Uprite Services leads our 2026 list of the best vCISO providers in Houston with a Security Owner Score of 7.86, because the same team that writes the security program also runs the controls under it. DYOPATH (6.58) and LayerLogix (6.33) follow. Seven firms were scored on November 5, 2026.
Quick picks
- Best on our numbers. Uprite Services, our own firm, which adds vCISO services in Houston to a managed plan and runs the monitoring underneath it with our managed security services.
- Best for a seasoned security executive on a set number of hours. DYOPATH, whose page says most clients need 10 to 20 vCISO hours a month and that work can start within two weeks.
- Best if a regulator wants a named person. LayerLogix, the only firm here that offers in writing to act as your FTC Safeguards Qualified Individual and HIPAA Security Officer.
- Best for pure advisory work with a posted price. VISO Group, a Houston-area fractional CISO practice whose monthly service starts at $3,500.
- Longest Bay Area roots. GB Tech, founded in 1986 and still running an office on Space Park Drive near the Johnson Space Center.
We searched Google for “best vCISO Houston” and three close variants on November 5. The organic results were mostly directory pages and national lists, and Google’s AI Overviews named a different set of firms for each wording, with little overlap between them. None of the pages we found scored the firms against anything you could check.
So we did it ourselves, and we did it in the open. We used Apify to pull Google search results for 29 queries and Google Maps listings for 41 Houston security firms, then read each candidate’s own vCISO page. Seven firms had both a real vCISO page and a Houston-area office or practice we could confirm. All seven were scored on the same seven criteria.
One warning first. This is our site and we sell vCISO work, so we have a stake in where we land. That’s why every weight, every factor score and five re-runs with different rules are printed below. In three of them, someone else comes first. You should know that before you read our section.
Why Houston Companies Are Hiring a Part-Time Security Chief
The shortage is easy to measure. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025 counts 2,110 information security analysts in the whole Houston metro. Their median pay is $126,370. A computer and information systems manager in the same metro averages $182,200 in salary alone, and there are 13,090 of those.
That’s a thin bench for a metro this size. Most of those analysts work for refiners, banks, hospitals and the security vendors themselves. A 60-person engineering firm in the Energy Corridor or a 120-person distributor near the Port isn’t going to win a bidding war for one of them. It usually doesn’t need a full-time executive anyway. It needs someone to own the decisions.
The rules keep asking for that someone. Federal regulations are blunt about it. The FTC’s Safeguards Rule at 16 CFR 314.4 makes covered financial businesses, which include auto dealers, mortgage brokers and many tax preparers, designate a Qualified Individual to run the security program and report to the board in writing at least once a year. The HIPAA Security Rule at 45 CFR 164.308 requires a covered entity or business associate to identify a security official. Neither rule cares how small you are.
Texas adds a reason of its own. Senate Bill 2610 went into effect in 2025 and protects a Texas business with fewer than 250 employees from exemplary damages after a breach, as long as it kept a cybersecurity program that matches a recognized framework at the level its size calls for. A firm with 20 to 99 employees is held to CIS Controls Implementation Group 1. At 100 to 249 it needs a program that conforms to something like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. It’s a shield, not a mandate. You only get it if somebody built the program before the breach.
And the breach clock is short. The Texas Attorney General requires a business to report a breach affecting 250 or more Texans no later than 30 days after discovery. Thirty days goes fast. Somebody has to know whose data was where.
Our cybersecurity services in Houston page covers the tools side of this. This list is about the person who decides how those tools get used.
How We Ranked These Houston vCISO Providers
Each firm got a 0 to 10 on seven criteria. We used only public evidence. That meant the firm’s own vCISO page, its homepage or About page and its Google listing, and the weighted total of the seven criteria is what we call the Security Owner Score. Nobody paid to be here. No firm was asked for numbers. If we got a fact wrong, tell us and we’ll fix the score, not just the sentence.
Two gates came first. One was a page on the firm’s own website that describes a vCISO or fractional CISO service, and a passing mention in a long list of services did not count. The other was a Houston-area street address, or a page saying the firm is based in the Houston metro. Several capable firms failed the first one. That doesn’t mean they can’t do the work. It means a buyer has nothing in writing to hold them to.
