Scope an Engagement
Advisory · Virtual CISO Fractional · Interim · Build-and-transfer · Advisor

Virtual CISO (vCISO)

Every organization now answers for its security — to customers, boards and regulators. Not every organization can justify a full-time CISO. Intect's Virtual CISO gives you executive-level security leadership on demand: strategy, governance and a working security program, led by a firm that spends its days on the attacker's side of the table.

CERT-In Empaneled. Researcher-led. Leadership grounded in how intrusions actually happen.

Scope a vCISO Engagement Talk to a Researcher
CERT-In Empaneled Fractional · Interim · Advisor Board- & regulator-facing RBI · SEBI · IRDAI aware
Discipline
Advisory · security leadership
Models
Fractional · Interim · Build-and-transfer · Advisor
Register
Board- & regulator-facing
Credential
CERT-In Empaneled
02

Security leadership is a function, not a headcount

Somewhere between the first enterprise customer's security questionnaire and the first regulator's audit notice, security stops being a task list and becomes a leadership problem.

Someone has to own the strategy, arbitrate the risk decisions, choose what to buy and what to decline, prepare the board, answer the due-diligence questions and stand behind the compliance program. In most growing companies that "someone" is a founder, a CTO or an overworked engineering lead — capable people doing a second job that deserves a first-class owner.

The textbook answer is a full-time Chief Information Security Officer. It is also an expensive one: experienced CISOs are scarce, hard to evaluate without a security bench of your own, and often more capacity than the organization needs this year. A Virtual CISO closes that gap. You get the function without the headcount — a senior security leader who sets direction, builds the program, owns risk governance and reporting, and scales their involvement with your funding rounds, audit seasons and growth. And because your vCISO comes from Intect, the judgment behind every decision was formed the unusual way: by breaking into organizations, not by administering checklists about them.

"A security program is a set of decisions about what an attacker will and won't be able to do. We make those decisions from experience on the attacker's side."
03

What your vCISO owns

The full remit of a Chief Information Security Officer — scoped to your organization and carried as ownership, not advice.

04

Strategy from the attacker's side of the table

Most security leadership is shaped by frameworks. Frameworks are necessary — they tell you what a program should contain.

They cannot tell you which of your gaps an intruder would actually use, in what order, or how far it would carry them. That judgment comes from one place: experience of real intrusions.

Intect is an offensive-security firm. Our researchers spend their days penetrating web applications, networks, cloud estates and — on red-team engagements — entire organizations. A vCISO drawn from that practice makes different calls: priorities ranked by exploitability rather than checklist order, budgets argued against attack paths rather than vendor categories, and board narratives built on plausible loss events rather than maturity colour codes.

P1

Roadmaps ranked by attack path

We prioritize the fixes that break real intrusion chains first, so early spend removes the exposure an attacker would actually use.

P2

Testing, commissioned and read properly

Your vCISO scopes penetration tests and red-team exercises, keeps the testers honest and converts findings into decisions — whether the testing is done by Intect or by anyone else.

Web Application VAPTNetwork VAPTRed Team Assessment
P3

Board reporting that survives questions

Assurance grounded in demonstrated exposure holds up when a director, an investor or a regulator pushes back.

Frameworks describe the program. Attackers grade it.

05

Leadership, shaped to the moment you're in

Four honest shapes an engagement takes — sized in a scoping conversation, not a package grid.

01

Fractional CISO

Ongoing security leadership as a standing function: the strategy, the governance rhythm, the reporting calendar and a named leader your team and your customers can put a face to — at the fraction of capacity your stage actually needs.

02

Interim CISO

A senior leader to bridge a departure or carry the function while you search — keeping the program moving, the board informed and the hire well-defined, then handing over cleanly.

03

Build and transfer

We stand the program up — strategy, policies, risk governance, incident readiness, compliance path — and then transfer it to your first security hire or an internal owner, deliberately working ourselves out of the job.

04

Advisor to your designated CISO

For regulated entities with a designated CISO: we strengthen the CISO's office — second opinions on strategy and spend, support through audit and regulator cycles, and technical depth on demand.

No tiers, hours or prices on this page on purpose. Scope depends on your size, sector and obligations — we would rather define it with you than promise it to everyone.

06

When a regulator expects a designated CISO

In several Indian regulated sectors, a designated CISO is no longer good practice — it is written into the rules. If you are regulated, the fine print matters more than the marketing, so here is exactly what the instruments say — and an honest account of where a vCISO fits.

