Know exactly where your security program stands before someone else decides for you.
A customer questionnaire, an insurance renewal, a regulator’s letter, or an acquirer’s diligence list — something forced the question. Summit answers it with a fixed-fee, framework-aligned assessment written for the people who have to sign the check, not for a security team you don’t have.
Every security program starts with a clear, honest picture of where you actually stand. Summit delivers structured, framework-aligned assessments that translate technical findings into a prioritized, board-ready plan — not just a binder that sits on a shelf.
What this actually is
Plain English, because the person paying for this usually isn’t a security professional.
An assessment is a structured, evidence-based review of how your organization protects its information — measured against a published framework rather than against opinion. We look at how you grant and remove access, how you configure and patch your systems, how you back up and restore, how you vet vendors, how you’d respond to an incident, and what you’ve written down and can prove.
Then we do the part most reports skip. We translate every finding into business terms: what could plausibly go wrong, what it would cost you, what it costs to fix, and where it sits on a funded, sequenced plan you can actually execute with the people and budget you have.
You end up with three things an executive can use immediately — a defensible picture of current state, a prioritized roadmap with owners and dollar figures, and the documentation to answer the customer, underwriter, regulator, or board member who started all of this.
Built for organizations without a security department
The industries Summit serves most.
Financial Services & FinTech
Community banks, credit unions, lenders, and fintech platforms working through GLBA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, FFIEC examiner expectations, and board-level risk reporting.
Private Equity & Portfolio Companies
Standing up a consistent, diligence-ready assessment baseline across portfolio companies, and answering an acquirer’s security questionnaire before it becomes a deal issue.
Healthcare & HealthTech
Multi-site practices, billing companies, and health-tech vendors carrying HIPAA obligations and a stack of signed business associate agreements.
M&A
Security due diligence findings converted into a defensible, framework-aligned assessment either side of a transaction can stand behind.
Professional Services
Law, accounting, and consulting firms holding highly sensitive client data with limited internal security staffing, facing the same vendor questionnaires as their enterprise clients.
High-Growth & Mid-Market Companies
Teams whose first enterprise deal just turned into a SOC 2 requirement, a security questionnaire, and a procurement review nobody budgeted for.
Frameworks we assess against
Most clients carry two or three obligations at once. We map them together so one control satisfies several requirements instead of creating three separate projects.
Customer & market driven
Regulated data & industry
AI governance
Government & defense
Texas statutes & general risk baselines
Working under a framework that isn’t on this list — an industry standard, a prime contractor’s flow-down, a parent company’s internal policy, or a single customer’s contract schedule? Bring it. We assess against it directly rather than forcing your obligation into a template.
How the engagement runs
Five phases, fixed fee, fixed timeline. You will always know what week you’re in and what we need from you.
Scope and framework selection
Before a proposal exists, we establish which obligations genuinely apply to you and which do not. Many organizations arrive convinced they need a framework their contracts never actually required — and a few discover they’ve been out of scope on one they did.
No charge — completed during the scoping call and a short follow-up.Documentation and evidence review
We review what already exists — policies, prior assessments, system inventories, vendor contracts, insurance applications, and incident history — through a secure, access-controlled workspace we provide.
Week 1 — roughly two to four hours of your team’s time.Interviews and technical walkthrough
Structured sessions with leadership, IT or your managed service provider, and the operational staff who live inside the process — validating what’s written against what actually happens.
Weeks 2–3 — typically four to eight sessions of 45 to 60 minutes.Analysis, scoring, and risk quantification
Findings are mapped control by control, rated for likelihood and business impact, and assigned an owner, an estimated remediation cost, and a realistic effort level. Where one fix closes gaps across several frameworks, we say so and sequence it first.
Weeks 3–4 — no demand on your team.Executive readout and roadmap handoff
A live session with your leadership — and your board if you want it there — walking through current state, the findings that matter, and a 12-month funded roadmap. You keep every deliverable, and the underlying workpapers, permanently.
Weeks 4–6, depending on tier — followed by 30 days of questions at no charge.What you receive
Written to be handed directly to a customer, an underwriter, a board, or an auditor without translation.
