NYDFS Part 500 Annual Certification — April 15, 2026
Mid-Market Security Advisory

Security clarity
for organizations
that deserve better counsel.

We help mid-market financial services firms understand what their security spend is actually buying — and what it isn't. Deliverable-based engagements. No open-ended retainers. Every engagement produces something you can put in front of a regulator or a board.

Start with the Diagnostic
Half a day. A two-page report. A clear picture of where your security spend is working — and where it isn't.
$3.5K
Entry engagement
½ day
Time required
Finding buckets
100%
Fee credited to follow-on
Book the Diagnostic — $3,500
Commercial sector only — OCI-isolated
NYC metro — NYDFS specialists
€200M enterprise security background
NYDFS Annual Certification — April 15, 2026 NYDFS Oct 2024 AI Cybersecurity Guidance — Examinable Now AI Vendor Training Exclusion Clauses — Required by NYDFS NY RAISE Act — Effective December 2025 NYDFS TPSP Guidance — October 2025 DORA — EU Digital Operational Resilience Act — Effective January 2025 NYDFS Annual Certification — April 15, 2026 NYDFS Oct 2024 AI Cybersecurity Guidance — Examinable Now AI Vendor Training Exclusion Clauses — Required by NYDFS NY RAISE Act — Effective December 2025 NYDFS TPSP Guidance — October 2025 DORA — EU Digital Operational Resilience Act — Effective January 2025
The Problem

The SIEM isn't the problem.
It's a symptom.

"Most mid-market organizations have bought enterprise-grade detection capability and built it on top of foundational gaps they've never closed. The SIEM is generating 40,000 alerts a day. The SOC can action 200 of them. Nobody is asking why."

The dominant model in mid-market security spending sells you the idea that security is fundamentally a detection and alerting problem — solved by more data, more connectors, more dashboards. For most organizations at your scale, that is the wrong architecture.

Identity gaps, shadow AI tools with client data flowing to uncontrolled vendors, and AI governance that doesn't survive regulator scrutiny — these are the real exposure. And they are almost always cheaper to close than the detection overhead sitting on top of them.

Apr 15
NYDFS Part 500 Annual Certification Deadline.
Your CEO or CISO certifies compliance under oath — including AI-related controls. If those controls aren't in place, the certification is inaccurate.
The Three Gaps We Find in Almost Every Client
1
Your risk assessment doesn't mention AI.
NYDFS October 2024 guidance is explicit. If AI-specific threats — deepfake social engineering, shadow AI data exposure, vendor AI risk — aren't documented, your risk assessment is incomplete for 2026 examination purposes.
2
Your AI vendor contracts are missing required clauses.
NYDFS October 2025 TPSP Guidance requires training exclusion clauses, data use restrictions, and NPI handling provisions in all AI vendor contracts. Most standard enterprise agreements — including recent ones from major vendors — don't include all of these.
3
Employees are using AI tools with no policy or training.
Shadow AI is not a theoretical risk. In almost every organization we engage, employees are pasting client data into uncontrolled AI tools with no policy, no monitoring, and no approved alternative. NYDFS requires a written acceptable use policy and deepfake-aware security training — by name.
Services

Every engagement ends
with something tangible.

No open-ended retainers. No discovery phases that become six-month engagements. You know what you're getting, what it costs, and when it's done.

Assessment 🔐
Zero Trust Readiness Assessment

Full assessment against the five Zero Trust pillars — Identity, Devices, Network, Applications, Data. Produces a scored gap analysis and prioritized remediation roadmap you can take to your board and your budget cycle.

$15,000 – $35,000
3–5 weeks · Scored report + remediation roadmap · Board-ready summary included
Compliance Sprint 🤖
AI Governance Starter

The NYDFS AI compliance package: updated risk assessment addendum, AI acceptable use policy, vendor clause templates, AI tool inventory, and a board briefing deck. Everything your CEO or CISO needs to certify accurately on April 15.

$10,000 – $22,000
3–4 weeks · Examiner-ready documentation · NYDFS Part 500 aligned
Ongoing Advisory 🛡️
vCISO Advisory Retainer

Ongoing security leadership without the full-time hire. We become the strategic allocation function — deciding what you buy next, keeping your board informed, and ensuring the program matures rather than drifts from one compliance deadline to the next.

$4,000 – $8,500 / month
Ongoing · Quarterly board reporting · Strategic and responsive coverage
The Natural Progression
Diagnostic — $3.5K
ZT Readiness or AI Governance Sprint
vCISO Retainer

Diagnostic fee is always credited toward the follow-on engagement. The entry price is a signal, not a discount — it reflects how we work: earn trust first, ask for the larger commitment second.

Why ClearStrike

We've been in rooms
most advisors haven't.

Our principal comes from a multinational bank with a €200M annual cybersecurity budget — allocating across Zero Trust pillars, closing ECB audit findings, and advising on the kind of programs that mid-market firms are trying to build from scratch. That's not a credential. It's a different kind of conversation.

"Most organizations at your size are paying for three things they don't need, missing two things they do, and have at least one planned purchase that the numbers say they should push out. The ratio is almost always the same."

ClearStrike Advisory — Entry Conversation
Proof Points
SIEM Support Right-Sizing — Federal Client
Premium enterprise support tier on Splunk/Carahsoft bundle — auto-renewing annually without review.
Support ticket analysis showed 94%+ of interactions were standard-tier issues. Right-sized on renewal. Immediate recurring savings. Zero operational impact.
Hardware Refresh Deferral — Federal Client
Palo Alto firewall fleet refresh budgeted on vendor-recommended lifecycle, not documented coverage gap.
Warranty and maintenance analytics showed three years of active coverage remaining. Deferral recommended and supported by data. Capital expenditure eliminated. Savings in the millions.
The Pattern Behind Both
No complex technology required. No penetration testing. No threat modeling.
Both findings required assembling contract data, maintenance records, and support logs — and letting the data speak. That information existed inside both organizations. It had simply never been looked at together.
Schedule a Consultation

A 30-minute conversation
costs you nothing.

Tell us where you are. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help — and if so, what the right starting point is. No pitch deck. No pre-packaged solution looking for a problem.

If you're facing the April 15 NYDFS certification and aren't confident in your AI governance posture, that conversation has a deadline. Let's have it now.

  • Free 30-minute initial consultation — no obligation
  • Diagnostic can be scoped and scheduled within 2 weeks
  • All engagements produce examiner-ready written deliverables
  • Commercial sector only — strict OCI separation from federal work
  • NYC metro and remote engagements available
Let's talk.
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