RBI RBI/DoS/2023-24/107 · issued 7 November 2023 · effective 1 April 2024

Master Direction on IT Governance, Risk, Controls and Assurance Practices (2023)

Requires a senior-level executive — preferably in the rank of a General Manager or equivalent — to be designated as CISO, with no direct reporting line to the Head of IT and no business targets, appointed for a reasonable minimum term with an adequately staffed CISO's office. The CISO reports to the Executive Director overseeing risk and places a cyber-risk review before the Board, the Risk Management Committee or the IT Strategy Committee at least quarterly. Applies to commercial banks (including small finance banks, payments banks and foreign banks), NBFCs in the Top, Upper and Middle layers, credit information companies and the All India Financial Institutions.

IS Audit – RBI →
SEBI SEBI/HO/ITD-1/ITD_CSC_EXT/P/CIR/2024/113 · issued 20 August 2024

Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework (CSCRF, 2024)

CSCRF requires SEBI regulated entities to designate a CISO; for MIIs and Qualified REs the role's level and standing must be at least equivalent to the CTO or CIO. SEBI's FAQs of June 2025 draw a sharp line: a remote CISO is permitted only if dedicated to one organization, a part-time CISO is not permitted, and only a group-level CISO may cover multiple entities within the same group.

SEBI CSCRF Audit →
IRDAI

Information and Cyber Security Guidelines (2023)

Insurers and regulated insurance entities must designate a sufficiently senior official as CISO, reporting to the top executive overseeing risk or to the CEO — owning the information and cyber security policy, security testing baselines and incident reporting.

THE HONEST READ

Where a vCISO fits — and where it doesn't

If no designation mandate binds you, a vCISO simply is your security leadership. If you are RBI-, SEBI- or IRDAI-regulated, read the fine print with us: SEBI restricts part-time CISO arrangements, and RBI expects a designated senior executive with a staffed office — so a fractional CISO shared across clients generally cannot be your designated CISO there. What we honestly do in those regimes: build and run the CISO's office, prepare and support your designated executive, provide interim leadership while you hire, and own the assurance calendar the regulator expects. If a vendor tells you a shared vCISO ticks the RBI or SEBI box, ask them for the clause.

07

How a vCISO engagement runs

A disciplined path from first assessment to a program your organization owns — whether we lead it indefinitely or hand it over.

01
Baseline
Establish where security truly stands: a risk assessment across your critical assets, a maturity review of existing controls, and a map of every obligation that binds you — contracts, frameworks and regulators.
02
Roadmap
Turn the baseline into a prioritized, budget-aware plan — ranked by the attack paths that matter, agreed with leadership and honest about trade-offs.
03
Operate
Run the function: policies made real, risks owned and reviewed, vendors evaluated, testing commissioned, incidents rehearsed and the governance rhythm kept.
04
Report
Carry security to every audience that asks: board packs, customer due-diligence responses, audit evidence and regulator-facing reporting cycles.
05
Transition or sustain
Continue as your fractional leader, or help you hire your full-time CISO and hand over a running program. Either way, the program is built so it does not depend on us to keep standing.

FIG. 02 — vCISO engagement lifecycle · 01–05 · node 03 (Operate) is the standing governance rhythm; node 05 forks to sustain or transfer

08

What you receive

Every engagement leaves artefacts your organization keeps — the working machinery of a security function, not a slide deck that ages in a drawer.

01

Security strategy & roadmap

Where you are, where you need to be and the prioritized path between, in language both engineers and directors can act on.

02

Risk register & treatment plan

Your risks identified, valued, owned and tracked — with acceptance decisions documented, not implied.

03

Policy & standards suite

Policies written to be followed, proportionate to your size, mapped to the frameworks you answer to.

04

Board & executive reporting pack

A recurring, defensible view of security posture, spend and open risk for leadership and directors.

05

Incident response plan & rehearsals

Runbooks, escalation paths, notification readiness and tabletop exercises that turn a plan into a practised response.

06

Vendor & tooling assessment

What to keep, what to cut, what to buy next — argued from coverage against real attack paths.

07

Compliance program plan

The route to the certifications and audits you need — ISO 27001, SOC 2, DPDP readiness or your regulator's cycle — owned end to end.

08

Commissioned testing, interpreted

Scopes, vendor selection and plain-language readings of penetration test and red-team results, whoever performs them.

CERT-In Empaneled CISM CISA OSCP CRTP CIPP/E Aligned to ISO/IEC 27001 and NIST CSF Fully Confidential Dual Reporting (executive + technical)
09

Why organizations choose Intect for security leadership

CERT-In Empaneled CISM · CISA OSCP · CRTP CIPP/E

Judgment formed on the attacker's side — We are a pure offensive-security firm; the leader advising you is backed by researchers who break into organizations for a living.

