The judgement of a Chief Information Security Officer — long before you can justify the full-time hire. A Brisbane-based virtual CISO (vCISO) for growing Australian businesses, working alongside the IT provider you already have.
Also known as an outsourced CISO or fractional CISO, it puts senior security leadership on a flexible monthly retainer — the experience of a full-time CISO, long before you need to hire one.
Founder-led / CISSP / ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
When CISOs change or resources stretch thin, even mature organisations lose control fast — passwords get lost, alerts ignored, audits delayed. Without a steady hand, systems and teams drift apart, creating the blind spots attackers and insurers eventually find. Sheep Dog vCISO restores order: stabilising environments, guiding people, and closing risk before the wolves appear.
Every organisation has valuable “sheep” to protect — your data, systems and people. They move fast and sometimes wander into danger. We stay close, quietly guiding and watching, and we don’t wait for the wolves to arrive.
Close immediate technical gaps and regain situational awareness.
Align IT, leadership and vendors under one cohesive security strategy.
Implement pragmatic controls that stand up to attack and audit.
Document, report and transfer knowledge to incoming leaders.
Maintain vigilance through continuous oversight and improvement.
Rapid remediation and hardening of Microsoft 365, Azure, endpoint and firewall — we find the cracks attackers exploit and close them fast.
Real visibility of networks, identities and data flows — exposing where risk actually lives, not just what your vendors report.
Evidence, controls and policies mapped to ISO 27001, Essential 8 and SOC 2 — with technical proof, not just paperwork.
Secure design, configuration and cloud migration assurance, aligned to ISO 27001 & Essential 8.
Incident triage, containment, forensic readiness and post-incident reporting to insurers and boards.
MFA, privileged access, joiner/mover/leaver automation and least-privilege by default.
Strategic governance, board presentations and compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, SOC 2, Essential 8).
Policy adoption, awareness campaigns and continuous measurement of human-factor risk.
Every vCISO engagement reports directly to our founder, Ashley Knowles — CISSP and ISO 27001 Lead Auditor, with engineering credentials across Microsoft, Cisco and Fortinet. Our vCISOs come from architecture and operations, not just policy — an extension of your leadership team, quietly protecting the business while you focus on growth.
// CTO, financial services client
Not ready for a full retainer? Start with a fixed-scope Sprint — in two to six weeks you’ll know exactly where you stand and what to do next, with a natural path into the retainer if it makes sense.
Senior security leadership on a monthly retainer — governance, risk and compliance owned end to end and kept current, scaled to your needs and budget. Engagements typically begin within 5–7 business days.
A strategy call is a conversation with a senior advisor — not a sales pitch. Thirty minutes, and you’ll leave with a clearer view of your risk and your real options.
