What attacks look like in north Cobb
Georgians filed 25,936 reports with the FBI's IC3 unit in 2025, describing roughly $534.6 million in losses. Nationally, business email compromise alone accounted for 24,768 complaints and just over $3 billion in losses. In a typical case, a criminal gets into a mailbox or spoofs one, watches the conversation, then sends new bank details just before a large payment is due. Distributors, builders and suppliers that pay freight carriers, subcontractors and vendors every week are natural targets. Kennesaw has a lot of them.
Ransomware is the other big risk. The same FBI report found that among ransomware complaints from businesses outside critical infrastructure, contracting services made up 17 percent, engineering and architecture 10 percent and legal services 18 percent. Critical manufacturing was among the sectors hit hardest by the most common ransomware strains. Those are exactly the industries that fill the office parks and industrial streets around Chastain Road and Barrett Parkway.
Our security layers
- Two-step sign-in (MFA) required for mailboxes, remote connections, every admin login and, where the bank allows it, payment portals.
- Email filtering that blocks phishing, spoofed senders and harmful attachments, plus a one-click button staff use to flag a message that looks wrong.
- EDR (endpoint detection and response) installed on each PC and server. It watches for suspicious behavior, such as mass file encryption, and can isolate a machine on its own.
- People reviewing alerts: warnings go to technicians who look into them, not to an unread mailbox.
- Patching on a fixed schedule, with any exceptions written down and revisited.
- Account cleanup: admin rights limited to the few who need them, a password manager in place of shared passwords, and former staff removed promptly.
- Network separation: card terminals, guest Wi-Fi, cameras and shop-floor devices kept on their own segments, away from file servers and accounting.
- Security awareness training: short lessons and simulated phishing emails, so staff practice spotting the real thing.
Local risks we pay attention to
Retail around Town Center. Stores that take cards have to protect payment data. The most common mistake we see is a flat network where the card terminal, the office PC and the customer Wi-Fi can all see each other. Splitting them is cheap and lowers both risk and the scope of your PCI review.
Student and seasonal staff. With Kennesaw State next door, many firms hire interns and part-timers. Short tenures mean more accounts to open and close. An account left active after someone leaves is an easy way in. We tie account removal to your HR checklist.
Professional and medical offices. Tax preparers fall under the FTC Safeguards Rule, which calls for a written security program, MFA and encryption. Medical and dental practices must meet the HIPAA Security Rule. We put the technical safeguards in place and document them so you can show your work.
If something happens
Good protection reduces incidents but doesn't end them. Should an account get hijacked or malware land on a PC, we isolate it, find out what was reached, clean or restore what was hit, and work with you on notifications to the bank, the insurer and any affected customers or patients. A written response plan made in advance makes those first hours far less chaotic.
Cyber insurance questions
Insurers now ask pointed questions at renewal. Do you enforce MFA? Do you have endpoint detection? Are backups protected from deletion? We help you answer accurately and close gaps that could raise the premium or put a claim at risk.
How we start
The first step is a security review. We examine how your Microsoft 365 tenant is configured, who has signed in from where, what protects each device, how the firewall is set and which accounts carry admin rights. Findings arrive in a brief report in plain English, ranked by risk. The fixes that matter most, like enforcing MFA and shutting off outdated sign-in methods, are normally finished within about ten business days. From then on we keep watching alerts, check accounts every month and cover security at each quarterly check-in.
Questions about cybersecurity
Our card processor handles PCI. Do we still need to do anything?
Usually yes. The processor protects its side, but your network, Wi-Fi and the computers near the terminal are your responsibility. Separating them is one of the first things we do for retail clients.
Will MFA annoy my staff?
Not much when it's set up well. Most people approve a prompt on their phone now and then. We use trusted-device and location settings to keep prompts to a sensible level.