CERT-In Empaneled — The credential Indian regulators recognize for security assessment work, held by the same firm that leads your program.

A certified leadership bench — Security management and audit credentials (CISM, CISA) alongside offensive certifications (OSCP, CRTP) and privacy expertise (CIPP/E) — leadership that can also read a packet capture.

Fluent in both rooms — The same engagement speaks to your engineers in specifics and to your board in consequences — dual reporting is how we already work.

Audit depth in-house — We conduct compliance and regulatory audits ourselves, so your program is built by people who know exactly what auditors and regulators will ask.

You will not find named client stories here — leadership engagements are confidential by design. What stands behind the offer instead is verifiable: CERT-In empanelment, a certified leadership bench, and the daily intrusion practice of the researchers your vCISO brings with them.

10

Where a vCISO engagement connects

Your vCISO commissions, interprets and owns the outcomes of these — each is also available on its own.

Security Assessment Information Security Risk Assessment The baseline instrument of every engagement: your assets valued, your threats modelled, your risk rated defensibly. Standard Compliance ISO 27001 & SOC 2 The certification and attestation programs your vCISO can own end to end — gap to audit-ready. Regulatory Compliance RBI IS Audit The assurance cycle for RBI-regulated entities — audit, evidence and remediation, under the same roof as your security leadership. Regulatory Compliance SEBI CSCRF Audit The mandated cyber audit and VAPT for SEBI regulated entities, aligned to the framework your CISO function answers to. Offensive Security Penetration Testing & Red Team The testing your vCISO commissions and reads properly — from application VAPT to full adversary simulation. Advisory · Privacy Virtual DPO The privacy counterpart: fractional Data Protection Officer capability for DPDP and GDPR obligations.
11

Frequently asked questions

How is a vCISO different from a security consultant — or from hiring a full-time CISO?

A consultant advises on a problem and leaves; a vCISO owns the function — the strategy, the decisions, the reporting calendar and the accountability for keeping the program moving. Against a full-time hire, the difference is capacity and cost: you get an experienced security executive at the fraction of time your stage needs, backed by a full offensive-security firm rather than working alone. When your scale justifies a full-time CISO, we will tell you so — and help you hire one.

How much of the vCISO's time do we actually get?

We scope involvement to your calendar of decisions, not a block of hours: the standing governance rhythm, board and audit cycles, and surge capacity when an incident, a customer's due diligence or a regulator's deadline demands it. The honest answer is that it varies by stage and sector — which is exactly what a scoping conversation is for. What we commit to is a named leader who knows your environment, not a rotating bench.

We're regulated — will a vCISO satisfy RBI's or SEBI's CISO-designation requirement?

Treat that claim with suspicion, including from us. SEBI's CSCRF requires every regulated entity to designate a CISO, and SEBI's FAQs of June 2025 are explicit: a remote CISO is permitted only if dedicated to one organization, a part-time CISO is not permitted, and only a group-level CISO may cover entities within the same group. RBI's Master Direction expects a senior-level executive — preferably General-Manager rank — designated as CISO, appointed for a reasonable minimum term with an adequately staffed office. On a plain reading, a fractional CISO shared across clients does not meet either. For regulated entities we therefore work differently: we build and run the CISO's office, prepare and support your designated executive, provide interim leadership while you hire and own the assurance calendar. Where the text leaves room, we will walk through it with you and your counsel rather than assert it in marketing copy.

Intect also performs penetration tests and audits — isn't advising us at the same time a conflict?

It can be, if it is not managed — so we manage it explicitly. Advisory and testing are performed by different people under separate scopes, findings reach your leadership unfiltered, and your vCISO's job is to keep every assessor honest, including ours. Where independence is required — a regulatory audit, or simply your preference — your vCISO will commission and manage a third-party firm, and we will hold their work to the same standard as our own. The one thing we will not do is audit our own implementation and call it assurance.

We already have engineers who handle security — what does a vCISO change?

It keeps them, and gives them direction. Engineers are execution: they patch, configure, build and respond. A vCISO is the layer above — deciding what matters most, securing the budget, owning the risk conversation with leadership and turning good engineering into a defensible program. Most teams find the vCISO makes their existing security work more visible and better funded, not redundant.

What happens when we're ready for a full-time CISO?

That is a success condition, not a risk to us. We help define the role, interview the candidates, brief the finalist and hand over a running program — strategy, risk register, policies, reporting rhythm and history. Several engagement shapes are explicitly designed to end this way; a program that depends on its consultant forever was built wrong.

Scope an engagement

Leadership first. Headcount when it's time.

Tell us where security stands today — we'll shape a vCISO engagement that fits, and connect you directly with the researchers behind it.

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