29+ years
Cybersecurity and enterprise IT experience across Department of Defense, federal contracting, and large commercial environments.
Cybersecurity Architecture & Proposal Advisory
Strategic cybersecurity advisory for federal, enterprise, and regulated initiatives.
Cyberneza provides fractional CISO (vCISO) leadership and senior cybersecurity architecture and proposal advisory to capture teams, federal contractors, and commercial and enterprise leaders pursuing complex, security-driven efforts. Engagements are principal-led, tool-agnostic, and grounded in NIST RMF, FISMA, Zero Trust, and modern cloud and AI governance. The goal is a defensible technical position — not a checklist.
How the work gets done
You get the architecture, the designs, and the documentation — not a list of findings.
Cyberneza turns the requirement into security architecture, control designs, remediation plans, implementation procedures, configuration guidance, and validation criteria — the work that stalls most readiness efforts. Your team applies the changes through its own change process, so nothing reaches production without your approval.
Credentials
Senior, cross-domain expertise behind every engagement
Cyberneza was formed in 2025. Advisory work is informed by principal-led experience spanning defense, federal, and enterprise cybersecurity programs.
Federal + enterprise
Fluent across federal authorization frameworks and commercial governance — useful when programs straddle both worlds.
Architecture leadership
Enterprise cybersecurity architecture leadership in global financial services, plus operations leadership for the DoD's first SaaS provider (IBM e-Collab Center).
Certifications
- Cyber AB CMMC Registered Practitioner (RP) — CPN 76768
- CISSP — (ISC)²
- CRISC — ISACA
- CCSK — Cloud Security Alliance
- CCZT — Cloud Security Alliance (Zero Trust)
- CompTIA A+
Governance & RMF depth
Direct experience with NIST RMF lifecycle activities, NIST SP 800-53 control families, FISMA, STIGs, and continuous monitoring — the language assessors and authorizing officials expect.
Regulated-industry experience
Cybersecurity architecture across financial services, healthcare-adjacent SaaS, and federally-aligned cloud workloads, where audit defensibility and operational reality both matter.
Advisory Services
How Cyberneza supports your initiative
Each engagement is scoped to your effort and delivered directly by a senior practitioner. Advisory only — Cyberneza does not perform staffing or resume placement.
Proposal Support Advisory
Cybersecurity subject-matter support for capture and proposal teams — shaping the technical security approach, strengthening solution narratives, and ensuring the cybersecurity story is credible to evaluators. Strategic input, not boilerplate.
Cybersecurity Architecture Advisory
Reference architectures, control allocation, and risk-based design decisions for mission and enterprise systems. Architecture-first guidance that ties security to objectives rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Federal Security Alignment
Alignment to NIST RMF, NIST SP 800-53, FISMA, and STIGs, with practical mapping toward ATO readiness and FedRAMP-aligned control implementation for federal and federally-adjacent workloads.
Zero Trust & Governance Strategy
Zero Trust sequencing grounded in OMB M-22-09 and CISA's maturity model, paired with GRC and identity strategy that holds up under independent assessment — not vendor-led marketing. Zero Trust architecture & roadmap →
Technical Proposal Review
Independent review of cybersecurity and technical volume content — assessing accuracy, defensibility, compliance with solicitation requirements, and alignment between the stated approach and what is operationally achievable.
vCISO — Fractional CISO Leadership
A virtual CISO (vCISO) engagement for organizations that need senior security leadership without a full-time hire — roadmap ownership, control and risk decisions, executive and board briefings, and a named security voice for customers, insurers, and regulators. How the vCISO engagement works →
vCISO
Fractional CISO (vCISO) engagements
A virtual CISO engagement gives you the security leadership a full-time chief information security officer would provide — ownership of the roadmap, the risk decisions, and the security conversation with customers, insurers, auditors and the board — at the fraction of a role most organizations at this stage actually need.
When a vCISO is the right answer
- Security decisions are being made by whoever is least busy, and nobody owns the outcome
- A customer, insurer, contract clause, or investor is asking who your CISO is
- You have compliance work in flight and no one to arbitrate between engineering and the requirement
- A full-time CISO is either unaffordable or would be under-employed at your current size
- Leadership needs security translated into decisions and budget, not a tool report
What the vCISO owns
- The security roadmap, sequenced against the deadlines that actually exist
- Risk decisions, recorded — including the ones to accept a risk and why
- Policy and control governance: who owns what, reviewed on what cadence
- Executive and board reporting in language leadership can act on
- Customer security reviews, questionnaires, and insurer or regulator questions
- Vendor and third-party risk decisions
- Escalation and coordination during an incident, with your responders and counsel
How the vCISO engagement runs
- A recurring commitment — a defined block of senior time each month, agreed in writing before it starts, not billed by the hour after the fact
- A standing leadership cadence with your executives, plus working sessions with the teams doing the work
- Named as your security point of contact for customers, auditors, insurers, and partners where you want that
- Delivered directly by a senior practitioner — the same person in the room every month, never sold by a principal and delivered by an analyst
- Adjustable or endable as your needs change; the fee follows the scope, not a multi-year lock-in
Why Cyberneza
What sets the advisory apart
Defense and enterprise crossover
DoD and federal background combined with enterprise architecture leadership in global financial services — a rare vantage point on both mission and commercial constraints.