| Criterion | Weight | What earns points |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Google record | 15% | Star rating and review count on every Houston-area listing, volume-weighted, with review count on a banded scale |
| 2. vCISO depth | 22% | A dedicated page, risk assessment, a written program and policies, reporting to owners or a board, vendor and questionnaire support, and a stated number of hours or meeting rhythm |
| 3. Named-role coverage | 15% | Frameworks named on the vCISO page, an offer to serve as FTC Qualified Individual or HIPAA security official, CMMC or NIST SP 800-171 named, and the Texas SB 2610 safe harbor addressed |
| 4. Execution behind the plan | 14% | The same firm runs security monitoring, runs managed IT, has the vCISO lead a live incident, and offers 24/7 coverage or a published response time |
| 5. Houston presence | 12% | A Houston-area street address, a Houston-specific vCISO page, and more than one office in the metro |
| 6. Commercial transparency | 12% | A published vCISO price or range, a stated engagement size, a free assessment or consultation, and a stated start time or written guarantee |
| 7. Tenure and credentials | 10% | Years in business from the firm’s own founding date, the firm’s own SOC 2 or ISO 27001 report, and named practitioner credentials |
Execution gets 14%. A security program that nobody carries out is a binder. Say the vCISO decides every laptop needs disk encryption, and then someone has to turn it on and prove it stayed on, which a firm that also runs your monitoring can show the same week. That weight helps us. We run both halves. It costs VISO Group, which only advises. The re-runs further down drop the factor, so you can see what changes.
Named-role coverage costs us points. We kept it anyway. We don’t offer to act as anyone’s Qualified Individual. Our section below says so. LayerLogix does. If your auditor is going to ask about that role, read the persona re-run below.
The 7 Best vCISO Providers in Houston at a Glance
| Provider | Score | Best for | Houston base | Published vCISO price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uprite Services | 7.86 | One team for the program and the controls | Westheimer Rd and Space Center Blvd | No, priced by scope | Won’t act as your Qualified Individual |
| DYOPATH | 6.58 | Experienced vCISO on 10 to 20 hours a month | Northwest Fwy | No | vCISO page names no framework |
| LayerLogix | 6.33 | FTC Safeguards and HIPAA named roles | Timberloch Pl, The Woodlands | $4K to $15K a month | No Houston Google listing found |
| IS&T | 5.12 | Strategy paired with its own SOC and MDR | Park Row Blvd | No | No price, hours or founding date found |
| Custom Information Services | 4.47 | Long-tenured Texas IT firm with a Houston vCISO page | North Loop West | No | No Houston Google listing found |
| VISO Group | 3.82 | Advisory only, mid-market | Houston metro, no street address | From $3,500 a month | Doesn’t run IT or monitoring |
| GB Tech | 3.52 | Bay Area firms that want hands-on help | Space Park Dr, Galleria, Galveston | No | Thin vCISO page, no frameworks named |
The 7 Best vCISO Providers in Houston (2026)
1. Uprite Services, one team for the program and the controls
Security Owner Score 7.86 / 10
We’re a managed IT and security firm first. The vCISO work is added on top of a managed plan, and whoever writes your security program sits next to the people who run your monitoring, patching and backups, so when the program calls for a change, our own staff make it and the proof goes into the same file. That’s most of why we score where we do.
We’ve been in business since 1999. Houston has two Uprite Google listings. Westheimer Road shows 4.8 stars. That’s across 63 reviews. The Southeast Houston office on Space Center Boulevard shows 4.3 across 12. Weighted by volume, the two come to 4.72 across 75 reviews. The second listing pulls that down. We counted it anyway.
- A vCISO engagement opens with a risk review. It’s measured against the framework your size calls for, which for most Texas firms under 250 employees means the SB 2610 tier they fall into.
- Our managed security services in Houston run the monitoring and endpoint protection the program depends on.
- Posted plan rates start at $40 per user per month for security-only coverage, $100 co-managed and $138 fully managed. Those rates are locked for the first year.
- Every agreement carries a 120-day satisfaction guarantee. Average response time is 5 minutes.
- Our operations hold a SOC 2 Type 1 report.
Our weak spots are real. No stand-alone vCISO price is posted. The vCISO piece gets added to a plan and priced by scope after a review, so you can’t compare us on price before a call, and monthly vCISO hours aren’t stated either. We won’t serve as your FTC Qualified Individual or your HIPAA security official. We’ll support the person you name and keep that person’s evidence, but the title stays inside your company. Some auditors would rather see an outside name in that box, and if yours does, LayerLogix is built for it.
There’s also a conflict to weigh, and the score doesn’t capture it. If Uprite is both your vCISO and your IT provider, our vCISO is grading work done by our own colleagues, and we answer that with written evidence and a report addressed to ownership instead of to IT. Some boards still want an outside advisor who answers to nobody else. That’s reasonable.
