A full-time CISO costs $250K–$400K all-in. That's before benefits, equity, and the 90-day ramp before they've read a single policy. CoreRecon's vCISO retainer gives you board-level cyber leadership, audit-grade policy work, and executive risk translation — at a fraction of the cost, available in two weeks.
The vCISO retainer is purpose-built for organizations where cyber risk has become a board-level issue — but headcount isn't the right answer.
Every CoreRecon vCISO engagement — Advisor through Command — includes these eight deliverables as the baseline. Tier determines depth and cadence.
No annual contract required. Engagements run month-to-month. Most clients start at Advisor and scale to Embedded within 90 days once they see what's possible. Command is for organizations with active audit, regulatory, or M&A timelines.
A full-time CISO sounds like the responsible choice. Here's what the comparison actually looks like on the five dimensions that matter.
| Dimension | CoreRecon vCISO | Full-Time CISO (FTE) |
|---|---|---|
| Loaded Annual Cost | $48K–$144K/yr (Advisor to Command retainer). No benefits, equity, PTO, recruiting, or severance. | $250K–$400K/yr all-in. Base salary ($175K–$280K) + benefits (30%) + equity + recruiting ($30K–$60K) + ramp cost. Texas CISO market is tight — good luck in 90 days. |
| Time to Onboard | 2 weeks. First board briefing within 30 days. WISP draft within 60 days. | 90+ days to hire. 30–60 days to onboard. First deliverable typically at 6 months. CMMC or audit deadlines don't pause for that timeline. |
| Bench Depth | Your vCISO is backed by the entire CoreRecon SOC — analysts, threat hunters, incident responders, compliance specialists. One person in your org, a full team behind them. | One person. When they're on PTO, sick, or exit, your security program stops. No bench. No redundancy. High bus factor. |
| Bus Factor | Zero. CoreRecon is institutionally accountable. Your security program doesn't depend on one employee's decision to stay. | One. FTE CISOs have the highest turnover in tech leadership — average tenure under 3 years. Your program leaves with them. |
| Regulatory Breadth | CMMC RP-credentialed. HIPAA Security Officer designation available. Working knowledge of NCUA, FTC Safeguards, TX HB 300, CJIS, SEC Reg S-K, ITAR. Multi-framework coverage in one retainer. | Depends entirely on the individual's background. CMMC expertise costs more. Healthcare + defense dual expertise is rare. You hire one person's knowledge. |
John Martinez is a United States Marine Corps veteran with 23+ years in MSP and MSSP operations. He built and ran security programs for defense contractors, Texas municipalities, healthcare organizations, and oil & gas operators before founding CoreRecon.
He holds the CMMC Registered Practitioner (RP) credential and has served as CISO of record for organizations preparing for C3PAO assessment. He has represented clients in OCR investigations, NCUA examinations, and post-breach legal proceedings. He has conducted cyber diligence for both buy-side and sell-side M&A transactions.
When you engage CoreRecon's vCISO retainer, you work with John directly — not a junior consultant assigned after the sales call. He attends your board meetings. He fields your regulator's questions. He picks up the phone at 2am when the breach call comes in.
Full-time CISO loaded cost (base + benefits + recruiter + tools) vs. CoreRecon retainer. IBM CODB breach model. Compliance penalty exposure. 3-year TCO chart. Tier recommendation. Free, instant, no demo required.
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No commitment • 2-week onboard • Month-to-month • CMMC RP-credentialed
Yes. CoreRecon's vCISO can serve as your designated CISO of record for CMMC Level 2 purposes — signing the System Security Plan (SSP), managing your POA&M, and representing your security program to a C3PAO assessor.
John Martinez holds the CMMC Registered Practitioner (RP) credential required to support CMMC assessment preparation. Our vCISO Embedded and Command tiers include full SSP ownership, POA&M management, and the C3PAO readiness documentation package.
Yes. CoreRecon's vCISO can be formally designated as your HIPAA Security Officer, responsible for implementing and maintaining the Security Rule safeguard program. This includes conducting annual risk analyses, managing the sanction policy, and representing your organization in OCR communications.
We draft and maintain the required written policies and procedures under our Embedded and Command tiers. OCR expects to see a named Security Officer with documented program ownership — we provide exactly that, and we maintain the artifact trail that survives a Phase 2 audit.
No. The vCISO is a strategic and governance function — not a replacement for your IT team or managed IT provider. We operate at the executive level: setting policy, managing risk, reporting to your board, and interfacing with auditors and regulators.
Your IT team handles day-to-day infrastructure. The vCISO ensures their work is governed by a documented security program that satisfies regulators, insurers, and auditors. Most engagements run alongside an existing IT MSP without conflict — we often improve the working relationship by clarifying what security requires vs. what IT owns.
This is more common than you'd think. We frequently serve as a senior advisor to an existing security lead who needs board communication support, policy expertise, or fractional capacity for an M&A diligence engagement or audit cycle.
In these cases, we structure the engagement as a named advisory retainer rather than a vCISO of record arrangement. The vCISO Advisor tier ($4K/mo, 8 hrs/mo) is purpose-built for this — your CISO gets CoreRecon bench depth and CMMC RP-credentialed backup without an org chart conflict.
Multi-state operations are standard for our vCISO practice. We maintain working knowledge of Texas-specific frameworks (TX HB 300, TX §521, TCEQ) alongside federal and cross-state obligations (HIPAA, GLBA, CMMC, NIST CSF, FTC Safeguards).
For multi-entity structures — holding companies, PE portfolio firms, affiliated practices — we scope the engagement to cover the security program at the parent level with documented entity-level extensions. We've run security programs across up to six affiliated entities under a single Command retainer without requiring separate engagements for each entity.
Yes. John Martinez is available for testimony, expert witness preparation, and legal support in breach-related proceedings — available under the Command tier or as a separate retained engagement in coordination with outside counsel.
Our vCISO retainer includes incident communications lead for all tiers — meaning we draft the executive brief, customer holding statement, and regulator notification at the time of the incident, not after your outside counsel instructs you to.
Having documented pre-incident security program artifacts (WISP, risk assessments, training records, policy versions) from an active vCISO retainer is the single most important factor in limiting liability exposure in breach litigation. We maintain those artifacts as a core deliverable of every engagement. When your attorney asks "what did you have in place before the breach?" the answer is a binder, not a shrug.