Partner Support for MSPs, CMMC Firms, and Prime Contractors
Forward Security Labs provides partner support through flexible subcontract, overflow, white-label, and referral arrangements for firms that need additional capacity for governance, risk, compliance, documentation, operational resilience, continuity, assessment readiness, and emergency preparedness work.
When your team has more work than time, documentation is often what slips. I can take on defined work such as questionnaires, policy sets, evidence organization, risk registers, continuity plans, and exercise materials. We agree on scope, delivery model, and client communication before work starts.
For a defined overflow policy, risk, or evidence work package, see cybersecurity documentation services.
You can bring FSL in for a work package, surge capacity, subcontract delivery, or a referral. The right structure depends on your client and contract, and we put the boundaries in writing.
- MSPs and MSSPs
- vCISOs
- CMMC Readiness Firms
- CMMC Ecosystem Firms
- Cybersecurity Consultancies
- Compliance Firms
- Federal Primes
- State and Local Primes
- Emergency Preparedness Firms
- Business Continuity Consultants
Please do not send live client data, credentials, controlled information, or other sensitive materials with an initial inquiry. We can establish appropriate confidentiality and data-handling expectations before reviewing protected materials.
SBA Certified SDVOSB · SAM.gov Registered · Connecticut Veteran-Owned Micro Business Certified · Founder-led delivery
Forward Career Labs LLC d/b/a Forward Security Labs · CAGE: 1AFL4 · UEI: XLRANAT2ULJ9
Flexible Partner Support for Cybersecurity and Compliance Teams
Four working structures. The right one depends on the client, the contract, and how visible you want an outside resource to be.
White-Label Delivery
Forward Security Labs performs defined work under the partner’s delivery model where contractually permitted and agreed in writing. The partner can remain the primary client-facing relationship. The delivery model, attribution, use of names or credentials, and client communication boundaries are confirmed in writing.
Referral
The partner introduces the client and Forward Security Labs contracts directly for the defined engagement. Responsibilities, client ownership expectations, and any referral terms are agreed in writing before engagement.
Subcontract and Workshare
Forward Security Labs performs a defined workstream under a prime contractor, consultancy, or larger delivery team, with responsibilities set in writing.
Surge Capacity
Short-duration support for questionnaires, readiness projects, assessments, documentation backlogs, remediation programs, deadlines, or proposal-related delivery needs.
How these relationships work
- No exclusivity is required unless separately negotiated
- No automatic commitment on either side
- Scope and responsibilities are confirmed in writing before work begins
- Each opportunity is evaluated individually on fit, capacity, and independence
Partner pricing should match the work, not hide the work.
Partner engagements can be structured as fixed-price work packages, reserved monthly capacity, or negotiated subcontract rates. Referral economics, if any, are documented rather than implied. FSL does not publish one universal wholesale rate because questionnaire volume, evidence quality, framework scope, deadlines, white-label requirements, and client-facing responsibility materially change delivery effort.
Fixed Work Package
Defined deliverable, assumptions, revision boundary, price, and deadline. Useful for questionnaires, policy sets, evidence cleanup, risk documentation, and discrete resilience work.
Reserved Capacity
Recurring monthly capacity for partners with an ongoing backlog or predictable client demand. Included capacity and rollover rules are confirmed in writing.
Subcontract Rate
Negotiated rate structure for a defined prime or consulting engagement where the work, responsibility, term, and reporting requirements justify it.
Send us the ugly work.
The work consuming internal bandwidth, slipping against deadlines, or pulling technical and senior staff away from higher-value delivery.
Work FSL can take off your plate
Defined, documentation-heavy governance, risk, compliance, and resilience work. Scoped as a package, a workstream, or ongoing capacity.
Governance, risk, and compliance
- Security questionnaires
- Vendor due diligence
- Third-party risk documentation
- Policy and SOP development
- Risk register development and maintenance
- NIST CSF support
- NIST SP 800-171 readiness support
- CIS Controls alignment
- SOC 2 readiness documentation
- CMMC readiness-side documentation and implementation support
- Control mapping
- POA&M and remediation tracking
- Evidence organization
- Assessment-readiness support
Resilience, continuity, and preparedness
- Business continuity planning
- Incident response documentation
- Operational resilience
- Tabletop exercise development
- Emergency preparedness documentation
- Training and knowledge-transfer documentation
- Project and program documentation
- Proposal development support for assigned technical workstreams where permitted
What a partner actually gets
Founder-led delivery with direct accountability and clearly defined responsibility for every workstream.
- Founder-led delivery
- Ability to take narrowly defined work packages
- Flexible white-label, referral, or subcontract structure
- Strong documentation focus
- Cybersecurity plus operational resilience background
- Emergency-response and EMS leadership background
- Available for narrowly scoped surge work
- SBA-certified SDVOSB participation where applicable
- SAM.gov registration
- Connecticut Veteran-Owned Micro Business certification
- No exclusivity requirement
- Direct accountability
Forward Security Labs is led by Michael Messina, a U.S. Army combat veteran with approximately 20 years of EMS and emergency-response experience, including supervisory leadership, and a B.S. in Cybersecurity, Cum Laude. Forward Security Labs is Connecticut-based and founder-led.
