Virtual CISO services for B2B SaaS companies.
For growth-stage B2B SaaS teams that need senior security leadership before hiring a full-time CISO makes sense.
SOC 2 readiness, customer security questionnaires, AWS security review, vendor risk, board reporting, incident response. Bundled in one engagement instead of stitched across three vendors. Month-to-month, no annual contract.
- SOC 2 readiness in 8 to 12 weeks, with the pentest included
- Customer security questionnaires answered in 48 hours, not three weeks
- AWS security review baked into every Sprint
- Embedded retainer that scales with your enterprise pipeline
What we do for SaaS specifically.
SOC 2 readiness with pentest included
Most SaaS companies hit SOC 2 between their first enterprise deal and Series B. We run the gap analysis, write the policies that match your stack, and run a focused pentest in the same engagement. Auditor-matched policy language so you do not rework everything at fieldwork.
Customer security questionnaires
Vanta AutoShare, SecurityScorecard, Whistic, OneTrust, Drata Trust Center, plus the ad-hoc 200-question Excel workbook from the enterprise buyer that is somehow still holding up your $400K deal. We answer the technical questions, defend the answers on the call with the buyer's security team, and keep your responses synchronized as your controls evolve.
AWS security review
IAM audit, S3 exposure check, KMS key rotation, GuardDuty and Security Hub configuration, secrets management review, and the pre-prod-to-prod controls auditors actually look at. Done as part of the Sprint and refreshed quarterly during retainer.
Strategic security roadmap
A 12-month roadmap tied to your enterprise pipeline: which gaps block which deals, what to fix first, and how to sequence ISO 27001 and HIPAA adds when customer demand surfaces them. Ranked by ROI per dollar, not by alphabetical control catalog.
Board and investor reporting
Quarterly security update for your board with metrics your CFO and CRO both understand. Investor-grade documentation for your next round's diligence room. The same deck a full-time CISO would produce, without the headcount.
Incident response leadership
Pre-written runbooks, semi-annual tabletop exercises, and on-call leadership when something does happen. Credential compromise, ransomware on an engineering laptop, vendor breach notification. On day zero, you call us.
The four moments SaaS companies pick up the phone.
Your enterprise sales motion is blocked on a security questionnaire.
A buyer's security team sent over a 180-question response form, expects a SOC 2, and wants to talk to your CISO. You do not have a CISO, and your CTO is now spending 20 hours a week answering questionnaires instead of shipping product.
Your auditor surfaced findings you did not know existed.
A Big 4 firm or your readiness consultant gave you a 30-page report you cannot decode, and the SOC 2 attestation is now 6 weeks behind schedule. You need someone who can read the controls, sort signal from noise, and ship fixes in production code.
Your board wants a documented security program, not a Vanta dashboard.
Your investors or audit committee asked for a quarterly security review and a roadmap. A compliance platform tells them a number; it does not tell them a story. A vCISO writes the narrative.
You finished SOC 2 Type I and now need Type II maintenance.
The Type I attestation got the deal closed. Now Type II is a 6-to-12-month observation window where evidence has to keep accumulating, controls have to keep operating, and someone has to own that. Most firms disengage after Type I; that is exactly when the work gets harder.
Frameworks we run for SaaS.
SOC 2 Type I and Type II
The default for B2B software. Trust Services Criteria mapped to your AWS infra, your IdP, your CI/CD pipeline. Type I in 8 to 12 weeks, Type II with a 3 to 6 month observation window.
ISO 27001:2022
Required by European customers and larger enterprise buyers. Statement of Applicability, risk treatment plan, Annex A control selection. Done in parallel with SOC 2 when both are in scope.
HIPAA (when PHI enters scope)
For SaaS companies that sell into healthcare or process PHI through their platform. BAA library, breach notification playbook, PHI data-flow diagrams. Stacks cleanly on top of SOC 2.
A typical Series A SaaS engagement looks like this.
A 60-person Series A B2B SaaS company has Vanta running and a folder of policy templates from their legal team. Their auditor surfaced 11 findings two weeks before fieldwork. Their first $400K enterprise deal is gated on the SOC 2 attestation and a security questionnaire response. We run the 2-week Sprint: we trace the auditor's findings to actual production controls, surface a missing MFA configuration on three SaaS admin accounts, run a focused pentest on their auth flow that catches two real bugs, and ship policy rewrites that match how their engineering team actually deploys. They close the enterprise deal three weeks later. The Sprint converts to an Embedded retainer to maintain the program through Type II.
Score your SaaS security readiness in 4 minutes.
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SaaS-specific questions.
When does a SaaS company need a vCISO?
The most common trigger is the first enterprise security questionnaire that the founder or CTO cannot answer in a few hours. The second is the SOC 2 audit on the calendar. The third is the board asking for a documented security program. Underneath all three is the same problem: the company has outgrown ad-hoc security and needs a senior owner to build the program in 90 days.
Do you work with our existing Vanta or Drata account?
Yes. Most of our retainer clients use Vanta, Drata, or Secureframe. We administer the platform, set up the integrations, push your evidence collection from 30% to 95%, and translate failing checks into actual remediation work. The platform is the bookkeeper; we are the program.
Can you handle SOC 2 and ISO 27001 in parallel?
Yes, and most of our European-deal-driven SaaS clients do exactly this. Statement of Applicability and Annex A control selection done alongside SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria mapping. One control framework, two attestations, one engagement.
How fast can you start?
A SOC 2 Sprint kicks off within 2 weeks of signing. Embedded retainer engagements typically start within 2 to 4 weeks. The speed is the point: most SaaS companies hire a vCISO because something is on fire or about to be.
What does a SaaS vCISO retainer cost?
Strategic vCISO at $5,000/mo. Embedded vCISO is custom-scoped (Inquire). Founding cohort pricing puts Strategic at $2,500/mo respectively for 12 months. Compare to a full-time SaaS CISO hire at $250K to $400K loaded, with a 4 to 6 month recruiting cycle.
Ready to talk about your saas program?
Three doors. Start with a $2,500 Sprint, apply for a founding retainer slot at 50% off, or take the free 4-minute SOC 2 Readiness Scorecard if you want a snapshot before talking to anyone.