A Security Program for Firms Whose Regulator Already Requires One.
Your clients assume their files are safe. Your regulator and your professional duties require you to prove it. Most cyber firms can't speak to the FTC Safeguards Rule's qualified individual, client confidentiality obligations, security questionnaires, or wire fraud on a trust or escrow account — the things that actually put a professional firm at risk.
$2,500–$7,500/month · same band as vCISO
Law, CPA, and Consulting Firms Carry a Regulated Risk Profile.
Your product is confidence. Client files, financials, and privileged communications are the business — and a breach converts decades of trust into a notification letter.
Your obligations are explicit. The FTC Safeguards Rule (for tax and accounting firms) and your professional duty of confidentiality each require a documented program with a named owner — not a template in a drawer.
Your financial workflow is wire-capable. Trust accounts, escrow, retainers, and vendor payments are exactly what business email compromise targets.
Your clients now audit you. Security questionnaires arrive before engagement, and insurers price your coverage on the answers.
Most security firms run a cyber-only playbook. Your obligations are broader than that.
Seven ESRM Domains. One Program.
Seven of the thirteen ESRM domains apply directly to how professional firms operate. We run them as one continuous program — not seven separate vendor relationships.
Information Security & IP Protection
Client-file classification, matter and record access control, privileged-communication handling, and data-sharing protocols with co-counsel, vendors, and referral partners.
Cybersecurity
Practice-management and document-management environment hardening, ransomware preparedness, MFA across all staff, endpoint EDR, M365 Conditional Access.
Fraud Risk Mitigation
Wire fraud prevention on trust, escrow, and retainer accounts (BEC is the leading financial threat to firms), client and vendor impersonation detection, payment-change verification protocols.
Physical Security
Office access control, file room and records security, after-hours access, clean-desk discipline, and secure handling of laptops and portable media holding client data.
Business Continuity
What happens when practice-management or the document system is down for three days. When a partner's laptop is stolen mid-matter. When the server fails the night before a filing or close.
Brand & Client Protection
Confidentiality protocols for sensitive clients and matters, media response if a breach leaks, and principal-level reputation protection.
Compliance & Regulatory Readiness
FTC Safeguards Rule written information security program and qualified-individual role, California CCPA posture, professional-conduct technology-competence duties, and client-questionnaire response readiness.
You Probably Need a vCSO If:
- A client or insurer sent a security questionnaire and answering it honestly was uncomfortable.
- A client or vendor payment went to the wrong account in the last 18 months. (Classic BEC.)
- Your written information security program is a template nobody operates — or you don't have one.
- You're a CPA or tax firm without a named qualified individual for the FTC Safeguards Rule.
- You're a law firm that has signed client NDAs with security obligations you don't actually meet.
- Client files live on a single server with backups you've never test-restored.
- A partner's laptop was lost or stolen and the response was "hopefully it was encrypted."
What an Engagement Actually Produces.
Within 90 days:
- Documented written information security program (WISP) with a named qualified individual / program owner
- Client-file classification, access control, and external-sharing policy
- Trust / escrow wire fraud prevention procedures with named bank-verification steps
- Cyber-insurance and malpractice renewal posture that survives carrier questionnaires
- Incident response plan tested against ransomware and wire fraud scenarios
- Vendor and co-counsel risk program
- Backup verification for client files — not just servers
- Client-questionnaire response pack — so the next security questionnaire is a lookup, not a scramble
- CCPA readiness (risk assessment and cybersecurity-audit posture for the 2026 regulations)
- Quarterly partners' (or board) risk briefing
We've Yet to Meet a Cyber-Only vCISO Who Can Answer All Four.
Ask any virtual CISO four questions:
Who is our designated qualified individual under the FTC Safeguards Rule, and where is the program documented?
What's your process for preventing wire fraud on a trust or escrow account?
How do you handle client confidentiality and data-sharing controls for a sensitive matter?
What's our continuity plan when practice management or the document system is down for 72 hours?
Professional firms don't have CISOs. They have managing partners and practice administrators.
The role you actually need is a Chief Security Officer who understands the whole risk surface — cyber, physical, fraud, continuity, IP, brand, and regulatory. Texas DPS-licensed (C10504801, F26294001). CPP, CISSP, CISM credentialed. Operating since 2013.
That's a vCSO. That's what we do.
Schedule a 30-Minute Risk Discussion.
No deck. No sales pitch. If a vCSO program isn't right for your firm, we'll say so on the call.
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