CYPHERNULLBYTE · Security & Compliance Services
Real ownership of security. Not another slide deck of advice.
Fractional CISO leadership, offensive security, DevSecOps, incident response and security training for teams that need someone who actually finds the problem, hands over the exact fix, and stays accountable until it's closed out.
Service overview only. No pricing included. Every engagement is scoped to your size, stack and starting point.
Who we are
Security, run the way an in-house owner would run it
CypherNullByte is a practitioner-led security and compliance practice. Engagements are led personally by a senior security consultant, not handed off to a rotating account team. Vetted specialists are brought in only when a specific engagement genuinely needs extra hands.
The working model is the same across every service line: find the real problem, hand over the exact fix, and stay accountable until it's actually closed out. Not a report that gets filed away, and not open-ended advice with no one on the hook for the outcome.
- Took an AI workflow orchestration platform through ISO 27001:2022 certification end to end, and is now building out ISO 42001:2022 AI governance on the same foundation.
- Ran enterprise vulnerability management across 20+ accounts and thousands of servers, containers and cloud workloads, including post-M&A environments, with zero critical SLA breaches.
- Re-engineered a national, SkillsFuture-funded cybersecurity training programme end to end: cut dropout from ~60% to 10%, lifted pass rates by ~20%, and built a train-the-trainer framework across 10+ facilitators and 10+ cohorts.
- Built automated threat-hunting and triage workflows that removed the need for an expensive third-party managed threat-hunting contract.
Who this is for
AI-native and cloud-first startups facing their first enterprise security questionnaire or certification requirement, scale-ups that have outgrown ad-hoc security but aren't ready for a full-time CISO, and organizations that need a specific, bounded piece of work done properly: a penetration test, an incident investigated, a team trained.
Core offering
Two ways to engage a vCISO
Every relationship starts with a short discovery conversation to find out which model actually fits, not a pitch for whichever is easier to sell. Both run on the same principle: advisory guidance is always included, your own team implements, and you stay the one accountable point of contact for the outcome.
The 48-Day Path
For teams with a live compliance deadline
Best fit: a customer, prospect or partner has asked for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or a completed security questionnaire, and there's a real deadline attached.
- Phase 1, Readiness (diagnostic): ISMS scope definition, a full gap assessment against ISO 27001:2022 Annex A, an initial risk register, a draft Statement of Applicability, and a remediation roadmap that becomes the Phase 2 plan.
- Phase 2, Build: the full policy set, a finalized Statement of Applicability, and an independently coordinated internal audit, with control work spanning people & organizational security, physical security, application security, cloud & infrastructure, network security, and backup / business continuity, all mapped directly to ISO 27001:2022.
- Always-On vCISO (ongoing, can start alongside the build): continuous drift monitoring with a monthly report, unlimited security-questionnaire support for the sales team, first-call incident response, guided implementation support, and first right of refusal on whatever comes next, whether that's ISO 42001, SOC 2, or any other framework.
vCISO Foundations
For teams that aren't chasing a certification yet
Best fit: there's no certification deadline, but leadership wants a real, accountable owner for security instead of it being nobody's job.
- Foundational setup: identity & access, encryption, logging, backup, and baseline hardening, so there's an actual foundation in place from day one.
- Continuous vulnerability management: not a one-off scan, a living, triaged list that gets tracked to closure.
- Ongoing cloud security (AWS / GCP / Azure) and network security review, folded into the standing relationship rather than billed as separate add-ons.
- A standing point of contact for anything security-related, including first-call incident response and the same guided-implementation model as the certification track.
- A natural on-ramp: if certification becomes a requirement later, the foundational work already done here shrinks the scope of that transition significantly.
No pricing shown by design. Every engagement is scoped to the client's actual size, stack, and starting point before a number is discussed.
Full service menu
Beyond the vCISO retainer
Every service below is also available as its own scoped, standalone engagement, not everyone starting out needs a full retainer.
Governance, Risk & Compliance
Certifications, risk registers, and policies that actually match how you work.
- ISO 27001:2022 certification readiness: full ISMS build, Annex A gap mapping, Statement of Applicability, internal audit coordination.
- ISO 42001:2022 AI governance: AI management system design for teams shipping AI features or using AI in regulated workflows.
- SOC 2 (Type I & II) readiness: control design and the operating-evidence window Type II requires.
