Data Fiduciaries

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Why Data Fiduciaries

What an independent advisor is for


An assessment is only worth what it can be relied on for. Four things decide that: who performs it, whether it produces evidence somebody else will accept, whether it fits the organization it was written for, and whether the firm performing it has anything to gain from the answer.

What decides it

Five things that make an assessment worth relying on

Senior-practitioner leadership

Engagements are led by people who have carried executive responsibility for security programs, including interim chief information security officer engagements, rather than by analysts working from a checklist. The difference shows in what an assessment chooses to examine and in what it recommends you do first.

Evidence over assertion

A security claim is worth what can be produced to support it. Every recommendation we make is aimed at the artifact an auditor, a customer, a regulator, or a court will ask to see, and at the process that produces that artifact repeatably rather than once.

Advice fitted to the organization

Controls, sequencing, and tooling follow your product, your technology stack, and your stage of growth. A control set copied from another company's program is the most common reason a program passes an audit and still fails to reduce risk.

One accountable relationship

Assessment, roadmap, audit readiness, and reassessment sit with one firm, so nothing is lost in the handover between them. Where a standard requires an independent auditor or assessor, that work is performed by an independent firm and our role is to prepare you and represent your interests.

Confidentiality by default

Every engagement runs under a nondisclosure agreement and a master services agreement, and under attorney-client privilege where counsel directs the work. Findings are written on the assumption that they may one day be read by somebody outside your organization.

Boundaries

What we do not do

Independence is a set of things a firm gives up. These are ours, stated plainly so you can hold us to them.

  • We do not resell tooling, take referral commissions, or profit from implementation, so an assessment has nothing to steer.
  • We do not issue the attestations that require independence. SOC reports are issued by independent CPA firms and PCI DSS assessments by Qualified Security Assessors.
  • We do not provide legal advice. Data Fiduciaries is not a law firm, and we work alongside the counsel who advise on legal obligations.
  • We do not provide emergency incident response. We assess readiness, build the plans and exercises, and review what happened afterwards.
  • We do not run your security program. You own it, and our work is to advise the people who do.

Independence and terms

We do not sell what we assess

Data Fiduciaries takes no revenue from tooling resale, implementation, or referral commissions, so an assessment has nothing to steer. Engagements are scoped individually and conducted under a nondisclosure agreement and a master services agreement, and under attorney-client privilege where counsel directs the work.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Are you independent of the auditors you work with?

Yes. Where a standard requires an independent auditor or assessor, that party issues the attestation and we do not. We prepare the client, assemble the evidence, and coordinate the engagement, and we take no fee from the auditor for the referral.

Do you implement the controls you recommend?

No. Implementation is performed by your team or by providers you choose. Keeping implementation revenue out of the relationship is what allows the assessment behind it to be independent.

Start with a confidential conversation

Thirty minutes on where your program stands, what is being asked of it, and what would have to be true for the answer to hold up.