Your board wants a security strategy. Your auditors want a named officer. Your insurers want proof of governance. You don't need a $350K salary line to get all three. You need an operator who's done it at the federal level — on retainer, not on payroll.
Every company past 50 employees needs strategic security leadership. Almost none of them can justify the headcount.
Regulators are tightening. Cyber insurance underwriters are demanding named security officers. Boards are asking questions your IT director can't answer. And the talent market for full-time CISOs is a war zone — median base compensation crossed $280K in 2025, with total comp packages north of $450K.
Meanwhile, every month without strategic security leadership is another month of unmanaged risk, policy drift, and compliance gaps accumulating in the dark. You're not choosing between "good enough" and "best." You're choosing between "nothing" and "someone who's done this before."
Full-time CISO: $280K–$450K+ annual total comp, plus benefits, equity, and turnover risk. Fractional CISO from TRST: a fraction of that — with operators who've secured federal agencies, not just corporate networks.
TRST CYBER deploys fractional CISO and CIO operators with federal-level clearance histories and Fortune-500 governance experience — embedded in your organization at the depth you need.
This isn't a consultant who drops a PDF and disappears. Your fractional leader sits in your board meetings, owns your security roadmap, runs your vendor reviews, and translates raw cyber risk into language your CFO actually understands. They carry the title, they carry the accountability, and they carry the institutional knowledge — without the permanent headcount.
Three models. Same caliber of operator. Scaled to match your organizational complexity and the velocity of your threat surface.
Your fractional CISO or CIO operates as a standing member of your leadership team. Recurring weekly cadence — staff meetings, 1:1s with department heads, ongoing policy stewardship. They know your org chart, your tech stack, and your risk register by name.
Strategic on-call. Monthly check-ins, board prep, compliance reviews, and incident response activation. Ideal for orgs with internal IT leadership that needs a senior backstop — someone to elevate the conversation when the stakes go up.
Defined scope, defined timeline. SOC 2 readiness sprint. M&A cyber due diligence. Incident response leadership. Post-breach remediation oversight. You bring the problem, we deploy the operator.
Quarterly risk posture decks, KPI dashboards, and regulatory exposure summaries designed for non-technical executives who approve budgets.
Compliance mapping across SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, CMMC, GDPR, CCPA/CPRA — matched to your industry and your audit calendar.
Third-party security assessments, SIG questionnaire reviews, and supply chain risk ranking. Every vendor scored, every gap documented.
From policy framework to technical controls — a documented, auditable security program built to your maturity level and designed to scale.
Technical security assessments on acquisition targets. Identify inherited risk before it becomes your liability. Quantify remediation costs for the deal team.
When something goes wrong, your fractional leader takes command. Containment, investigation coordination, stakeholder communication, and regulatory notification — handled.
Submit a brief. A senior operator will assess your needs, recommend an engagement model, and scope the deployment — no sales pitch, no pressure.