Architecture-first perspective
Security architecture experience drives the guidance, so control decisions trace back to design and risk — not to a generic compliance checklist.
Governance and operational fluency
Comfortable in both the governance conversation and the operational one, so recommendations are defensible to assessors and realistic for the teams who implement them.
Tool-agnostic advisory
Recommendations are independent of any single platform. The objective is the right outcome for your environment, not a predetermined product.
Executive communication
Technical depth translated into clear executive narrative — for evaluators, authorizing officials, boards, and capture leadership.
Federal and commercial alignment
Fluent in NIST 800-53, RMF, and FISMA and SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA — valuable when an initiative spans both.
Ideal Engagements
When to bring Cyberneza in
Cyberneza is most valuable on efforts where cybersecurity is central to the outcome and the technical position has to withstand scrutiny — from evaluators, authorizing officials, auditors, or enterprise customers.
Engagements are typically scoped, time-bound, and advisory in nature, with the option to continue as an ongoing strategic relationship.
- Proposal and capture support for security-driven opportunities
- Technical and cybersecurity volume review
- Cybersecurity architecture and design review
- Strategic cybersecurity advisory and roadmap alignment
- Federal readiness and RMF/ATO alignment
- Zero Trust and governance strategy
- Fractional CISO (vCISO) leadership
The Process
How an engagement works
1
Discovery
A focused conversation to understand the opportunity, the technical objectives, the constraints, and the deadlines you are working against.
2
Strategic Alignment
We align on scope, the cybersecurity approach, and the outcomes that matter — then confirm a clear, fixed engagement before any work begins.
3
Advisory Support
Hands-on advisory delivery: architecture guidance, proposal and technical review, and the artifacts your team needs to move with confidence.
4
Ongoing Collaboration
Where it adds value, the relationship continues — supporting future pursuits, roadmap evolution, and ongoing strategic decisions.
FAQ
Common questions
Do you offer vCISO or fractional CISO services?
Yes. A vCISO (virtual CISO, also called a fractional CISO) engagement is a recurring senior leadership commitment: ownership of the security roadmap and risk decisions, executive and board reporting, and acting as the named security contact for customers, insurers, auditors, and regulators. Scope and fee are agreed in writing before the engagement begins. See how the vCISO engagement runs →
How is a vCISO different from hiring a full-time CISO?
A full-time CISO is the right answer once the security programme is large enough to consume one. Below that line, organizations either overpay for an under-employed executive or leave the role unfilled and distribute the decisions among people who do not own them. A vCISO engagement buys the judgement and the accountability without the headcount, and can be scaled up, scaled down, or ended as the programme changes. Cyberneza will say when a full-time hire has become the better answer.
Do you provide cybersecurity proposal support?
Yes. Cyberneza provides cybersecurity subject-matter advisory to capture and proposal teams — shaping the technical security approach, strengthening the solution narrative, and reviewing cybersecurity content for accuracy and defensibility. This is strategic advisory support; we do not guarantee, and cannot guarantee, a proposal award.
Do you support federal contractors and primes?
Yes. Cyberneza is a veteran-owned small business registered in SAM.gov (UEI T97XZHE7C5D5, CAGE 1AVJ5) and supports federal primes and contractors with cybersecurity architecture, NIST RMF and ATO alignment, FISMA, Zero Trust, and proposal advisory. See the federal practice for registration details and engagement models.
Are engagements contingent on a contract award?
No. Advisory engagements are scoped and agreed independently of any award outcome. Cyberneza is compensated for the advisory work itself — not on a contingency tied to whether an opportunity is won.
Do you replace our proposal or capture team?
No. Cyberneza complements your existing capture, proposal, and engineering teams as a cybersecurity subject-matter advisor. The objective is to strengthen your team's position, not to substitute for it.
Do you provide implementation or staffing services?
This page describes advisory services. Cyberneza is not a staffing or recruiting firm and does not place personnel or rent resumes. Hands-on implementation and readiness work is available separately — see services and how we work.
Can Cyberneza support architecture and technical volume reviews?
Yes. Independent review of cybersecurity architecture and technical volume content is a core offering — assessing accuracy, defensibility, compliance with solicitation requirements, and alignment between the stated approach and what is operationally achievable.
Do you work with regulated industries?
Yes. Advisory work spans financial services, healthcare-adjacent SaaS, and federally-aligned cloud workloads, with attention to the frameworks and audit expectations specific to each regulated environment.
Engage Cyberneza as a strategic cybersecurity advisor
Whether you are preparing a federal pursuit, reviewing a technical volume, or aligning a cybersecurity roadmap, Cyberneza brings senior architecture and governance perspective to the effort. Start with a short call to discuss scope and fit.
- Contact: Larry Downard, Founder & Principal Consultant
- Email: larry@cyberneza.com
- Location: Orlando, Florida (remote, with travel as required by the engagement)
- Federal: Registration & engagement models →
- Capability statement:
Cyberneza provides cybersecurity advisory services and does not guarantee contract awards, audit outcomes, or authorization decisions. Availability for future engagements is subject to mutual agreement and scheduling.