CISO-AS-A-SERVICE / VIRTUAL CISO
CISO as a Service (vCISO) — Australian Cyber Leadership On Demand
A virtual CISO platform for Australian organisations — a 7-advisor AI council plus structured oversight that delivers board papers, risk decisions and ISO 27001 alignment in minutes, not months. Senior cyber leadership without the day-rate, retainer or six-month hire.
WHY FOUNDERS, COOS AND IT LEADERS WITHOUT A FULL-TIME CISO CHOOSE FORTE/CYBERx
Decisions that hold up under scrutiny.
Senior judgement, on demand
A virtual CISO council reasons through every cyber decision with the rigor a Big-4 partner would apply — minus the day-rate.
Board-ready outputs
Each mission produces a BLUF, three options and a defensible recommendation the board can act on the same week.
Built for Australian context
Anchored to AICD Cyber Governance Principles, APRA CPS 230 / 234, the SOCI Act and ISO 27001:2022 — not US blog posts.
TRY IT NOW
Bring one real decision. Get three defensible options.
The council returns a board-ready BLUF and three strategic options in under 60 seconds.
DECISIONS THE COUNCIL HANDLES
Sized for the conversation you're already having.
Pick a starting point or describe your decision in your own words. FORTE/CYBERx returns three strategic options with trade-offs, framework anchors and an execution-ready plan.
Stand up your first cyber programme
Where to start, what to measure, what to defer — a 90-day plan you can take to the board.
Replace a contractor CISO between hires
Keep cadence on risk reviews, vendor calls and incident playbooks without a 6-month gap.
Pass a customer or insurer security questionnaire
Generate defensible evidence and policy language mapped to ISO 27001 and Essential Eight.
Run a quarterly cyber risk review
Structured agenda, top-10 risk register, treatment plan and board paper — all generated in one mission.
Decide on tooling and spend trade-offs
Three investment shapes with risk-reduction per dollar, defensible to the CFO.
QUESTIONS
FAQ
Is FORTE/CYBERx a true replacement for a CISO?
For most Australian SMEs and mid-market organisations, yes — for strategy, decisions and board reporting. Execution work (incident response on the keyboard, hands-on engineering) still needs an internal owner or MSSP. Many customers use FORTE/CYBERx alongside a fractional CISO to cut the day-rate by 60–80%.
Fractional CISO vs vCISO vs AI decision support — which do I need?
A fractional CISO is a part-time human, billed in days at $2.5k–$4k/day. A vCISO firm is a team selling hours under a retainer. AI-led decision support (FORTE/CYBERx) gives you structured, board-ready outputs in minutes per mission — typically used alongside a fractional CISO so you only pay for the human hours that genuinely need a human. Most customers move from fractional to a hybrid model within their first two boards.
How is this different from hiring a virtual CISO firm?
A vCISO firm bills you in hours; we bill in mission credits with a fixed output. Decisions arrive in minutes, not the next scheduled call. And every output is logged and citation-traceable for your auditor and board.
Will the outputs satisfy our auditors and insurers?
Yes — each mission produces structured documentation mapped to ISO 27001:2022, Essential Eight and APRA CPS 230 / 234. Auditors can follow the trail from question, to options considered, to the chosen control.
Can we use this if we already have a CISO?
Many of our most active customers have a CISO — they use FORTE/CYBERx as the structured-thinking layer for board papers, vendor risk decisions and strategy off-sites.
Run your first mission free.
Two free missions. No credit card. Average mission resolves in under 60 seconds.