Advisory & Compliance
Compliance & Risk
SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and NIST readiness — gap assessment, control implementation, evidence automation and audit support, without turning your engineers into a documentation team.
Advisory & Compliance
Cybersecurity Advisory and Security Architecture
We help organisations move from reactive security work to a managed programme: a current-state maturity baseline, a risk-driven roadmap, an architecture that supports it, and the metrics that show whether it is working.
The problem we solve
Security spending often accumulates without a strategy behind it. Tools are bought in response to incidents or questionnaires, controls overlap in some areas and leave gaps in others, and nobody can say which risks the programme is actually reducing.
Smaller and mid-sized organisations frequently have no dedicated security leadership at all. Responsibility sits with an engineering lead who has neither the time nor the mandate to run a programme, and improvements happen only when something breaks.
Boards and enterprise customers increasingly want evidence: a documented risk register, defined ownership, measurable maturity improvement and a credible plan for the next twelve months.
The most valuable advisory work is usually the least glamorous: agreeing what you are protecting, deciding who owns each control, and building a sequence of improvements that a real team with a real budget can deliver over the next four quarters.
Our approach
Adapted to your environment and constraints — but the shape of the work is consistent.
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Establish the baseline
A structured maturity assessment against a recognised framework — NIST CSF, CIS Controls or ISO 27001 Annex A — covering governance, identity, application security, cloud, detection, response and third-party risk. The output is a scored current state, not an opinion.
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Understand the risk
We identify and analyse risks in business terms, build or rebuild the risk register, define treatment options and owners, and establish the cadence for reviewing and communicating risk to senior management.
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Review the architecture
Security architecture review across identity, network, data, endpoint, cloud and application layers — checking that the controls in place actually implement the intended trust model, and identifying where design change would be cheaper than another product.
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Build the roadmap
A prioritised, sequenced programme driven by risk assessment, compliance obligations, maturity gaps and incident history. Each initiative carries a rationale, an owner, an effort estimate and the risk it reduces — so it can be defended in a budget conversation.
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Make it measurable
KPIs, KRIs and KGIs with a monthly scorecard, so leadership can see whether the programme is improving. Transparent metrics are what turn a security programme from a cost centre into a managed function.
Expected outcomes
What changes as a result of the engagement.
- A scored security maturity baseline you can re-measure against
- A maintained risk register with named owners and treatment plans
- A funded, sequenced roadmap tied to real risk reduction
- Security architecture that matches the intended trust model
- Vulnerability management that meets policy and compliance deadlines
- Documented incident response capability that has actually been exercised
- Executive reporting that makes security performance visible
Typical deliverables
Confirmed in the proposal before work starts, and adjusted to scope.
- Security maturity assessment with a scored current-state baseline
- Risk-ranked gap analysis against the chosen framework
- Prioritised, sequenced security roadmap with owners and effort estimates
- Security architecture review findings and target-state recommendations
- Risk register, risk methodology and treatment plan
- Security policy framework and governance operating model
- Vulnerability management process, severity model and SLAs
- Incident response plan and priority playbooks
- Tabletop exercise facilitation and after-action report
- Security metrics pack — KPIs, KRIs, KGIs and a monthly scorecard
- Board-level and executive summary reporting
What this covers
The specific capabilities available under this service. Engagements usually draw on a subset — we scope to the problem, not the catalogue.
Strategy & governance
- Security strategy and programme design
- Security maturity assessment (NIST CSF, CIS Controls)
- Security policy framework development
- Governance operating model and RACI
- Board and executive reporting
- Fractional security leadership support
Risk
- Risk assessment and analysis
- Risk register design and maintenance
- Risk treatment and acceptance workflow
- Third-party and vendor risk management
- Data governance
- Security metrics — KPI, KRI, KGI
Architecture
- Security architecture review
- Identity and access management design
- Network and segmentation review
- Data protection and encryption strategy
- Zero-trust roadmap
- Cloud security architecture
Operations
- Vulnerability management programme
- Incident response planning and playbooks
- Tabletop and crisis simulation exercises
- Detection and monitoring strategy
- Security awareness and phishing simulation
- Engineering security enablement
Who this is for
- Founders and CTOs with no dedicated security leadership
- CISOs inheriting a programme that needs restructuring
- Boards and investors seeking independent assurance
- Organisations responding to an incident, audit finding or lost deal
- Companies whose security spend has outgrown its strategy
Recognise your situation? A 30-minute discovery call is the fastest way to find out whether this is the right engagement.
Book a security consultationCommon questions
Can you act as a fractional or virtual security lead?
We can provide ongoing advisory support — programme ownership, roadmap governance, executive reporting and escalation — on a retained basis. Scope and cadence are agreed up front so the engagement stays predictable.
Which framework should we assess against?
NIST CSF is the most flexible starting point for organisations without an existing certification target. If you are heading for ISO 27001 or already carry PCI DSS obligations, we assess against that framework directly so the work counts twice.
How long does a maturity assessment take?
Typically a few weeks of interviews, evidence review and analysis, depending on the size of the estate and how many teams are in scope. You get a scored baseline, a risk-ranked gap list and a roadmap.
Related services
These engagements are often scoped together — the underlying risks overlap.
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Discuss your security challenges
Tell us what you are trying to secure and where it hurts. We will tell you what we would do first, whether or not you engage us.