- Privacy & data protection alignment: GDPR and HIPAA gap assessment and control mapping (legal review and DPA drafting stay with your counsel).
- Risk assessment & risk register management: methodology, scoring, and an actively maintained register.
- Policy & procedure development: written to match how the organization actually operates.
- Third-party / vendor risk assessments (TPRM): running your vendor questionnaires, or answering a customer's.
- Internal audit coordination: sourcing and managing an independent auditor to keep audit independence clean.
Offensive Security / VAPT
Penetration testing and vulnerability assessments, with proof that findings actually get fixed.
- External and internal network penetration testing
- Web application and API penetration testing
- Cloud environment penetration testing and configuration review
- Point-in-time and ongoing vulnerability assessments
- Remediation verification and re-testing, so findings get closed, not just logged
Application Security & DevSecOps
Security built into the development pipeline, not bolted on after release.
- Secure SDLC design and threat modeling for new features and high-risk workflows
- SAST, DAST and SCA integration into the existing development workflow
- CI/CD pipeline security automation and container / Kubernetes controls
- Secrets management architecture (e.g. HashiCorp Vault) across cloud and on-prem
- Infrastructure-as-code review and cloud security posture management
Cloud & Network Security
Hardened cloud architecture, segmented networks, and a disaster recovery plan that's actually tested.
- Cloud security architecture and hardening across AWS, GCP and Azure
- Network segmentation, firewall and access-control review
- Zero-trust and secure remote-access design
- Backup, disaster recovery and business continuity design, including restore validation and runbooks
Security Operations & Vulnerability Management
Ongoing detection, triage, and board-ready reporting on where you actually stand.
- Vulnerability management programme design and day-to-day operation (VMDR lifecycle)
- SOC advisory: detection engineering guidance and MITRE ATT&CK-aligned monitoring
- Threat hunting and triage workflow design
- Executive risk dashboards and board-ready reporting on posture, remediation and incident trends
Incident Response & Investigations
First call when something breaks, from containment through the post-mortem.
- Incident response readiness: runbooks, playbooks and tabletop exercises
- First-call triage and containment coordination
- Breach and incident investigation support
- Digital forensics support and evidence handling
- Post-incident review and lessons-learned facilitation
Training, Enablement & AI Guidance
Security awareness and technical training that people actually retain.
- Security awareness training for all-staff audiences, built around how the organization actually works
- Technical curriculum design and delivery: network security, ethical hacking, digital forensics, security monitoring, and applied AI-in-security
- Train-the-trainer programmes to scale delivery across multiple facilitators without losing consistency
- Practical, model-agnostic AI-tool usage guidance: how people use it, verify its output, and stay accountable for it. Humans remain the end controllers.
- AI governance and AI-risk awareness training, tied into ISO 42001 work where relevant
AI Security & Governance
ISO 42001 AI governance and practical guardrails for how your team actually uses AI.
- ISO 42001:2022 AI management system design: for teams shipping AI features or using AI in regulated workflows.
- AI governance and AI-risk awareness training, tied into ISO 42001 work where relevant.
- Practical, model-agnostic AI-tool usage guidance: how your people use it, verify its output, and stay accountable for it. Humans remain the end controllers.
- Fits naturally alongside ISO 27001 / SOC 2 work, or stands alone as its own scoped engagement.
...and more
If it's security-shaped and it's not on this list, it's probably still in scope. Tell us the actual problem, and we'll tell you straight whether we can help, and how.
Getting started
How an engagement begins
Every new conversation starts the same way: a short discovery discussion to understand the actual situation, a live deal blocked on a security ask, a desire for real ownership with no deadline attached, or a single bounded need like a penetration test, an incident, or a training session.
- A live deadline, meaning a customer, prospect or auditor asking for something specific, routes toward the Certification-Track vCISO.
- No deadline, but a need for standing ownership routes toward vCISO Foundations.
- A single, bounded need, such as a pentest, an investigation, a training session, or a policy set, is scoped and quoted as its own engagement. No retainer required to get started.
What every engagement includes
- Advisory is always included: the problem is found, the exact fix is written, your team implements it.
- A single accountable owner, not a rotating team, from discovery through delivery.
- No vendor lock-in: recommendations stay framework-agnostic and platform-agnostic.
Have a security question that needs a real owner?
Start with a short discovery conversation. No pricing, no pitch deck, just a straight read on what your situation actually needs.