vCISO

Senior cybersecurity leadership, without the permanent hire.

Your board is asking who owns cybersecurity. Regulators want to see governance. A vCISO from Edge7 Networks is not a part-time CISO and not a consultant on retainer. It is a structured leadership service that takes ownership of your security direction and translates cyber risk into language your board can act on.

Let's talk Start with a maturity assessment
ISO 27001
ISO 9001
Cyber Essentials
Named vCISO
NIS2 DORA ISO 27001 NIST CSF
The problem

Every organisation needs a senior security leader. Not every organisation needs one full-time.

Regulatory pressure is increasing. NIS2 is in force across the EU. DORA applies to financial services. Your board is asking questions about cybersecurity governance, and someone needs to own the answers.

Hiring a permanent CISO is expensive and hard to justify when the role does not require five days a week. But leaving security ungoverned, or splitting it across people who already have full-time responsibilities, creates gaps that auditors and regulators will find.

A vCISO from Edge7 Networks fills that gap with structured, senior-level leadership shaped entirely around your maturity, your risk profile, and your pace.

Nobody owns cybersecurity

Security decisions spread across IT, ops, and whoever had capacity. No single person is accountable.

Audits mean scrambling

Evidence pulled together weeks before, not maintained year-round.

No incident plan

Response arrangements on paper but never tested. When something happens, it becomes a crisis.

Board gets vague updates

Security reporting is ad hoc. No way to measure progress or risk.

Suppliers go unreviewed

Third-party risk acknowledged but nobody has time to assess it.

No security roadmap

Investment decisions are reactive. No framework to prioritise what matters most.

This is not a gap your IT team created. Cybersecurity governance at this level is a specialist function. Most organisations below enterprise scale have never needed a dedicated CISO. But regulators and boards are now expecting one. A vCISO fills that role without the cost or commitment of a permanent executive hire.

€140k to €300k
Average permanent CISO salary in Ireland
Morgan McKinley 2026
1 in 10,000
Companies globally that employ a dedicated CISO
Cybersecurity Ventures 2026
€10M or 2%
Maximum NIS2 fines for non-compliance
NIS2 Directive
What changes

The questions your board is asking start getting clear answers.

Your organisation Edge7 Networks INDEPENDENT GOVERNANCE

Your hat, not ours.

Where Edge7 Networks also provides operational services, your vCISO wears your hat, not ours. Edge7 Networks becomes just another supplier to review, held to the same standard as the rest of your supply chain.

Conflicts of interest are explicitly avoided. That separation is built into the engagement by design.

Cybersecurity decisions move from scattered across IT and ops into a single, governed programme with a roadmap your board can see and measure. Cyber risk gets translated into business risk.

Your compliance position is maintained continuously through a bespoke Cybersecurity Compliance Toolkit. When an auditor asks a question, the answer already exists.

Response arrangements are tested and rehearsed. When something goes wrong, your vCISO translates technical events into decisions the business can act on.

Vendor reviews, supplier assessments, new projects, OT and IoT considerations. Your vCISO is the named person in the RACI, tracking actions to closure.

Your vCISO chairs security review meetings, joins vendor meetings, attends strategic projects, and acts as the internal voice for cybersecurity.

How it works

Built around your organisation, not around a template.

No two engagements look the same. Your vCISO shapes the governance model, the cadence, and the priorities around your business.

01
Shaped to where you are now
Every engagement starts by understanding your environment, your sector, and your current security maturity. The governance structure, policies, and cadence are built around you.
02
Paced to your business
Measured in project days, not calendar days. The work follows your governance cycles, your availability, and the natural rhythm of your business.
03
Fixed daily rate, no lock-in
Professional services on a fixed daily rate. No minimum contracts. Scale up when demand requires it, scale down when it does not.
04
Continuous, not project-based
Your vCISO maintains your compliance position, reviews suppliers, updates the board, and governs your security programme on an ongoing basis.

What this looks like after six months.

A governed security programme with visible, measurable progress. Here is what changes in practice.

