns the answer. An investor asked where you are on SOC 2. The cloud bill keeps climbing and no one can say which lines are waste and which are risk. The work is real, it is recurring, and it is not yet a full-time job, so it lands on whichever engineer is least busy and gets done late.
Who This Is For
Pre-seed and seed startups, funded or bootstrapped, at roughly 5 to 50 engineers, that need someone accountable for security decisions but cannot justify a full-time hire. Teams facing a first enterprise security review, a SOC 2, ISO 27001 or India DPDP readiness push, or an RBI or SEBI obligation. Delivered remotely, so location is not a constraint.
Typical Outcomes
Timeline Options
First 30 Days
- Cloud, identity and pipeline posture review
- Security questionnaire evidence pack assembled
- Risk register and a stage-appropriate roadmap
- Top critical fixes implemented, not just listed
Ongoing Retainer
- Everything in the first 30 days, maintained
- Named owner for inbound security questionnaires and vendor reviews
- Monthly posture and cost review with a written decision log
- Policy set maintained as the team and the stack change
- Incident response plan kept current and rehearsed
Audit-Ready Track (90 days)
- Everything in the ongoing retainer
- Control gaps mapped to your chosen framework
- Evidence collection automated where it is worth automating
- Auditor selection support and scoping help
- Readiness walkthrough before the audit window opens
This might not be a fit if...
- You need a signed SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certificate. That comes from a licensed audit firm. I prepare you for the audit rather than issue the report.
- You want a name on a website and no real involvement
- You need a full-time, on-site security leader starting today
What You Get
The Transformation
Before
- Security questionnaires sit for weeks while the team guesses at answers
- Nobody owns the call on what risk is acceptable at this stage
- Compliance work starts after a deal is already blocked on it
- Cost and risk are reviewed by different people, at different times, or not at all
- Policies exist as documents nobody reads
After
- One named owner for security, reachable in your Slack
- Questionnaires answered from evidence that is already maintained
- A roadmap that says what happens this quarter, and why that order
- Cost and risk reviewed together, once a month, in writing
- Policies short enough that following them is the easy path
Engagement Models
Project-based
Fixed scope, fixed timeline, fixed price. Ideal for specific security initiatives.
Retainer
Ongoing support with priority response. Perfect for continuous security needs.
What influences pricing?
- Team size and environment complexity
- Timeline and urgency requirements
- Scope of systems and platforms
- Ongoing support and maintenance needs
Frequently Asked Questions
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See what your cloud is hiding.
Book a 20-minute infrastructure review. No pitch, just practical insights.