Practice · Cyber Security
Managed security, MSSP and security consulting evaluated on what the provider does at 3am — by a firm with live security engagements and an advisor who has owned the perimeter since 1986.
Why This One Is Different
An MSP, an MSSP and a security consultancy will all answer the same RFP. They are not the same thing. One runs your infrastructure and watches security as part of it, one is a monitoring and response service with an analyst on the other end, and one sells you an assessment and a roadmap. Buyers routinely compare their quotes side by side as though the line items meant the same, and the gap shows up during the first real incident.
IQ4hire has two live security engagements and recently completed a full evaluation across all three models. That is current procurement experience in this specific market, not a methodology borrowed from another category.
The operating history sits behind it. Steve Staniszewski has owned network and perimeter security since 1986 — from the first internet perimeter at Allied Van Lines on Cisco routers and Raptor firewalls, through policy, monitoring and physical security across every site at Designed Alloy. Security is the first skill listed on his profile, and it is the one that runs through the whole career.
Engagements
| Organization | Category | Scope | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security EvaluationIQ4hire · 2025–Present | MSSP · MSP · Consulting | Complex security vendor evaluation spanning managed security services, MSSP and security consulting — three delivery models that are routinely compared as if they were the same purchase. The engagement validated the IQ4hire process model for the modern security market. | Active |
| Specialty eCommerce RetailerIQ4hire · 2025–Present | Edge · Web Security | Diagnosed stability and performance issues on a high-traffic storefront, then sourced and implemented an edge security and performance platform. Now in its second year, with IQ4hire managing the renewal and expansion. | Year 2 · Live |
| Designed Alloy ProductsSteve · Director IT · 2008–12 | Policy · NetSec · Physical | Created, maintained and enforced usage, security and IT policy for the manufacturer; held responsibility for monitoring and maintaining network security across every location; and installed physical security including cameras and monitoring agencies at all sites. | Policy Built |
| Allied Van LinesSteve · Sr LAN/WAN · 1986–2000 | Perimeter · Architecture | Owned network and security design across a 1,000-node corporate network, a 250-node frame-relay network and a 300-node dial-up VPN. Built the company's first internet perimeter on Cisco routers and Raptor firewalls. | 1,000 Nodes |
| Empire TodaySteve · 2006–08 | Network · Monitoring | Held security and monitoring responsibility alongside network and telecom, including Ciscoworks management of 600+ Cisco devices and the hot stand-by site built with the disaster-recovery team. | 600+ Devices |
| Adtalem / DeVryGlobal Head, Digital · 2008–12 | Identity & Access | Identity and access management across a $2.4B S&P 500 education group, inside a digital organization of 40 direct and several hundred indirect staff. | IAM at Scale |
What We Evaluate
Monitoring and response are different products at different prices. We establish what the provider does at 3am beyond raising a ticket — who isolates the host, who has the authority, and what the contract obliges them to do rather than what the sales engineer describes.
Quotes are priced per endpoint, per user, per log source or per ingested gigabyte, and the units are rarely comparable. We normalize them against your actual estate, including the systems the provider quietly excludes.
Detection-time and response-time commitments are the product. We look at how they are measured, what is excluded, and what the remedy is — a service credit that does not cover an hour of downtime is not a commitment.
Who owns the logs, how long they are retained, what format they leave in, and what you can hand an auditor or an insurer. Security contracts are renewed under pressure; the leverage is in knowing you can move.