Who fits us best? It’s a Houston company of roughly 25 to 250 employees that wants the plan and the controls on one contract, especially one with a customer questionnaire or an insurance renewal already on the desk. A company with a strong internal IT team that only wants an independent second opinion is a weaker fit. The closest published example we have is an oil and gas modernization case study that paired vCIO and vCISO leadership with an infrastructure rebuild.
Why first? Two factors carried us, local presence and the ability to carry out the plan, which are the two things a part-time security chief can’t fake. Price transparency and named roles cost us points. Those losses are printed above.
2. DYOPATH, an experienced security executive on a set schedule
Security Owner Score 6.58 / 10
DYOPATH’s vCISO page reads like it came from a team that has sold the service many times. Most organizations need 10 to 20 hours a month, it says. A vCISO can usually start in one to two weeks. The typical DYOPATH vCISO has 15 or more years in security, certifications like CISSP and CISM, and prior experience as a CISO elsewhere, according to the page. Few others say as much.
The company is substantial. It formed in 2020 when DYOPATH, dating to 1996, merged with Single Path. It has offices in Houston, Chicago and Florida plus Mexico, and the homepage describes 24/7 security monitoring, SIEM and SOC as a service, and round-the-clock managed IT, while its Houston listing sits on the Northwest Freeway. It shows 5.0 stars. There are 11 reviews.
The vCISO page names no framework. We looked for HIPAA, NIST and CMMC on the page we read and found none of them, so its named-role score is zero. No price is posted. Nor is there a Houston-specific vCISO page, which means a buyer in Houston reads the same text as a buyer in Chicago.
Pick DYOPATH if you want a seasoned executive on a defined block of hours and you already know which framework you’re chasing, though it’s less suited to a company that needs someone to tell it which rules apply in the first place.
3. LayerLogix, the firm that will put its name in the box
Security Owner Score 6.33 / 10
LayerLogix works out of 2001 Timberloch Place in The Woodlands. Of all the vCISO pages we read, its page is the most complete. It posts a range. Engagements typically run $4,000 to $15,000 a month for 5 to 20 hours of senior time a week, according to the page, which also names SOC 2, HIPAA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, CMMC, NIST SP 800-171, PCI DSS and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
The page also says LayerLogix can serve as your FTC Safeguards Rule Designated Qualified Individual and your HIPAA Security Officer, which no other firm on this list offers in writing. For a car dealership, a mortgage shop or a small medical practice, that offer can be the whole reason to hire a vCISO. The same page describes a 12-month roadmap with quarterly milestones, quarterly board reporting and a vCISO who leads incident response.
Why is it third, then? Our Google Maps pull on November 5 returned no LayerLogix listing near Houston. That zeroed the 15% review factor. If a listing exists, we missed it, and we’ll rescore. A perfect Google record would lift LayerLogix to 7.83. That’s three hundredths behind us.
Two claims need care. It says “SOC 2 Aligned,” which isn’t the same as holding a SOC 2 report, so we didn’t credit it as an attestation. It also says a documented vCISO engagement frequently cuts premium quotes 10 to 25%, and it doesn’t source that figure. Ask your broker first.
LayerLogix is the pick when a regulator or examiner will ask for a named security officer and you’d rather that name sit outside your payroll. Do you weigh peer reviews heavily? Then it’s harder to judge from the outside.
4. IS&T, strategy that plugs into its own SOC
Security Owner Score 5.12 / 10
IS&T has a Google listing on Park Row Boulevard, near the Energy Corridor. The rating is 4.6. It has 33 reviews. Its vCISO page sits inside the Houston managed IT section of its site, and the pitch is direct, with the vCISO building the roadmap and IS&T’s own SOC, MDR and SIEM teams carrying it out. We make that argument too.
The page lists risk assessment, a roadmap, policy and governance, and board-ready reporting. It names SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI DSS. A vCISO consultation costs nothing. We couldn’t find a price, a number of hours, an offer to fill a named role, or anything on vendor risk, and because its homepage didn’t load for our scraper, we couldn’t confirm a founding year either. Tenure scored zero. That’s a gap in our evidence, not proof the firm is new.
IS&T fits a mid-size firm that wants security operations and leadership under one roof and cares more about the SOC than the paperwork, but it’s a looser fit for a regulated firm that needs its framework coverage spelled out before signing.
5. Custom Information Services, a Houston vCISO page from a firm founded in 1989
Security Owner Score 4.47 / 10
Custom Information Services, or CustomIS, has been in Texas IT since 1989. Its Houston office is at 1415 North Loop West, and the vCISO page it built for Houston specifically covers risk assessment, policy development, vendor risk reviews, a security awareness program and reporting to the board. It names HIPAA, CMMC, NIST, PCI DSS and SOC 2.
