Rod
Andes
30+ years building and leading security programs in regulated industries. Healthcare, financial services, government, and manufacturing. The research that founded Cybantage was not assembled from vendor reports or curated statistics — it came from three years of direct analysis of 1,478 organizational breach events, and from three decades of watching organizations discover after a breach what they should have built before it.
Not a compliance firm. Not an MSSP.
A forensic survivability advisory practice.
What we are
A research-driven regulated industry cybersecurity advisory firm. We design, deliver, and sustain programs that take organizations from initial risk scoring through leadership forensics, legal protection, technical verification, and sustained operational resilience. The CCSF is the commercial implementation of conclusions derived from original research. The research preceded the products.
What we are not
Not a managed security services provider — Cybantage does not monitor or operate security infrastructure. Not a compliance consulting firm — we do not help organizations pass audits. Not a penetration testing firm — Stage 3 is forensic verification, not red team simulation. Not a law firm — we work with retained counsel to deliver the Privileged Review. These distinctions matter: Cybantage does not compete with MSSPs or compliance firms.
The position we occupy
Forensic survivability advisory for regulated industries. The compliance-to-survivability gap — the gap between what compliance frameworks confirm and what forensic investigators test — exists in every regulated sector. Cybantage is the only firm that measures both dimensions of claim denial, delivers the full four-stage lifecycle, and grounds every product in published primary research.
Why the research matters commercially
No competitor has published the Healthcare Breach Survivability Research Whitepaper, the SOC 2 and HITRUST analysis papers, or the CISI Discussion Paper. These are not features that can be replicated by announcing a competing offering. They are the intellectual foundation of the category — and they preceded every dollar of product development. The market position was established by evidence before a product existed.
Seven published works.
Every one a research antecedent to a product.
Healthcare Breach Survivability Research Whitepaper
1,478 healthcare providers and business associates. HHS/OCR data. January 2023–February 2026. 31.3% of breached organizations closed or sold. Survivability determined by program infrastructure, not breach size. Introduces the HBSI framework. The intellectual foundation of CyberRes.
Read the Research →CISI Discussion Paper v5 — Cyber Insurance and the Compliance-Reality Gap
The foundational 215-point scoring methodology. Two-dimensional claim denial framework: claimant-side and insurer-side. The academic basis for the CISI platform. This research preceded and directly led to building the CISI assessment tool.
Download the Paper →HITRUST: Certification Assurance and Its Limits
Named the compliance-to-forensic gap for HITRUST. Change Healthcare held r2 certification when breached. Three-layer model: Maturity + Operational Validation + Strategic Alignment. The academic basis for Compliant ≠ Defensible in the healthcare vertical.
Read the Analysis →SOC 2: Governance Assurance and Its Limits
SOC 2 is governance assurance under AT-C 205 — not adversarial resilience. Semantic gap, interpretation drift, assumption registry. Mirrors the HITRUST analysis paper methodology. Establishes the SOC 2 conformance-vs-resilience gap.
Read the Analysis →The Assumption Stack: Why Your Safety Net Has a 40% Failure Rate
CFO and board-level analysis of the three assumptions underlying cyber risk decisions and where they fail under forensic conditions. The accurate risk register entry most CFOs don't have. Validates the Stage 2A LDI belief mapping section.
Download the Whitepaper →The Compliance-Insurance Illusion
Four structural failures in SMB and mid-market organizations: governance misread as resilience, IT security delegation, 40–44% insurance denial, identity neglect. Uses the same 1,478-organization dataset.
Read the Research →The Accidental DQI
Governance framework for the Designated Qualified Individual role across healthcare, financial services, and small business contexts. Personal liability, vendor oversight, and the regulatory frameworks that define DQI accountability. Multi-vertical authority work.
Read the Book →30 years in regulated industries.
Built from the inside out.
Healthcare Security Leadership
Deep experience in HIPAA compliance architecture, HITRUST program design, and healthcare-specific security governance. Direct exposure to the compliance-to-forensic gap that the Cybantage research quantified — built from years of watching what compliance frameworks miss.
Financial Services & Regulated Industries
Security governance and compliance architecture across financial services, fintech, and other regulated sectors. GLBA, FTC Safeguards Rule, and state-level privacy regulation expertise. Multi-vertical experience that informs the CCSF's industry-adaptive design.
Security Architecture & Engineering
Technical depth across identity and access management, endpoint protection, incident response, backup integrity, and evidence chain management — the same domains the CISI measures. Programs designed to withstand forensic scrutiny, not just pass audits.
Governance & Board Advisory
CGEIT-credentialed governance expertise applied to regulated industry security programs. Board-level communication, risk committee briefings, and the accountability structures that determine whether leadership can withstand post-breach scrutiny. The foundation of the LDI instrument.
Research & Publication
Seven published research works spanning breach survivability, insurance claim mechanics, compliance framework limitations, and governance accountability. The research portfolio is the intellectual foundation of Cybantage's market position.
U.S. Marine Corps
Military service that established the operational discipline, mission focus, and leadership accountability that characterize Cybantage's advisory approach. The forensic-first, evidence-grade standard applied to every CCSF deliverable reflects the same standard applied in high-stakes operational environments.
"The research that founded Cybantage was not assembled from vendor reports. It came from 1,478 organizations that experienced something real — and from studying what separated the ones that survived from the ones that didn't."Rod Andes · Founder, Cybantage
Ready to work with someone who's been inside your problem?
Start with the free CISI assessment. See your score across all 10 domains — including the Domain 10 insurer-side flags that no other assessment measures. Then let's talk about what it means for your organization.