William L.

I build and operate security programs—not just audit them. I’m Expert-Vetted on Upwork (top 1% of cybersecurity talent) and founder of Iron City IT Advisors, a Pittsburgh-based MSSP. I bring 20+ years of IT/security leadership and hands-on engineering experience across healthcare, SaaS, accounting, eDiscovery, nonprofit, and other regulated environments. What separates my work from traditional compliance consulting is that I operate the controls I recommend. I run production SIEM/detection infrastructure, cloud and identity security, vulnerability management, attack simulation, network security, and compliance evidence workflows. When an auditor asks how a control works, I can show the technical implementation, operating evidence, review cadence, remediation process, and retest path. CORE EXPERTISE • vCISO / security program leadership • HIPAA Security, Privacy & Breach Notification Rules • SOC 2 Type I / Type II — full Trust Services Criteria • HITRUST readiness and control implementation • NIST CSF 2.0, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, NIST SP 800-30, NIST SP 800-66r2 • ISO/IEC 27001:2022 readiness and gap analysis • PCI DSS 4.0 and privacy requirements • Risk assessments, policies, evidence collection, audit readiness, remediation • Incident response, tabletop exercises, forensic readiness • Wazuh, Logstash, OpenSearch SIEM and detection engineering • Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Intune, Defender and Azure security • AWS/GCP security, IAM, logging, monitoring and cloud architecture • Vulnerability assessment, BAS, OWASP validation, CIS benchmarks • Fortinet, UniFi, pfSense/OPNsense, segmentation and Zero Trust HEALTHCARE Healthcare is a major part of my practice. I have held CIO/CSO and senior infrastructure/security leadership roles in provider environments and currently support covered entities and business associates with HIPAA security, cloud architecture, risk assessments, BAAs, vendor risk, incident response, technical safeguards, cyber-insurance evidence, and audit readiness. I have led net-new EMR/EHR implementations and retrofits into existing clinical environments, including infrastructure, identity/access, endpoints, networking, integrations, security controls, cutover, and operational support. My background includes critical-access healthcare, nonprofit healthcare, specialty practices, behavioral-health considerations, and healthcare SaaS. I have also led multiple SOC 2 Type II readiness/attestation efforts, including full Trust Services Criteria for healthcare SaaS environments, connecting control design to real operating evidence across security, availability, confidentiality, processing integrity, and privacy as applicable. SECURITY OPERATIONS I operate a production multi-tenant Wazuh/Logstash/OpenSearch SIEM with custom detection, threat-intelligence enrichment, tenant isolation, and alert tuning. I work hands-on with Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS, GCP, Google Workspace, endpoint security, network telemetry, vulnerability management, incident response, and forensic readiness. I also build and use proprietary security-validation and automated UAT tooling, including breach/attack simulation and a hardened full-stack E2E harness that can execute large numbers of repeatable tests in parallel while capturing screenshots, video, pass/fail evidence, and narrative walkthroughs. HOW I WORK Discovery first, recommendations second. I start with the real environment, business constraints, existing controls, and actual risk. Documentation is written so your team can maintain it after the engagement—not to create consultant lock-in. I communicate in plain language with executives and at engineering depth with practitioners. The goal is a security program that works operationally and produces defensible compliance evidence as a byproduct. Current certifications include ISC2 CISSP, ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC), CompTIA Security+, Check Point Pen Testing Associate, Microsoft AZ-900, and VMware DCV.