Two things hold it down. Our Maps pull found no Houston Google listing under its name. Reviews scored zero. The page also describes the vCISO as overseeing the incident response plan rather than leading a live response. No price is given. No hours are stated. The firm does run 24/7 tech support. That helped its execution score.
Call CustomIS if tenure matters to you and you want a vCISO from a firm that also does ERP and IT support, though comparing its cost is harder than with the firms that post a range.
6. VISO Group, a pure advisory practice with a posted price
Security Owner Score 3.82 / 10
VISO Group is a fractional CISO practice based in the Houston metro. It works remotely across the country and says so. Founder Jeremy Wilson brings security leadership experience from a public company with more than $3 billion in annual revenue and 7,500 users. It targets firms of 50 to 1,500 employees. Monthly service starts at $3,500.
Its page spells out the deliverables, which include a risk register, metrics, budget guidance, board communication, and a roadmap across governance, incident readiness, third-party risk and policy, and a buyer can also start with a defined readiness assessment and a 90-day roadmap. The page names SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS and ISO 27001.
Our model is hard on a firm like this. VISO doesn’t run IT. It doesn’t run monitoring either. It publishes no street address. Our pull returned no Google listing. So it scores low on execution, presence and reviews, yet on the board that looks only at what each vCISO page says, it ranks second. That’s a fair reading too.
If you already have a capable MSP and want an independent security leader at a known starting price, VISO is worth hiring. Don’t hire it expecting someone to deploy the controls.
7. GB Tech, Clear Lake roots and a hands-on service
Security Owner Score 3.52 / 10
Gale and Jean Burkett founded GB Tech in 1986 to serve NASA and aerospace contractors. It still has an office on Space Park Drive in Clear Lake. It also has one near the Galleria and one in Galveston. That makes three. No other firm here has as many, ourselves included.
The “vCISO as a Service” page is short, but it lists governance and standards, hands-on technical support, day-to-day operational security, monitoring and investigation, risk assessment and company-wide policies, and it offers a free consultation call. Most vCISO pages stop at advice, so the hands-on part is unusual.
The page names no framework. It says nothing about board reporting or vendor risk. No price is posted. Its Galleria listing showed no rating in our pull. Bay Area companies that want a local firm to do the work as well as plan it should still call, but anyone who needs a documented program for an auditor will have to ask a lot of questions first.
What Happens to the Ranking When We Change the Weights
Weights drive any ranking. So we re-ran ours five ways, to show where it holds and where it doesn’t.
| Re-run | First | Second | Where Uprite lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drop any one of the seven criteria | Uprite Services (7.51 to 8.39) | DYOPATH or LayerLogix | 1st in all seven |
| All seven criteria weighted equally | Uprite Services 7.81 | DYOPATH 6.26 | 1st |
| Buyer who needs a named Qualified Individual | LayerLogix 7.50 | Uprite Services 6.78 | 2nd |
| Already has an MSP, wants advisory only | LayerLogix 7.20 | Uprite Services 6.52 | 2nd |
| Only what each vCISO page says | LayerLogix 8.10 | VISO Group 6.57 | 3rd at 6.25 |
We also ran 10,000 random sets of weights. Uprite came first in 9,016 of them. LayerLogix won 792. DYOPATH won 192. That lead rests on two factors, execution and Houston presence. A buyer who only wants advice and a named officer should read the persona rows instead of the headline score.
The page-only board is the one we’d show a skeptic. It ignores reviews, offices, tenure and everything else about the company and scores only what the vCISO page itself promises. LayerLogix and VISO Group both beat us there. Both post a price. Both say more about the role.
Who We Looked At and Left Out
Several firms came up in search results or AI answers and didn’t make the list. Fractional CISO, a national firm, has a Houston landing page, but we found no Houston address. Google’s AI Overview called Cyber360X a top local practice, and it has a vCISO service in its menu, yet the pages we read on its site showed no Houston street address. vCISO Pro says it serves Houston. It listed no office on the pages we read.
Others are strong Houston IT firms where we found no vCISO page. Truewater is rated 5.0 across 100 reviews. CITOC offers a virtual CIO. That’s a different role. Centre Technologies and Aldridge are both well reviewed in Houston, and a site search turned up no vCISO page for either. CITSAP is a compliance consultancy. A search summary tied it to fractional CISO work, but its homepage didn’t describe one when we read it. None of that proves they don’t offer the service. Ask them directly.