A governed security programme
Visible, measurable progress against a roadmap your board can track. Security stops being an IT concern and becomes a managed business function.
Board-ready reporting
Your leadership team receives security updates they can read and act on, written in language that connects cyber risk to business risk.
Compliance you can evidence
Risk registers, maturity scoring, action management, policies, and audit evidence. All maintained through a bespoke Cybersecurity Compliance Toolkit.
Independent supplier oversight
Every critical IT supplier, including Edge7 Networks, is subject to third-party risk review.
Senior leadership at a fraction of the cost
A permanent CISO at this level would cost multiples of the engagement. No compromise on accountability or depth.
Maturity score
3.4/ 5.0
Up from 1.8 at baseline
114
Controls
23
Policies
Risk register
Critical risks0
High3
Medium8
Actions closed47
Compliance frameworks
ISO 27001Aligned
Cyber EssentialsCertified
NIS2On track
NIST CSF 2.0In progress
DORAScoping
GDPRCompliant
Built from experience

We have walked this path ourselves.

The Cybersecurity Compliance Toolkit your vCISO maintains was forged through real engagements, our own certifications included. We know what auditors look for, what evidence holds up, and where programmes get stuck.

ISO 27001:2022
ISO 27001:2022
Information security management
ISO 9001:2015
ISO 9001:2015
Quality management
Cyber Essentials
Cyber Essentials
UK government-backed certification

Your vCISO aligns your programme to the standards that apply to your sector. Across IT, OT, and IoT environments.

NIS2DORAISO 27001NIST CSF 2.0IEC 62443Cyber EssentialsGDPRISO 9001
Related services

Works alongside your operational security.

Compliance

Your vCISO defines the governance programme. The compliance service delivers the toolkits and evidence management that sustain it.

Learn more

SOC and SIEM

Operational security monitoring is one of the functions your vCISO oversees. Edge7 Networks manages the SOC, and your vCISO holds it to account.

Learn more

Incident Response

Your vCISO ensures response plans are in place and rehearsed. When an incident occurs, the response team activates the plan the vCISO helped build.

Learn more

MDR

Managed detection and response is the operational layer your vCISO factors into the broader security programme.

Learn more

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about vCISO services and virtual security leadership.

A vCISO (virtual Chief Information Security Officer) is a senior cybersecurity professional who provides CISO-level leadership to an organisation on a part-time or fractional basis, rather than as a permanent employee. A vCISO takes ownership of the organisation's security strategy, compliance programme, board reporting, and security governance. Providing the same expertise and accountability as an internal CISO at a significantly lower cost.

A virtual CISO is responsible for the security direction of an organisation. This includes developing and owning the information security strategy, managing compliance programmes (such as ISO 27001, NIS2, or DORA), leading risk assessments, reporting security posture to the board, working with auditors and regulators, and providing guidance on security investment decisions. A vCISO from Edge7 Networks works alongside the operational security team, providing strategic leadership that complements day-to-day security management.

A CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) is a full-time executive responsible for cybersecurity. A vCISO provides the same strategic leadership on a fractional basis, typically for organisations that do not have sufficient scale to justify a full-time CISO. A vCISO is engaged at a set number of days per month, bringing senior expertise without a full-time executive salary, benefits, and recruitment cost.

vCISO services are most valuable to organisations. Typically those with 200 to 3,000 employees. That are growing, regulated, or facing increasing compliance obligations such as NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, or Cyber Essentials. Organisations in critical infrastructure sectors (energy, healthcare, financial services, transport) have a particular need given regulatory requirements for demonstrable security governance. A vCISO provides the expertise and accountability regulators expect without the cost of a full-time hire.

Ready to see where you stand?

Every organisation that handles data, suppliers, or regulated information needs senior cybersecurity leadership. Choose your starting point.

Explore first

Start with a one-hour conversation to understand your priorities, risk profile, and pace. No commitment.

Baseline first

Get a maturity model and gap analysis: a clear picture of where you are today and where you should be heading.

Ready now

You already know what you need. Engage directly into the vCISO function from day one.

Let's start with a conversation