Services . Cybersecurity Consulting

Senior cybersecurity consulting, by the hour or by the project.

Not every problem fits a four-week assessment or a twelve-month retainer. Some questions are smaller. Some are bigger. Some need a senior practitioner in the room for an afternoon. We engage on those, too.

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What hourly consulting is for

You have a senior security question that does not match the shape of a four-week project. The answer needs the right person, in the room, for the right amount of time. Not a quarter of someone's attention. Not a junior with a checklist.

  • Second opinions. An MSP, MSSP, or vendor recommended a course of action and you want an independent practitioner to weigh in before the contract is signed.
  • Architecture review. A new identity provider, SaaS migration, network rearchitecture, or cloud landing zone before it goes live to production.
  • Vendor selection. Side-by-side technical scoring of two or three SIEM, EDR, MDM, IAM, backup, or DLP tools, with the trade-offs written down.
  • Mergers and acquisitions. Pre-close cybersecurity diligence on a target. Post-close 90-day integration plan. Cyber clauses in the SPA.
  • Tabletop facilitation. A two-hour ransomware, business email compromise, or insider-threat tabletop with leadership, scripted in advance to your environment.
  • Policy work. An auditor or customer redlined your policies. We turn the redline in writing in 48 hours, or author a new policy set from your environment.
  • Board preparation. Coaching the security leader through a board presentation. Drafting a board-grade cyber risk dashboard from the data you already have.
  • Hiring support. Interviewing security finalists, technical screening, or scoping a security engineer or analyst job description for hire.

The right hour of senior consulting can save sixty hours of internal cleanup. The wrong forty-hour project can manufacture them.

The engagement principle
Two consultants reviewing architecture diagrams on a whiteboard
Architecture review session . Orlando, FL

What hourly consulting is not for

Anything that takes more than 40 hours. By that point, a written project (a Risk Assessment, a vCISO retainer, a discrete program build) is a better fit. The administrative overhead of hourly billing on long engagements ends up costing more than the scoped-project alternative, and you lose the deliverable structure that a written engagement provides.

We will say that out loud on the first call. If the work in front of you is closer to a project than an hour, we will quote it as a project.

Common engagement models

Sample deliverables

01

Independent vendor scorecard

A two-page side-by-side of the technical fit, integration cost, and known weaknesses across the candidates.

02

Architecture review memo

Findings, risks, and a prioritized recommendation list against a named architecture diagram.

03

Tabletop after-action report

What happened in the exercise, what would have happened in production, and what to fix this quarter.

04

Acquisition diligence read

A red, yellow, green readout on the target's cyber posture with negotiating points for the SPA.

05

Board cyber dashboard

One page. Five metrics. Quarterly trend. Color-coded against a defined risk appetite.

06

Policy redline pack

A clean, plain-language policy set authored to your environment and your customers' contractual requirements.

Security risk dashboard on a laptop screen
Reviewing code and security configuration

How we work

  1. Tell us what you are trying to decide or accomplish. A two-paragraph email is enough. If it sits in three hours or less, we book the time and bill at the end of the month. If it is bigger, we suggest a block of hours or convert it into a written project.
  2. Scope and confirm in writing. A one-paragraph engagement summary names the question, the consultant assigned, the time budget, and the deliverable.
  3. Do the work. Senior consultant only. No handoff to a junior. No subcontract.
  4. Hand back the file. Whatever you commissioned (a memo, a scorecard, a redline) ships as an editable source file. It is yours to keep, share, and reuse.

Common questions

What is your hourly rate?

We quote it on the first call after we hear the question. It varies by consultant seniority and whether the work needs after-hours or on-site time. We will tell you the number in writing before any time is spent.

Do you sign an NDA?

Yes. Mutual NDA before the first working session. We can use yours or send ours.

Can you work through our MSP or existing IT firm?

Yes, and we often do. We are explicit about what is in our scope versus theirs, and the working relationship is collegial. We do not poach IT work.

Do you do penetration testing?

We design pentests, write the rules of engagement, select the firm, and read the report with you. We do not run the offensive engagement ourselves. That is a different practice and we believe the assessor should be independent of the architect.

Can we put you on retainer for ongoing access?

That is the Virtual CISO engagement. If you want named senior leadership on a monthly basis with predictable availability, the vCISO retainer is the right vehicle.

Start the conversation

Tell us about the decision in front of you. We will respond the same business day with a sense of whether hourly is the right shape, and what the next step looks like.

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Engage the firm

The right hour of senior consulting saves sixty hours of cleanup.

Email a paragraph about the decision in front of you. We answer the same business day.

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