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Testing and defence led by a published security researcher with five CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1 Mirai botnet kill-switch.

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Compliance

Audit-ready, fixed scope

SOC 2, ISO, CPCSC, and the Canadian privacy stack, run end to end with an independent auditor.

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Original research, free tools, and plain-language guides on security and compliance, from a published security researcher.

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vCISO · Startups

vCISO for Startups

Most startups hit security demands long before they can hire a CISO. A vCISO gives you executive security leadership right-sized to your stage and budget.

Book a free readiness call Full vCISO service
From $3,000 CAD · per month See full pricing →

Why Startups companies need vCISO

  • The first enterprise or regulated customer creates security obligations a startup has no one to own.
  • A vCISO builds a defensible program without a premature full-time executive salary.
  • Founders offload security leadership so they can stay focused on product and growth.
  • The engagement scales up as your compliance and customer demands grow.

More context on this sector on our Startups industry page.

What our vCISO engagement covers

Tailored to Startups, delivered by a Toronto security and compliance team led by a published security researcher, with our offensive-security partner where offensive testing is involved.

  • A right-sized security program for your stage
  • A named security owner for early enterprise deals
  • Ownership of your security program: policies, standards, and exceptions
  • Security-questionnaire, audit, and framework-readiness leadership
  • Third-party and vendor risk management
  • Board-, customer-, and regulator-facing security reporting

See the full vCISO service page, or productized pricing for fixed-scope engagements.

Related pages

vCISO for Startups: common questions

Are we big enough for a vCISO?

If customers are asking security questions you do not have an owner for, yes. A vCISO is specifically designed for companies not ready for a full-time CISO.

How much time does a vCISO commit?

It is a fractional engagement scaled to your needs, more during an audit push, less in steady state.

What is the first thing a vCISO does?

Assess where you stand, then prioritize the program around your most urgent driver, usually an enterprise deal or a framework deadline.

vCISO for Startups, on your timeline

Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We will tell you whether this engagement fits, what it would cost, and when we could start.

Book a call Contact us

The same work, without the line item

Every readiness programme needs a control library, an evidence register, policies and a score for the board. Being quoted five figures a year for that is normal. Paying it is not.

traztech Workspace Other GRC platforms
Licence cost $0. Free forever, no card, no paid tier $7,500 to $50,000 a year, on an annual contract
Control library, evidence register, policy templates, risk register, vendor questionnaires, readiness scoring Included Included
What it costs inside an engagement with us $0. You need a workspace either way Unchanged. The subscription sits on top of the fee
What it does to your audit quote $11,000 off a five-figure quote on one engagement, for a documented readiness position Nothing. The audit firm prices your readiness, not your tooling

Pricing in the right column is what compliance automation platforms are publicly reported to charge; none of them publish a number, so treat it as a range rather than a quote. The $11,000 came off the audit firm's own number once the readiness position was documented (the engagement). Where a paid platform is the better buy, and the fuller comparison, is on the Workspace page.

Track record

Who is actually doing the work

We are deliberately not a large firm, and we would rather show you the work than a wall of logos. Here is what is behind the advice.

5
Published CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1
76
Controls taken from nothing to a passed SOC 2 Type II
Zero
Exceptions on that Type II report
75 days
Readiness window we have hit every time we have run it
20+
Penetration testing engagements delivered

Published vulnerability research

Five published CVEs. CVE-2024-45163 (CVSS 9.1) is a flaw in the Mirai botnet itself, which gave defenders a way to shut down attacker infrastructure. CVE-2026-42626 takes HP ENVY 5000 printers offline from any unauthenticated device on the same network.

The printer is the one that matters on a compliance page: an asset nobody counts as a computer, on a flat network, downed by a device that never had to log in. Auditors ask how controls fail. We have found out first-hand.

A SOC 2 Type II built from nothing

At Humera, a venture-backed US security company, Jacob built the compliance programme in-house from nothing: no report, no policies, no documented controls. It ended in a Type II attestation across 76 controls with zero exceptions, on a team of 15.

The platform held 99.9% uptime throughout, which is the part most readiness projects get wrong: controls are easy to design and hard to retrofit onto a system people already depend on.

Recent engagements

For a Waterloo data centre operator we ran SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 together rather than one after the other, across a production campus, an AI compute platform and a self-hosted collaboration stack. Scoped so further Ontario and Quebec sites enter as they reach production. Findings delivered and remediated.

For an Ontario medtech company putting an AI clinical assistant in front of practitioners, we ran the gap analysis and built the evidence programme behind their SOC 2.