Forward Security Labs holds SBA certification as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business. That status may provide additional small-business teaming value where applicable. It does not guarantee an award, a preference, set-aside eligibility, or subcontracting-goal credit on any specific opportunity. Applicability is determined by the contracting agency, the prime, and the terms of the specific solicitation or contract.
Assessment independence and CMMC
Forward Security Labs provides readiness, documentation, implementation, and support services. Forward Security Labs does not represent itself as a CMMC Third Party Assessment Organization and does not perform CMMC certification assessments.
When an engagement involves a C3PAO or an organization that may later undergo a CMMC certification assessment, roles and responsibilities must be structured to comply with applicable CMMC independence and conflict-of-interest requirements. Forward Security Labs will not knowingly accept work that would compromise an assessment organization’s required independence or create a prohibited conflict of interest.
C3PAOs remain responsible for identifying, documenting, and managing their own independence and conflict-of-interest obligations under the applicable CMMC assessment and accreditation requirements.
Forward Security Labs does not guarantee CMMC certification, any assessment result, or any regulatory determination. Certification and assessment outcomes are determined through the applicable authorized CMMC process.
Framework references on this page describe the standards that client work is aligned to. They do not imply certification, accreditation, endorsement, or affiliation by any framework owner, accreditation body, or regulatory authority. Forward Security Labs is an independent consulting firm and does not provide legal advice.
Support for prime contractors and larger consulting teams
Forward Security Labs can perform defined work packages under a prime contractor, consultancy, or larger delivery team on federal, state, and local work.
Work packages FSL can support
- Defined GRC work packages
- Policy development
- Compliance documentation
- Operational resilience
- Continuity planning
- Emergency preparedness
- Risk documentation
- PMO and documentation support
- Surge capacity
- Subcontract workshare
- Small-business participation where applicable
Registration and identifiers
- SBA Certified SDVOSB
- SAM.gov Registered
- CT Veteran-Owned Micro Business
- CAGE: 1AFL4
- UEI: XLRANAT2ULJ9
- Primary NAICS: 541512
Legal entity: Forward Career Labs LLC d/b/a Forward Security Labs, Wolcott, Connecticut. Capability statement available for immediate download.
Small-business participation, set-aside treatment, and subcontracting-goal credit are determined by the contracting agency and the terms of the specific contract. Forward Security Labs makes no representation as to how any particular opportunity will be credited.
Partner engagement process
Four steps from first conversation to completed workstream.
Review
We review the opportunity, client requirement, or work package, including whether it is a fit and whether any independence issue exists.
Define
Responsibilities, scope, confidentiality, delivery model, and boundaries are established in writing before anything starts.
Deliver
Forward Security Labs executes the defined workstream with direct accountability and agreed reporting back to the partner.
Close or Continue
The engagement ends cleanly with deliverables handed over, or expands into repeat and ongoing support if that is useful to you.
How we protect both sides
Clear boundaries make partner work repeatable. These apply to every partner engagement.
Confirmed before work begins
- Scope confirmed in writing
- Pricing confirmed before work begins
- Confidentiality terms accepted where appropriate
- Reasonable confidentiality and client-protection terms can be incorporated by written agreement where appropriate
- White-label expectations, attribution, and client-communication boundaries confirmed before delivery
- FSL certifications, veteran-owned status, CAGE, UEI, and other credentials may be represented only when factually and contractually applicable; white-label delivery does not transfer those credentials to another entity
- Any client information or materials provided to Forward Security Labs must be authorized for disclosure and use within the agreed engagement.
- Live client data or sensitive materials should not be transmitted until confidentiality and data-handling expectations are established
- No exclusivity unless separately negotiated
Outside scope
- Deliverables are based on client-approved information, documented evidence, and authorized source material
- No certification or attestation services unless FSL is independently authorized and qualified for that specific role; current FSL offerings are readiness and consulting services
- No legal advice
- Travel and on-site work scoped separately
- Major technical implementation scoped separately
Anything outside scope can be quoted separately or coordinated with a qualified provider. A partner remains responsible for its own client contract, representations, professional obligations, and any prime-contractor flow-down requirements unless a written subcontract expressly assigns a responsibility to FSL.
Partner support does not blur legal responsibility.
Each entity remains responsible for its own contracts, representations, certifications, professional duties, insurance obligations, regulatory obligations, and authority to disclose client information unless a written agreement expressly states otherwise.
Forward Security Labs does not guarantee certification, assessment, accreditation, customer acceptance, procurement credit, proposal evaluation, contract award, or regulatory outcome. FSL also does not represent that its SDVOSB or Connecticut veteran-owned status automatically transfers subcontracting credit, state preference, or other procurement benefit to a partner or opportunity.
What the underlying work looks like
These are the client-facing versions of the same capabilities partners subcontract.
Need capacity without adding headcount?
Send a defined work package, an urgent backlog, or a potential teaming opportunity. We will review the requirement and provide a clear response on fit, proposed delivery model, expected timeline, scope, and pricing where enough information is available to quote. Each opportunity is reviewed individually and nothing is committed until scope is confirmed in writing.
Or email directly: michael@forwardsecuritylabs.com
SBA Certified SDVOSB · Connecticut Veteran-Owned Micro Business Certified · SAM.gov Registered · CAGE: 1AFL4 · UEI: XLRANAT2ULJ9