How to Choose a vCISO Provider in Houston
Ownership comes first. The FTC Safeguards Rule asks for a Qualified Individual and HIPAA asks for a security official, so if either one applies to you, settle whether that person sits on your payroll or the provider’s before you compare firms, and then look for a vCISO who can carry out the plan or already works with the firm that will.
Here are four common cases.
- A dealership or mortgage broker under the FTC Safeguards Rule needs a Qualified Individual on paper. The rule lets a provider fill that role only if you keep responsibility and assign a senior employee to oversee it.
- A medical or dental practice needs a named security official under HIPAA.
- A manufacturer or engineering firm near the Ship Channel is usually answering customer questionnaires and insurance forms.
- A 100-person firm with no regulator at all may simply want the SB 2610 safe harbor.
Cases one and two lean toward LayerLogix, or toward a firm like ours working beside your named officer. Case three suits any of the top four firms, as long as somebody runs the controls. Case four is where price matters most. Two firms post one. They are LayerLogix and VISO Group.
Take five questions to the first call.
- Which person will be our vCISO, and what certifications does that person hold?
- How many hours a month are included?
- Will you hold any named role, in writing?
- Who carries out the controls you recommend, and how will we see proof?
- What does month 13 cost?
Write the answers down. Compare them side by side.
Budget is the hard part. Most firms won’t post a number. The two that do start at $3,500 and $4,000 a month. The BLS mean for an IT manager in Houston is $182,200 a year before benefits, and a fractional engagement buys a slice of that role. Our page on what cybersecurity costs a Houston business covers the tools side of that budget, and our list of the best cybersecurity companies in Houston ranks the firms that run them.
One last check. Ask for a sample board report with names removed. A vCISO who can’t show one hasn’t written many.
Our Verdict
On our scoring, Uprite Services is the best vCISO provider in Houston for a company that wants one team to write the program and run the controls behind it. We earned that on execution and local presence, and we lost points on price transparency and named roles. Those losses are real.
If you need an outside name as your Qualified Individual or HIPAA security officer, start with LayerLogix. If you want an experienced executive on a set block of hours, DYOPATH is the call. And if you already have an IT provider you trust and only want advice at a known price, look at VISO Group. Whichever you pick, get the hours, the named role and the proof in writing.
Not sure who owns security at your company today?
Send us your last customer security questionnaire or insurance application. We’ll mark which answers have an owner, which have evidence behind them, and what we’d fix first, before you commit to anything.
Speak to a vCISOQuestions Houston Owners Ask About vCISO Providers
Who is the best vCISO provider in Houston?
On our Security Owner Score, Uprite Services ranks first at 7.86, followed by DYOPATH at 6.58 and LayerLogix at 6.33.
That lead depends on how much weight execution and local presence get. A buyer who needs a named Qualified Individual would rank LayerLogix first. The re-run table shows it.
How much does a vCISO cost in Houston?
Published Houston prices start around $3,500 to $4,000 a month, and most firms quote by scope instead of posting a rate.
VISO Group lists monthly service from $3,500. LayerLogix says its engagements typically run $4,000 to $15,000 a month. Uprite, DYOPATH, IS&T, CustomIS and GB Tech post no stand-alone vCISO price. For scale, BLS puts the average Houston IT manager’s salary at $182,200 before benefits.
Can a vCISO be our FTC Safeguards Qualified Individual?
It can, if your company keeps responsibility for compliance, names a senior employee to direct and oversee the provider, and requires the provider to keep a security program of its own.
Those conditions come from 16 CFR 314.4. Only LayerLogix, of the firms here, offers the role in writing. We don’t. We work beside the person you name.
Does Texas law require a cybersecurity program?
Not for most private businesses, but SB 2610 rewards one.
A Texas business with fewer than 250 employees that kept a program matching the right framework tier can avoid exemplary damages after a breach. The tier depends on headcount. It runs from simple measures under 20 employees up to a full framework like NIST CSF at 100 to 249. A breach affecting 250 or more Texans still has to be reported to the Attorney General within 30 days.
What’s the difference between a vCISO and our IT provider?
A vCISO decides what your security program must cover and reports on it to ownership, while an IT provider runs the systems day to day.
Some firms do both, including us, DYOPATH, IS&T and LayerLogix. That’s efficient. The catch is that the vCISO ends up reviewing work done by colleagues, so insist the report goes to ownership rather than to IT.
Is it fair to trust a ranking written by the firm in first place?
Only if you can check it, which is why every weight, factor score and re-run is printed on this page.
Criteria came before scoring. We kept two that cost us points, and we published three re-runs where another firm wins. Every competitor fact came from that firm’s own website or its Google listing on November 5, 2026. If something’s wrong, tell us and we’ll rescore it.
