Cybersecurity for Australian professional services firms
Essential Eight alignment, cyber risk advisory, and independent assurance for law firms, accounting practices, and consulting businesses supplying defence, federal government, and regulated clients.
The realities of professional services cyber risk
Law, accounting, and consulting firms sit on concentrated client data — and client, insurer, and regulator expectations are rising fast.
Your breach becomes your client's breach
You hold contracts, financial records, and strategic plans for defence primes, federal agencies, and listed companies. A breach of your systems is a breach of their systems — and they're asking how you'll prevent it.
Client & insurer questionnaires keep getting longer
Every renewal cycle brings more cyber questions: Essential Eight maturity, incident response readiness, supplier security, independent assurance. Answering them with confidence — and evidence — is now table stakes.
Your IT provider's reports don't map to a framework
Your MSP tells you the lights are green. Your client asks for E8 maturity evidence. The two don't line up — and translating operational noise into defensible compliance evidence isn't your day job.
Risk compounds quietly between reviews
A single policy change, staff turnover, or system migration can undo months of compliance work. Without a recurring review cadence, you only find out at the next client audit — when it's expensive to fix.
How we help professional services firms
A proportionate cyber program that matches your client base, your risk profile, and the evidence your insurers and clients actually ask for.
Essential Eight Assessment & Uplift
Independent ML2 gap assessment with a costed roadmap you can share with clients, insurers, or your board.
Cyber Risk Advisory
Security risk assessments and board-ready reporting that translate technical findings into decisions your partners and clients can act on.
Annual Security Review
A recurring independent review that catches compliance drift before clients or insurers do — delivering evidence aligned to their renewal cycle.
vCISO / Ongoing Advisory
Senior cyber leadership embedded in your firm — strategy, governance, and client-facing assurance without the full-time CISO cost.
CSQ Completion Assistance
If your clients include DISP-registered primes, we help you prepare the Commonwealth Security Questionnaire with evidence that stands up to scrutiny.
IRAP Assessment
For firms supplying systems into government, ASD-aligned assurance led by an in-house IRAP assessor.
Expertise your clients already trust
We sit on the same side of the table as your defence, federal, and regulated clients — so the evidence we produce lands without translation.
Canberra-based, local presence
Our Braddon office puts us in the room with the defence primes, federal agencies, and regulated clients your firm supplies — we know what their reviewers expect.
Defence-cleared consultants
All our team members hold current AGSVA security clearances. When your client handles sensitive government work, your adviser already operates to the same standard.
Framework-fluent, not framework-dogmatic
We speak Essential Eight, ISM, PSPF, and CPS 234 — and we calibrate the evidence to your firm's size. Proportionate, not performative.
In-house IRAP assessor
Our in-house IRAP assessor is ASD-accredited. If your firm supplies systems into government, you have the assurance pathway on the same team that runs your program.
The professional services cyber reality
Professional services firms ask us these
We're not a defence company. Is Essential Eight really relevant to us?
Yes. Essential Eight is the de-facto baseline Australian clients and insurers use to benchmark supplier cyber maturity — whether or not you sell to Defence. Most law, accounting, and consulting firms supplying regulated industries are now asked to evidence Essential Eight alignment as part of renewal or onboarding.
How do we answer client and insurer cyber questionnaires with confidence?
With evidence, not assertions. We run an independent assessment, produce a plain-English maturity statement, and give you a repeatable response pack aligned to the frameworks (E8, ISM, CPS 234) your clients actually ask about. Next renewal, it's a copy-paste job — not a two-week fire drill.
We already have a managed IT provider. Why do we need cyber advisory too?
Your MSP runs your tools. Our role is to tell clients, boards, and insurers what those tools mean in risk terms — and to evidence it against a specific framework. The two roles are complementary, not duplicate. Most firms end up with both.
What does a first engagement look like?
Most professional services firms start with a free health check — a half-day on-site session that gives you an indicative view of your Essential Eight posture and a clear recommendation on next steps. From there we scope a proportionate program that fits your firm's size and client base.
How do we budget for this?
Essential Eight assessment starts from $15,000, scaled to your environment. Cyber risk advisory, vCISO, and annual security review are scoped per engagement. We give you a firm range after the free health check so there's no pricing surprise.