The broad term for the expert advice provided to improve security performance by means of innovative solutions to clients' business problems. Businesses with or without full scale IT departments turn to security consultants for vulnerability assessments, intrusion detection, IT architecture reviews, load testing, security policies, as well as base-level system engineering and design. E-commerce security consulting addresses the areas of custom encryption, transactional security, authentication, key escrow, algorithm design, and Public Key Infrastructure solutions.

Security consultants generally either operate on a fee per service basis, or establish permanent business relationships with clients, installing, maintaining and updating their clients' entire security infrastructure.