Sectors // Threat Models // Constraints
Security requirements aren't generic. The threats facing a food manufacturer are nothing like those facing a law firm, and the constraints are even more different. We've worked in the environments where the stakes are real.
Industries Served
Every engagement starts from what your environment can't afford to lose — uptime, data, certification, or contract eligibility. The controls follow from there, not from a template.
Food manufacturing security differs because availability outranks confidentiality: a line stoppage costs thousands of dollars per minute and product spoils while systems are down. Controls that are routine in an office — forced patching, reboots, aggressive endpoint agents — can halt a cook step or batch process, so assessments must be scoped around production windows and legacy controllers that cannot be patched.
We've spent nine years inside food manufacturing environments. We know "just patch it" is not an answer when the system controls a cook step, and we scope around production windows rather than through them.
The largest operational technology risks are flat networks that let an office compromise reach production systems, industrial protocols with no authentication, always-on vendor remote access, and firmware that no longer receives security updates. Because OT was engineered for availability rather than authentication, the standard remedy is network segmentation and monitoring rather than patching or agent deployment.
Once OT touches the corporate network, every assumption behind its design becomes a liability. We assess the IT/OT boundary and recommend segmentation that holds without breaking the process.
Defense subcontractors inherit their prime contractor's security obligations through flow-down clauses — typically NIST SP 800-171 controls for handling Controlled Unclassified Information, CMMC certification readiness, and mandatory incident reporting within defined timelines. These are contract conditions, not recommendations, and failing them can cost eligibility. Sparrowhawk is an SBA-certified SDVOSB with active SAM.gov registration.
Your prime contractor's security obligations become yours the moment you sign. We understand both sides of that paperwork.
Professional services firms are targeted primarily through business email compromise and wire fraud, because they hold concentrated client data and authorize high-value transfers with small security budgets. A single compromised mailbox can trigger privilege waivers, regulatory notification, and client attrition at once — which is why email authentication, MFA, and transfer verification procedures matter more than perimeter tooling.
Law firms, accounting practices, and consultancies hold concentrated client data with a fraction of an enterprise security budget. We prioritize the controls that stop the attacks actually used against you.
Federal contractors are generally expected to maintain an active SAM.gov registration, demonstrate NIST SP 800-171 alignment where Controlled Unclassified Information is involved, and produce evidence supporting any security attestation made in a proposal. Assertions without supporting documentation are the common failure point during audit or contract review.
Whether you're responding to an RFP requiring a security posture attestation or maintaining an existing contract, the documentation burden is real and the deadlines are not negotiable.
Yes. Any organization handling protected health information on behalf of a covered entity is a business associate and carries direct obligations under HIPAA, enforced through a Business Associate Agreement. That includes safeguarding PHI, breach notification duties, and access auditing — and in practice PHI is usually found in more systems than an organization expects, which is why data mapping comes first.
You may not be a covered entity, but if you handle PHI as a business associate, the obligations flow to you anyway. We assess where PHI actually lives — which is rarely only where you think it does.
Small businesses are targeted because attacks are automated and opportunistic rather than hand-picked: scanners find exposed services regardless of company size, and smaller organizations typically lack MFA everywhere, tested backups, and a designated security owner. Most successful attacks are stopped by a small set of controls — MFA, immutable backups, endpoint protection, and patching — implemented correctly and verified.
Attackers don't skip you because you're small — they target you because you're reachable and under-defended. Most SMBs need the handful of controls that stop the overwhelming majority of real attacks, implemented correctly.
How We Work Around Reality
The fastest way to lose credibility in an operating environment is to recommend something that cannot be done. A consultant who tells a manufacturer to reboot a controller mid-shift, or tells a law firm to block a workflow their largest client depends on, has stopped being useful.
Before we recommend a single control, we establish what is actually immovable:
The result is a set of recommendations sequenced so that the highest-risk, lowest-disruption items happen first — and the items requiring a maintenance window are scheduled against your calendar, not ours.
Get Started
We provide technical security briefings for business owners, operations leaders, and IT teams who want a straight answer about where they stand. No sales pitch.
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