Your rating is issued per control domain, not as a single vanity number. Most organizations engaging us for the first time land between Initial and Developing — that’s normal, and it’s the point of measuring.
Assessment pricing
Fixed fee, quoted before work begins. No hourly meter, no scope-creep invoices, no surprise change orders.
Every engagement is priced from the scoping call and stated in writing in the Statement of Work. If the scope genuinely changes mid-engagement, we tell you before any additional work happens and you decide whether to authorize it.
For organizations with no specific regulatory requirement yet, or who need to know their posture before committing to a compliance path.
- Assessed against NIST CSF 2.0 or CIS Controls v8.1
- Up to 75 employees, one primary environment
- Findings register, risk register, and 12-month roadmap
- Executive readout, 60 minutes
- Cyber insurance application readiness review
Most common first engagement
For organizations facing one named obligation — a SOC 2 request, a HIPAA requirement, a Safeguards Rule deadline, or an 800-171 flow-down clause.
- Full control-by-control assessment of one framework
- Up to 250 employees and three environments
- Everything in the Baseline tier
- Evidence readiness pack and control narratives
- Policy gap inventory with drafting priority
- Board-ready deck and 90-minute executive readout
Most common for regulated and enterprise-selling clients
For organizations carrying two or more overlapping obligations who need them reconciled into a single program instead of three parallel projects.
- Two or more frameworks assessed and cross-mapped
- Larger, multi-site, or multi-entity environments
- Everything in the Framework Readiness tier
- Consolidated control set retiring duplicate work
- Vendor and third-party risk review, up to 15 vendors
- Two readout sessions: leadership and board
Typical for healthcare, financial services, and PE-backed clients
Tailored and scoped engagements
The three tiers above cover most of what growing companies need, and they exist so you can see real numbers instead of filling out a form to learn a price. They are not a constraint.
A great deal of our work is scoped from scratch, because the trigger was specific: a single acquirer’s diligence checklist, one prime contractor’s security schedule, a payor’s audit letter, a failed insurance renewal, a merger integration, or a board that wants an independent second look at what an existing provider has been reporting. A focused two-week review of a single domain — identity and access, backup and recovery, vendor risk, or incident readiness — is priced separately, usually between $2,800 and $4,500.
Add-on services
| Service | Description | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Security policy suite | Drafting and tailoring of the core written policy set identified as missing during the assessment | $3,500 |
| Written information security program | The formal WISP required under the FTC Safeguards Rule, HIPAA, and several state statutes | $2,800 |
| Incident response plan | Plan with defined roles, severity criteria, escalation paths, and notification decision tree | $2,400 |
| Executive tabletop exercise | Facilitated scenario with your leadership team and a written after-action report | $2,800 |
| Vendor risk program build | Tiering criteria, review cadence, questionnaire set, and vendor inventory | $3,000 |
| System Security Plan & POA&M | NIST SP 800-171 and CMMC documentation package with SPRS score support | From $4,500 |
| Additional vendor reviews | Beyond the count included in your tier | $275 each |
| Board or investor briefing | Standalone presentation and live session beyond the included readout | $1,500 |
| Remediation advisory retainer | Monthly guidance while your team works the roadmap, cancellable after 90 days | From $2,500/mo |
| Re-assessment | Measured against your original baseline to evidence progress, within 18 months | 45% of original fee |
Commercial terms
- Fifty percent of the fixed fee is due on execution of the Statement of Work; the balance is due on delivery of the final report. Net 15.
- Fees include all remote work, the secure evidence workspace, every deliverable, and 30 days of follow-up questions after the readout.
- Travel within Central Texas is included. On-site work beyond two days, or travel outside the region, is quoted separately and approved in advance.
- If you engage Summit for ongoing Virtual CISO services within 90 days of the readout, the full assessment fee is credited against your first three monthly retainers.
- All engagements are performed under our Master Services Agreement and a Statement of Work governed by Texas law, with defined liability limits and confidentiality obligations.
