The risk picture for Alpharetta businesses
Most cyber losses at small and midsize companies don't start with a clever hack. They start with a convincing email, a reused password or a laptop that missed its updates. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 25,936 complaints from Georgia in its 2025 report, ranking the state tenth nationally, with reported losses of about $535 million. Across the country, business email compromise drew 24,768 complaints and about $3.05 billion in reported losses that year. These schemes target exactly the kind of firm Alpharetta has plenty of: companies that move money, hold client accounts or pay vendors by wire.
The local stakes are high. In Fulton County, average annual pay in finance and insurance was about $172,398 in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That signals well-paid advisers managing large client balances, and a stolen mailbox in one of those offices can be very expensive. Health care practices hold records covered by HIPAA. Software firms hold source code and customer data their own clients audit them for.
Protection we put in place
- Strong sign-in: multifactor authentication for email, remote access and every admin account, with phishing-resistant methods for the people attackers target most, such as finance staff and executives.
- Email defense: filtering for impersonation, lookalike domains and malicious links, plus SPF, DKIM and DMARC records so criminals have a harder time sending as you.
- Endpoint detection and response: software on every computer and server that watches behavior, not just known virus signatures, and can isolate a machine that starts acting like ransomware.
- People watching alerts: alerts are reviewed and acted on, not left in a mailbox.
- Least privilege: staff work without admin rights, shared logins are replaced with a password manager, and admin roles are reviewed on a schedule.
- Patching: operating systems, browsers and common apps kept current, with any exceptions recorded.
- Network segmentation: guest Wi-Fi, cameras, building systems and lab equipment kept apart from the computers that hold client data.
- Training: short lessons and realistic practice phishing so staff know what a fake invoice or a fake sign-in page looks like.
Rules your clients and regulators care about
Alpharetta's business mix brings specific obligations. We handle the technical side and help you keep the paperwork straight:
- Tax preparers, CPA firms, mortgage brokers and other non-bank financial firms fall under the FTC Safeguards Rule, which calls for a written security program, MFA, encryption of customer data and a named person in charge. Since May 2024, certain breaches must also be reported to the FTC.
- Registered investment advisers and broker-dealers face the SEC's updated Regulation S-P, which requires an incident response program and customer notification for many breaches. Smaller firms had until June 2026 to comply.
- Medical and dental practices must meet the HIPAA Security Rule's technical safeguards and keep a current risk analysis.
- Vendors to larger companies are asked to fill out security questionnaires or show alignment with a framework such as SOC 2 or the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. We help you answer accurately and close gaps before the next renewal.
Cyber insurance renewals
Insurers now ask detailed questions before they renew a policy. Do you require MFA for email and remote access? Do you run endpoint detection? Are backups protected from deletion? Wrong answers can raise the premium or put a claim at risk. We help you answer from evidence and fix what's missing before the application goes in.
If something gets through
No setup stops everything. When a mailbox is taken over or a laptop is infected, we lock the account, isolate the device, look at what was accessed and restore clean systems. We also help you work through who needs to know: your insurer, your bank, clients, patients or a regulator. A short incident plan, written before you need it, makes those first hours calmer.
Where we start
A security review covers your Microsoft 365 settings, sign-in history, device protection, firewall, backups and who holds admin rights. You get a plain-English report ranked by risk. The highest-value fixes, like enforcing MFA and turning off old sign-in methods, often happen in the first two weeks. After that, we review alerts and access every month and bring a short security summary to each quarterly meeting.
Questions about cybersecurity
Are we too small to be targeted?
No. Most attacks are automated and aim at whoever is easiest. Small firms that move money or hold client data are frequent targets of email fraud.
Can you help us become SOC 2 compliant?
We implement and document the technical controls auditors look for and work alongside your auditor. The audit itself is done by an independent CPA firm.
