Boutique CISO advisory for boards and founders.
CipherForge Consulting helps leadership teams make confident decisions on cyber risk, resilience and regulation – without the noise, jargon or theatre.
What we do
CipherForge is a boutique CISO advisory practice. We work with boards, founders and technology leaders who need experienced security leadership, but not a full-time security department.
Fractional CISO
Embedded security leadership on a part-time or interim basis – giving you a named CISO for investors, regulators and customers, without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Security strategy & governance
Clear, pragmatic security strategies aligned to business goals, not tick-box frameworks. We translate risk into decisions that boards and founders can act on.
Resilience, DR/BCP & pandemic planning
Practical disaster recovery, business continuity and pandemic planning that reflects how you actually operate today – cloud-first, remote, and highly dependent on suppliers.
Core services
Every engagement is tailored, but most projects fall into one or more of the following areas.
Fractional / Virtual CISO
- Board and founder advisory on cyber risk
- Security roadmap and prioritisation
- Investor and regulator-facing support
- Security representation in key projects
Risk, compliance & frameworks
- Risk assessments and registers
- ISO 27001 readiness and alignment
- Policy sets and operating procedures
- Third-party and supply chain risk
Cloud & SaaS security
- Cloud architecture reviews (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Identity, access and privilege models
- Baseline controls for modern SaaS estates
- Guardrails for engineering and DevOps teams
DR/BCP & pandemic planning
- Business impact analysis and critical process mapping
- DR and continuity plans that can actually be executed
- Remote working and workforce disruption scenarios
- Table-top exercises for leadership teams
Incident readiness
- Incident response plans and playbooks
- Roles, responsibilities and escalation paths
- Runbooks for common scenarios (ransomware, account takeover, data breach)
- Table-top simulations and after-action reviews
Pen-test & assurance support
- Scoping and selecting penetration testing providers
- Translating findings into actions and budgets
- Supporting customer and regulator due diligence
- Ongoing improvement tracking
How we work
No endless slideware, no security theatre. Just honest, experienced input and a bias towards action.
1. Understand
We start with how your business actually works today – products, people, regulators, technology and suppliers – not with a generic checklist.
2. Stabilise
We identify the few things that will materially reduce your risk fastest: access control, backups, monitoring, vendor dependencies and critical processes.
3. Build
From there, we design a roadmap that fits your size, funding stage and ambitions – giving boards and investors confidence that security is under control.
Who we work with
High-growth & venture-backed
Founders and leadership teams who need to prove security maturity to investors, enterprise customers and partners – without killing delivery velocity.
Regulated & financial services
Firms facing regulatory scrutiny around operational resilience, outsourcing, cloud usage and data protection – where getting security wrong is not an option.
Technology & service providers
Platforms, SaaS providers and critical suppliers who must demonstrate credible security posture to win and retain business.
About CipherForge Consulting
CipherForge Consulting is a boutique CISO advisory founded by an experienced security leader with a background in both high-growth technology and regulated environments.
Independent, pragmatic and on your side
We bridge the gap between technical teams, operations and the board – translating complex security and resilience topics into clear decisions, trade-offs and actions.
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Contact
If you would like to discuss a fractional CISO engagement, a specific project, or simply sense-check where you are today, get in touch.
Email: hello@cipherforgeconsulting.com
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