What attacks on local firms look like
The attacks that hurt small and mid-size firms are rarely clever. A partner's mailbox is taken over with a phished password. A client receives an invoice from what looks like your address, with new bank details. A laptop that missed months of updates gets ransomware. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 24,768 business email compromise complaints nationwide in 2025, with reported losses just over $3 billion, and those numbers only include victims who filed a report. Georgia residents and businesses filed 25,936 complaints of all types that year, and the state ranked ninth for total reported losses, at about $535 million.
Why Sandy Springs firms are attractive targets
The local business mix explains a lot. In the 30328 and 30350 ZIP codes, the Census Bureau's 2023 counts include 256 banking, lending, investment and wealth firms, 193 law firms, 141 insurance agencies and carriers, 88 accounting firms and 282 real estate businesses. Every one of those regularly moves money or sensitive records based on email. Real estate closings, legal settlements, client distributions and vendor payments are exactly what business email compromise is built to intercept.
Medical practices face a different threat. The same FBI report lists health care among the sectors most affected by the top ransomware variants in 2025. A practice in a Pill Hill medical office building holds patient records covered by HIPAA and depends on its systems to see patients. Ransomware there is a clinical problem as well as a financial one.
Layers we add, and why
- A second sign-in step for mailboxes, VPN or remote desktop and all admin logins. We prefer phone-app prompts with number matching over text codes, which can be intercepted.
- Conditional access in Microsoft 365, which blocks sign-ins from unexpected countries, unmanaged devices or old protocols that can't do MFA.
- Email filtering for phishing, lookalike domains and malicious attachments, with a report button in every inbox.
- Endpoint detection and response (EDR) on laptops, desktops and servers. Instead of matching a list of known viruses, it flags actions like hundreds of files being renamed at once, then cuts that machine off the network.
- Someone reading the alerts. A security tool that emails warnings to nobody is worse than useless. Our team triages each alert and follows it through.
- Regular patching, with any device we can't update tracked on a short exceptions list.
- Network separation. Your firewall keeps the building network, guest Wi-Fi, conference room devices and cameras away from your files and accounting system.
- Account housekeeping. Departing staff are removed the day they leave, admin rights stay with the few who need them and a password manager replaces shared spreadsheets.
- Staff training in short sessions, with simulated phishing to show who needs a refresher.
Compliance and insurance questions
Cyber insurance applications now ask direct questions about MFA, endpoint detection, backup protection and training. Clients and regulators ask similar ones in security questionnaires. We help you answer accurately, close the gaps that would raise a premium or weaken a claim and keep records that show the controls are working. For medical practices, we implement and document the technical safeguards of the HIPAA Security Rule and supply what your risk analysis needs. Your policies remain yours, and we help you make sure the technology matches them.
If something happens
When an account is taken over or a device is infected, the first hours matter. We contain the problem, check what the attacker accessed, reset what needs resetting, restore clean systems and help you work out who has to be told, from your insurer and bank to clients or patients. A short incident plan, agreed in advance, makes that process faster and calmer.
Where to begin
A security review checks your Microsoft 365 configuration, recent sign-in history, device protection, firewall rules, backups and administrator accounts. You get a plain report ranked by risk. The highest-value fixes, like MFA everywhere and blocking legacy sign-ins, are usually done within the first two weeks. After that, we review sign-ins and admin access monthly and bring a security summary to each quarterly meeting.
Questions about cybersecurity
Is our antivirus enough?
Usually not. Traditional antivirus looks for known malware. Most attacks on offices now start with a stolen password or a convincing email, which antivirus doesn't stop. MFA, email filtering and endpoint detection close those gaps.
Can you help with a client's security questionnaire?
Yes. We help you answer the technical questions accurately and fix anything that would leave a gap. We won't claim a control you don't have.
