780.235.5413 Ian@secbrains.com

About SecBrainsClarity for cybersecurity decisions.

We help businesses understand their cybersecurity posture, identify what matters most, and deliver a clear roadmap for improvement. Using facilitated workshops, recognized frameworks, evidence-informed analysis, and human judgement, we turn complexity into clarity and insights into confident action.

NIST-BASED. AI-ENHANCED. HUMAN-CONTROLLED.

Why SecBrains Exists


Beyond the score

We look past vanity metrics to understand what truly matters to your business.


From Findings to Decisions

We translate evidence into clear prioritities and practical next stpes your team can act on.


Confidence Through Clarity

We bring structure, context, and judgement so you can make confident, defensible decisions.

What we believe

Evidence

Evidence based answers before assumptions


Priorities

Priorities before volume


Context

Context before comparison


Judgement

Human judgement over automation


Progress

Progress before perfection

Meet the founders.

Marty
TECH GEEK
SINCE THE 80'S

Cybersecurity strategist and advisor with decades of experience helping organizations strengthen resilience and manage risk.

Jeff
OUR CAPTAIN
keeps us sane

Seasoned leader focused on governance and strategy. He keeps our mission on course and our clients moving forward.

Ian
ROCKETMAN
CUSTOMER CHAMPION

Brings decades of technology experience and a customer-first mindset. He listens, understands the challenge, and connects the dots to deliver the right outcome.

How we work differently

We combine human expertise, proven frameworks, and real-world experience to create practical roadmaps that organizations can actually use.

Understand

Where you are now

Identify

What matters most

Prioritize

What will make the biggest difference

Act

Confidently

What clients value

Clear priorities focused on what matters most.

Practical recommendations you can implement.

Traceable findings you can trust and communicate.

Roadmaps leadership can use with confidence.

Ready to get a clearer view of your cybersecurity priorities?
Let's turn complexity into clarity - together.

LET'S HAVE A BETTER CONVERSATION.

CLARITY. PRIORITIES. PROGRESS.

NIST BASED. AI ENHANCED. HUMAN CONTROLLED

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What would you like to see?

Explore how we work, or take a look at a sample deliverable.

CYBERSECURITY CONTROLS ASSESSMENT

Know where you stand — and what should happen next

A practical, management-focused assessment that turns cybersecurity controls, maturity, and operational reality into clearer priorities for leadership.

Most organizations already have security controls, technologies, policies, suppliers, and improvement initiatives in place. The harder question is whether those controls are consistently implemented, appropriately governed, and addressing the risks that matter most to the business.

SecBrains brings experienced facilitators together with your IT, security, and business stakeholders to work through that question. Our approach uses the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and CIS Controls as complementary lenses, supported by curated validation questions and operational discussion.

This is not a technical audit and it is not another generic checklist. The objective is to understand the organization’s current control maturity, challenge important assumptions, identify meaningful gaps, and turn the findings into practical management action.

What we look at

  • Cybersecurity control maturity and implementation
  • Governance, ownership, and accountability
  • Operational assurance and important control assumptions
  • Credible cybersecurity risk scenarios
  • Where improvement effort will have the greatest value

What you receive

  • An executive view of cybersecurity maturity
  • Prioritized risk and control observations
  • Top improvement priorities
  • A practical improvement roadmap
  • Detailed NIST CSF and control-domain analysis
  • Clearer linkage between cybersecurity activity and business risk
Two frameworks. One service. NIST-based. CIS-informed. AI-enhanced. Human-controlled.
Discuss a Controls Assessment →
AI GOVERNANCE WORKSHOP

Put practical guardrails around AI — without stopping adoption

Understand how AI is actually being used, where the important governance gaps exist, and what practical controls should come next.

AI adoption rarely waits for a complete governance program. Employees experiment with new tools, business teams find useful applications, vendors introduce AI capabilities, and sensitive information can begin moving through services that were never formally reviewed.

The challenge is not simply whether AI should be used. It is establishing enough visibility, ownership, and practical guidance that the organization can use AI confidently without creating unnecessary risk.

SecBrains facilitates a structured discussion across technology, security, privacy, governance, and business stakeholders. We help uncover where AI is already being used, identify areas of uncertainty, and establish realistic guardrails that support responsible adoption rather than simply producing another policy document.

What we look at

  • Current and emerging AI use across the organization
  • Ownership, accountability, and decision authority
  • Acceptable use and employee guidance
  • Shadow AI and unapproved tools
  • Data handling, privacy, and information exposure
  • Third-party and embedded AI capabilities
  • Oversight, review, and ongoing governance

What you receive

  • A clear view of current AI governance posture
  • Priority governance and risk gaps
  • Practical recommendations for responsible adoption
  • Defined areas of ownership and accountability
  • Guidance for acceptable use and data handling
  • A practical roadmap for strengthening AI governance
Practical guardrails. Responsible adoption. Governance that helps the business use AI — not governance that simply tells people not to.
Discuss AI Governance →
HIGHER EDUCATION

Strong security controls. Less clarity about what should come next.

This higher-education organization had invested in solid cybersecurity capabilities. The challenge was understanding how those controls came together, where meaningful gaps remained, and which issues deserved leadership attention first.

The situation

The institution operated in a heavily cloud- and SaaS-dependent environment supporting learning, administrative, financial, and student-facing services.

Operational security was stronger than the overall maturity score might initially suggest. Multi-factor authentication was enforced across the user population, endpoint detection and response coverage exceeded 95%, 24×7 managed detection and response was in place, and backups were immutable and logically separated.

What was less mature was the governance wrapped around those capabilities. Executive accountability, enterprise risk integration, access governance, third-party oversight, and coordinated recovery planning were not yet consistently institutionalized.

What SecBrains did

SecBrains facilitated three structured workshops using the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 together with an operational control lens. Governance and cybersecurity maturity were examined alongside the way controls actually operated day to day.

Rather than producing another undifferentiated list of findings, the assessment connected maturity, operational reality, institutional dependencies, and business consequences.

What became clear

  • Overall cybersecurity maturity was assessed at 2.4 out of 5, with a Defined maturity level of 3 identified as the next practical target.
  • Operational safeguards were comparatively strong, while governance and incident-response maturity lagged behind.
  • Identity represented a critical security boundary because of the institution's extensive reliance on SaaS and federated access.
  • Third-party and SaaS dependencies required stronger lifecycle governance and recovery assurance.
  • Technical recovery capabilities existed, but coordinated business recovery expectations, sequencing, and decision authority needed greater structure.

The priorities

The assessment distilled the findings into five leadership priorities:

  1. Establish executive cybersecurity accountability and oversight.
  2. Build a formal workforce security awareness and readiness program.
  3. Implement role-based access and privilege governance.
  4. Integrate cybersecurity risk into enterprise risk management.
  5. Establish third-party risk governance and ongoing monitoring.

From findings to action

Those priorities were translated into a sequenced roadmap beginning with governance and decision authority, then reducing identity, SaaS, and supplier exposure, and finally strengthening monitoring, response, and recovery assurance.

The value wasn't another security score. It was a clearer view of what mattered, why it mattered, and what the organization should do next.
SecBrains helped us cut through the noise, align our leadership team, and focus on the issues that actually move the needle. IT Manager, Higher Education Sector
DISCUSS A CONTROLS ASSESSMENT →