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Pre-built incident response plan
A documented playbook tailored to your environment — not a generic template. Roles, escalation paths, communication protocols, and decision criteria defined before you need them.
Incident Response Retainer
When an incident hits, the first hour defines your outcome. An IR retainer means you already have a plan — and I already know your environment.
Most companies discover their incident response gaps during the incident. A breach, a ransomware demand, a vendor compromise — and suddenly you're making decisions under pressure without a playbook, without a trusted advisor, and without time.
As your fractional CISO, I'm already embedded in your environment — I know your stack, your team, your risk profile, and your compliance posture. An IR retainer extends that relationship into crisis readiness.
No ramp-up time. No explaining your environment under pressure. Just a clear plan and a trusted advisor who picks up the phone.
Crisis readiness built on an existing relationship — not a last-minute introduction.
A documented playbook tailored to your environment — not a generic template. Roles, escalation paths, communication protocols, and decision criteria defined before you need them.
I already know your infrastructure, your team, your vendors, your compliance requirements. When something happens, we skip the orientation phase and go straight to containment.
Direct access to a senior security executive — not a junior analyst. When you're in the first hour of an incident, you need someone who can make decisions, not someone who'll call you back.
After the dust settles, we conduct a thorough review. Root cause, response effectiveness, gaps surfaced, and a concrete remediation plan. Incidents are expensive — learn from them.
Any incident involving customer data has regulatory consequences — breach notification, potential fines, and reputational damage. Be prepared to respond correctly from the first hour.
Healthcare, fintech, critical infrastructure — where incident response isn't optional, it's mandated. An IR retainer means you can demonstrate readiness to regulators and auditors.
You've built security infrastructure but may not have dedicated IR capability. An IR retainer fills that gap — providing senior guidance without the cost of a full-time hire.
Tangible readiness that pays off the moment an incident occurs.
No ramp-up time. When you call, I already know your environment. First hour goes to containment, not orientation.
Every decision documented. Every action traceable. When regulators or customers ask what you did and why, you have clear answers.
Faster containment means less damage, shorter outages, fewer affected records. The cost of an IR retainer is a fraction of a single incident.
When something goes wrong, you have a trusted advisor on the phone who can help you make the calls that matter. That's worth more than any template.
Cyber insurance typically provides a call center and generic advice after an incident is confirmed. An IR retainer is proactive — we build the response plan before anything happens, and when an incident occurs, I'm already familiar with your environment. Insurance pays for the remediation; we help you contain the damage.
Security vendors focus on detection and tooling. An IR retainer provides senior strategic advisory during a crisis — decision support, stakeholder communication, regulatory guidance, and post-incident analysis. Many companies use both: vendors handle monitoring, I handle the leadership decisions when something serious happens.
Within the first hour of an incident is when the most consequential decisions are made. I'm available by phone and can be in your incident call within minutes. My goal is to be a resource before you've finished reading the first alert.
No — an IR retainer can stand alone. That said, the retainer works best when I already have context about your environment. Many clients start with a fractional CSO engagement and add the IR retainer as a natural extension. But if you need crisis readiness without ongoing strategic work, we can build that context during onboarding.
IR consulting firms typically engage after an incident is confirmed, and every hour is metered. They're valuable for large-scale incidents but expensive and slow to mobilize for smaller events. An IR retainer gives you dedicated access to a senior advisor who knows your environment — more like having a trusted colleague on speed dial than calling a firm you've never met.
That's the ideal time to prepare. The companies that respond best to incidents are the ones who planned for them before they happened. Building a response plan while everything is calm is exponentially cheaper and more effective than improvising during a crisis. Luck is not a strategy.
If you're making decisions about incident response after an incident starts, you're already behind. Let's talk about getting ahead of it.