[big_youth]

That markets been slaughtered for a while. Pretty much every big tech company has built up strong internal security teams and automated as much as possible. Look up what happened to NCC Group post Matasano acquisitions, I joined within a year of the isec/matasano/intrepedus acquisitions and saw a slow ride down. After 5 years the rate was still $2500 a day and everyone with real talent left to internal teams for much much higher pay. NCC Group is now a scan shop operating out of the phillipines, I still have one friend that works there from the isec days! The exception being some leet places like Trail-Of-Bits.

[tptacek]

Late-period NCC doesn't look great. But I've been a buyer of these services for the past 5 years (a seller, of course, for the 15 years leading up to that) and rates have not gone down; I was shocked at how much we ended up spending compared to what we would have billed out on comparable projects at Matasano.

I don't know enough about the low-end market to rebut you there (though: I saw what my muni paid for a bargain-basement assessment and was not OK with it), but the high end of the market definitely has not been slaughtered, and I definitely think that is coming.