Advisory & Data Protection
Senior security leadership, honest risk assessment and QSA-led compliance — expert consultancy that gives you clear decisions, not another report for the shelf.
Most organisations don't lack security products — they lack clear answers. What should we fix first? Are we actually compliant? Who owns this risk? Blackfoot's cybersecurity advisory services exist to answer those questions, drawing on consultants who have been assessing, auditing and advising UK organisations since 2009.
Our advisory practice covers the decisions that shape your security programme: strategic direction and leadership through our Virtual Cyber Office, structured risk and controls-maturity assessment, and the compliance work that regulators, banks and customers demand — PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials — underpinned by policies that people can actually follow.
Credentials matter in this work. Blackfoot is a PCI QSA company and a CREST-accredited security business, with certified ISO 27001 lead implementers and lead auditors on staff. When we assess your PCI DSS compliance or prepare you for certification, the advice comes from the people qualified to make the judgement — not a checklist reseller passing your questions up a chain.
Every engagement is scoped around your business, not a template. We work across finance, retail, IT services, manufacturing, healthcare and the public sector, and we focus hard on reducing scope and controls applicability wherever we legitimately can. Less in scope means less to secure, less to evidence and less to pay for — because compliance you can sustain is worth far more than compliance you scrape past once a year.
The way we report matters as much as the way we assess. Every engagement ends with findings explained in plain language, prioritised by risk and effort, and presented so that both your technical team and your board understand what was found and why it matters. You get a defensible view of your position and a sequenced plan — not a hundred-page document designed to justify its own invoice.
Advisory engagements are typically project-based: an assessment, a gap analysis, a certification push. When you want that discipline to continue year-round, our Managed GRC subscriptions pick up where the project ends — the same consultants, delivered continuously through our Clarity portal, so evidence stays current and controls don't drift between assessments.
Whether you're facing your first Cyber Essentials submission, a contractual PCI DSS deadline or a board asking hard questions about cyber risk, the starting point is the same: a conversation about what you're accountable for, followed by an honest assessment of where you stand.
PCI QSAs, ISO 27001 lead auditors and CREST-accredited consultants deliver the work directly — the people advising you are qualified to certify you.
Clear, prioritised reporting written for boards and budget-holders as well as engineers. You leave every engagement knowing what to do next.
We look for legitimate ways to shrink your compliance scope and controls applicability before you spend money meeting requirements you could avoid.
Consultants who have worked across finance, retail, IT services, manufacturing, healthcare and the public sector since 2009.
Strategy, risk, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, policy and data protection under one roof — no juggling multiple consultancies.
Every advisory project can hand off cleanly into a Managed GRC subscription on Clarity, so momentum doesn't die when the report lands.
We start with your business context: obligations, contracts, threats and what your stakeholders actually need you to prove.
Consultants assess your environment against the relevant framework — PCI DSS, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials or a risk-based baseline — identifying gaps and quick wins.
You receive a clear, prioritised report: what's working, what isn't, and the order in which to fix it, with effort and impact made explicit.
We stay engaged while you close the gaps, advising your teams and validating fixes rather than leaving you alone with a findings list.
When you're ready to move from annual projects to always-on assurance, we transition the work into a Managed GRC subscription on our Clarity portal.
Straight answers to what prospective clients ask us most.
Our advisory practice covers security leadership (vCISO), cyber strategy, risk and controls-maturity assessment, PCI DSS compliance, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials support, and security policy development. Engagements are scoped to your obligations rather than sold as fixed bundles.
Yes. Blackfoot is a PCI QSA company, and our team includes certified ISO 27001 lead implementers and lead auditors. We are also CREST-accredited for security testing, so advisory findings can be validated technically where needed.
Most clients start with a single assessment — a risk assessment, gap analysis or audit-readiness review. That gives you a prioritised picture before you commit to anything larger.
Advisory engagements are defined projects: an assessment, a certification push, a policy set. Managed GRC is a subscription that keeps compliance and risk management running year-round through our Clarity portal. Many clients use an advisory project to get compliant, then Managed GRC to stay that way.
Get a fixed-scope quote, usually the same working day.
