Security budgets are finite. These are in the order we would spend yours.
Identity comes first
Almost every incident we see starts with a working set of credentials in the wrong hands. Fix identity and most of the rest gets much harder for an attacker.
- Multi-factor authentication everywhere it can go
- Passkeys for phishing-resistant sign-in
- Conditional access and sensible sign-in policy
- Dormant and orphaned account review
Least privilege
Most users do not need to be local administrators, and the ones who insist they do usually need one specific thing solved instead. Removing standing admin rights stops a whole class of attacks outright — and quietly cuts support tickets.
- Local administrator rights removed
- Elevation where genuinely needed, on request
- Administrative accounts separated from daily use
- Shared and service account governance
Endpoint protection
Modern endpoint protection with someone actually reading the alerts. Detection nobody responds to is just an expensive log file.
- Endpoint detection and response
- Encryption enforced and verified
- Patch level monitored per device
- Alerts routed to a person, not a dashboard
Email & the money path
Business email compromise costs more than ransomware for most organizations our clients’ size. The controls are partly technical and partly process — the process half is the one that gets skipped.
- Email authentication and anti-spoofing
- Phishing-resistant sign-in for finance staff
- Out-of-band verification for payment changes
- Staff awareness that is specific, not generic
Recovery, proven
The last line, and the one most often untested. A backup you have never restored is a hypothesis. We test ours.
- Monitored backup jobs with real alerting
- Restore testing
- Offsite and isolated copies
- Documented recovery expectations