What this is — and what it isn’t
Stated plainly here because it appears in the contract.
What we deliver
- An independent, evidence-based evaluation of your security program against published framework requirements.
- Findings and risk ratings expressed in business terms, with cost and effort estimates leadership can budget against.
- Readiness preparation so that when a CPA firm, certified assessor, or enterprise customer examines you, the outcome is predictable.
- Documentation you own outright and can hand to auditors, underwriters, regulators, customers, and your board.
- A named, senior practitioner doing the work — the same person on the scoping call is the person in your interviews and at your readout.
What we do not do
- We are not a CPA firm and do not issue SOC reports, ISO certificates, audit opinions, or any attestation. Our role is advisory and preparatory.
- We are not a law firm. Nothing we deliver is legal advice, and no attorney-client privilege arises from our work.
- We do not perform penetration testing, exploitation, red teaming, or digital forensic investigation. Where you need them, we help you select and manage a licensed firm.
- We do not resell software, take referral fees, or accept vendor compensation.
- We do not guarantee any audit result, certification, insurance outcome, or that you will avoid a breach. Security is probabilistic.
Questions we get on the first call
If yours isn’t here, ask it directly — a scoping conversation costs nothing.
How much of my team’s time will this take?
For the Baseline tier, plan on six to ten hours total across your leadership, IT staff or managed service provider, and one or two operational owners. For a full framework assessment, plan on twelve to twenty hours spread over four to six weeks. We schedule around your calendar and send every question in advance.
We already have an MSP handling security. Do we still need this?
Usually yes, and not because your MSP is doing anything wrong. A managed service provider operates controls; an assessment evaluates whether the right controls exist, whether they cover your actual obligations, and whether the evidence would survive scrutiny. We work alongside your provider, not around them.
Which framework should we start with?
Start with whichever one someone is actually going to hold you to. If a customer contract names SOC 2, start there. If you handle protected health information, HIPAA is not optional. If nothing external is driving it yet, NIST CSF 2.0 gives you real risk reduction now and maps cleanly into formal frameworks later. We settle this during scoping, before you commit to a fee.
Will this assessment satisfy our customer’s security review?
In many cases yes — customers increasingly accept a credible third-party assessment plus a remediation roadmap in place of a full audit report, particularly from smaller vendors. It will not substitute for a SOC 2 report where a contract specifically requires one. Send us the customer’s language during scoping and we’ll tell you honestly which situation you’re in.
What happens if the findings are bad?
They frequently are, on the first pass, and that’s not a reason to avoid measuring. The report is written for constructive use: findings are prioritized so you can show a defensible plan rather than a wall of red. A documented, funded, in-progress roadmap is a far stronger position with regulators, underwriters, and customers than having never looked.
Do you assess frameworks that aren’t listed on this page?
Yes. Contractual security schedules, prime contractor flow-down requirements, parent company standards, and industry-specific baselines all come up regularly. Send us the document that created the obligation and we’ll scope directly against it.
Can you help us fix what you find?
Yes, through a remediation advisory retainer or an ongoing Virtual CISO engagement — and if you move to a Virtual CISO retainer within 90 days, your full assessment fee is credited toward it. We’re equally comfortable handing the roadmap to your internal team or your MSP and stepping back.
How do you protect the information we share with you?
Assessment findings are among the most sensitive documents your organization will produce. Evidence is exchanged only through an encrypted, access-controlled workspace, never by email attachment. We request redacted or sampled data wherever it will do the job, and return or securely destroy your material on request.
About the practice
Texas, specifically
Summit Cyber Advisors is based in Georgetown, serving organizations across the state. Engagements are governed by Texas law.
Senior practitioner delivery
Assessments are performed by an experienced security leader with hands-on ownership of audits, incident response, and executive reporting — not a junior staff or an offshore questionnaire mill.
Insured
Professional liability and errors and omissions, cyber liability, and commercial general liability coverage are maintained throughout every engagement.
Advisory only, by design
No software resale, no managed services, no vendor commissions. Our only revenue from your engagement is the fee you agreed to.