Strategy & Governance
Virtual CISO services in India exist because of a specific gap. You have outgrown "the IT manager also handles security" (enterprise customers are sending questionnaires, an auditor is asking who owns the risk register) but a full-time chief information security officer is a senior salary you cannot yet justify.
A vCISO fills the role rather than advising it. Someone owns the security strategy, chairs the governance, signs off on risk, prepares the audit, answers the customer questionnaire, runs the incident when there is one, and presents to your board, on an agreed number of days per month, at a fraction of the cost of the position.
The engagement works because the role is largely judgement and accountability rather than volume of hours. Where it needs to become a full-time internal role, we say so and help you recruit into it. Where you need the plan before the accountability, start with cybersecurity strategy and governance.
Why you need it
01 / 06Procurement questionnaires, architecture reviews and a demand for SOC 2 or ISO 27001:2022 have become the last gate before signature. Answering them credibly needs someone who owns the security programme and can speak to it, and every week of delay is a week of deferred revenue.
Security is distributed across an IT manager, a compliance officer and whoever last dealt with an incident, which means no one is accountable for the whole and nothing joins up. Auditors, insurers and boards all ask the same question: who owns this?
The market rate for an experienced security leader is a substantial fixed cost, the recruitment cycle is long, and a strong candidate will not join an organisation with no programme to lead. A vCISO gets the capability now and makes the eventual role attractive.
The most common reason a strategy engagement produces nothing is that the roadmap has no owner once the consultants leave. A vCISO is that owner, with the authority and the calendar to make it happen.
Instrument
02 / 06Ten questions, answered honestly, give an indicative posture and the gaps a vCISO would work first.
What we deliver
03 / 06Owning the security roadmap and keeping it current: risk prioritisation, the sequence of what gets done, the investment case, and the honest conversation about what is being accepted rather than fixed this year. The plan is maintained continuously rather than produced once.
Running the certification and audit programme end to end: ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2, DPDP Act, GDPR and sector obligations, including policy creation, evidence readiness, auditor liaison and the customer security questionnaires that arrive without warning.
Breach planning before the fact: incident response plan, roles, escalation and tabletop exercises. During an incident, the vCISO coordinates the response, manages communication with customers, regulators and insurers, and makes the calls that need someone accountable to make them.
Leadership reporting that translates technical risk into business terms, board and audit committee attendance, security input on product and commercial decisions, and the security half of due diligence when you are raising, acquiring or being acquired.
Line-of-sight management for your internal security staff, technical direction where you have none, and oversight of the security vendors and managed services you buy, including whether they are delivering what the contract says.
When the role justifies a full-time appointment, the vCISO writes the specification, sits on the interviews, and hands over a programme rather than a backlog. Planning for that exit from the start is a feature of the engagement, not a concession.
How we run it
04 / 06Your obligations, your pressures and your existing capability, so that the engagement is sized to what actually needs doing, typically two to eight days per month, and you meet the person who will hold the role before committing.
Week 0A rapid current-state review, an inherited-risk picture, and the first ninety-day plan. The early weeks are deliberately weighted toward the commercial blockers (a stalled deal, an imminent audit) because that is what pays for the engagement.
Month 1A security steering group with a real remit, a risk register with named owners, a policy framework, a reporting cadence to leadership and the board, and the decision rights that let the programme move without escalation for every item.
Months 1-2Working the priorities in sequence, coordinating internal teams and external providers, running the certification programme, handling questionnaires and audits, and reporting on movement rather than activity.
Months 2-12Formal reassessment of priorities against what has changed in the business and the threat picture, an honest review of what the engagement has delivered, and a direct recommendation on whether the days per month should go up, down, or convert to a permanent hire.
QuarterlyKey benefits
05 / 06A named security leader who owns the risk register, chairs the governance and answers to the board, which is the specific thing auditors, insurers and enterprise customers are checking for.
Questionnaires, architecture reviews and certification requirements are handled by someone who does this weekly, so the security gate stops being the reason a deal slips a quarter.
Senior judgement on an agreed cadence, scaling up during an audit or an incident and down when things are quiet, with a defined path to a permanent hire when the role earns it.
Tools we use
06 / 06No “latest tech tools”. These are the ones your report will cite, alongside the manual work that a tool cannot do for you.
Governance frameworks
Compliance
Risk and reporting
Response readiness
Assessment
Why Aphelion
SharedDarshap Nayak, formerly of KPMG, holds a master’s degree in cybersecurity and more than seven years in security operations. Jaimin Somani brings fifteen-plus years of academic and hands-on VAPT. Hemang Desai is an ICT network specialist from Australia. You will meet them, not a logo.
Meet the teamEvery finding arrives with the reproduction steps, the affected asset and the fix, ranked by what it actually reaches in your environment, not by a CVSS number copied from a scanner. You get the report and the raw output, not a summary of a summary.
See how we testAhmedabad and Sharjah, working the same methodology on the same tooling. Indian data-residency requirements and UAE delivery are both ordinary here, and the AphelioNYX AD Pen-Test module runs entirely inside your perimeter when regulation says it must.
The platformInvent a statistic to make a slide land. Publish your name as a client without written permission. Print an award badge nobody awarded. Founded in 2024. We say so, and we attribute experience to the people who have it.
Ask us anythingAcross the globe, and across eight industries. We name a client only with their written permission.
AphelioNYX is SOC 2, ISO and GDPR compliant; attestations are available on request under NDA. We would rather hand you the report than print a badge.
Questions
FAQNext door
RelatedA personalised walkthrough and a free readiness assessment against the frameworks you are actually being asked for. Pick a time that suits you, or write to us. We reply within one business day.