Home/Resources
Articles on choosing an MSP, budgeting honestly, recognizing the threats that actually hit small businesses, and figuring out which controls you really need. Written for owners, not for IT departments.
Most successful attacks on small businesses never touch a software vulnerability — they exploit a helpful person having a busy day. This guide walks through the six social engineering attacks you'll actually encounter, from phishing and vendor impersonation to AI voice cloning and gift-card texts, explains why small companies are the preferred target, and lays out the defense stack that works: verification habits, no-blame reporting, and the technical backstops that catch the slip.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewManaged detection and response is the security industry's most useful acronym wrapped in its worst explanations. This guide untangles MDR from antivirus, EDR, SIEM, and SOC in plain language, explains what 'response' should actually mean in your contract (isolating a machine in minutes, not emailing you a PDF), covers how per-endpoint pricing works, and gives you the questions that separate real MDR from a rebadged alert forwarder.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewDark web monitoring is one of the most heavily marketed — and most misunderstood — items on a small-business security quote. This guide explains what the service actually does (scan criminal markets for your leaked credentials), what it catches and what it fundamentally can't, how stolen passwords turn into BEC and ransomware, what a good alert response looks like, and an honest answer to whether you need it yet.
Read the guide Guide · 9 min · NewMost business continuity plan templates are forty pages of consultant prose nobody fills in, let alone reads during an outage. This one is seven short sections: who's in charge, what has to keep running, how long each system can be down, what you'll do in the four most likely scenarios, who tells whom, and when you'll test it. The full template is on the page, ready to copy — plus the honest guidance on completing it in a single afternoon and keeping it alive afterward.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewManaged SIEM is one of the most quoted and least explained line items in small-business security. This guide covers what a SIEM actually does, why the unmanaged version fails in small environments, how SIEM-as-a-service pricing models work, the compliance frameworks that effectively require one — and an honest test for when you don't need one yet.
Read the guide Guide · 9 min · NewBusiness email compromise cost U.S. organizations $3 billion last year, averaging six figures per incident — and most victims had antivirus, a firewall, and a spam filter the whole time. That's because BEC isn't a malware problem; it's a trust problem. This guide explains how a BEC attack actually unfolds, the five variants the FBI tracks, why small businesses are the preferred target, and the process and technical controls that actually stop it.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewMost small business owners think ransomware recovery means getting the decryption key. It doesn't. Recovery involves rebuilding systems, resetting credentials, verifying data integrity, and getting back to normal operations — a process that takes days to weeks even in the best case. This guide covers what actually happens, why paying rarely helps, and what separates businesses that recover quickly from ones that don't.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewLaw firms sit at the intersection of confidential client data, large financial transactions, and professional ethics obligations — which makes them one of the most targeted categories of small business. This guide walks through why, what attackers do, and the concrete controls that protect you.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewHealthcare practices face a unique combination of regulatory requirements, ransomware risk, and clinical-workflow demands that general IT support can't handle well. This guide covers what HIPAA actually requires of your IT, why clinics are top ransomware targets, and what a real healthcare IT partnership looks like.
Read the guide Guide · 7 min · NewNonprofits hold donor data and run on lean teams and volunteer turnover — and attackers know it. The threats that target 501(c)(3)s, the security baseline that fits a nonprofit budget, and the discounted Microsoft, Google, and TechSoup licensing most orgs never claim.
Read the guide Checklist · 9 min · NewIf your small business touches protected health information, HIPAA applies — and so do its penalties. A practical, control-by-control HIPAA IT checklist for a small healthcare org: risk analysis, access, encryption, backups, BAAs, training, and what an auditor actually asks to see.
Read the checklist Guide · 8 min · NewCPA firms hold exactly what attackers want — SSNs, bank details, tax records — and move money on deadlines. The threats that target accounting practices, what good IT support covers, and the written security plan the IRS now requires of every paid preparer.
Read the guide Interactive · 2 min · FreeEight plain-English questions, an instant risk score, and a tailored action list across backups, MFA, EDR, patching, and disaster recovery. No email required to see your result.
Start the assessment Guide · 9 min · NewManaged IT services pricing, line by line — per device, per mailbox, per location — with worked examples for a 12-person office, a 6-person clinic, and a 35-person multi-location retailer. Compares to break-fix and to an internal hire.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewWindows 10 ended free security updates on Oct 14, 2025. Here's the 90-day migration plan for a small business — in-place upgrade, hardware refresh, ESU as a bridge, and what an auditor will ask for.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewThe eleven controls carriers ask about on the application, what "yes" actually requires in evidence, and what to hand your broker on renewal day. With the Micro-IT control map mapped to each carrier question.
Read the guide Checklist · 10 min · NewThe practical 12-control HIPAA IT checklist for an independent pharmacy — what an auditor expects, what your MSP should own, and what stays on the pharmacist. With the eight evidence files a wholesaler compliance team will ask for.
Read the checklist Guide · 8 minA neutral, side-by-side framework for evaluating three MSP proposals — nine questions that separate signal from sales-pitch, three patterns that should make you pause, and how to build the apples-to-apples comparison grid.
Read the guide Explainer · 7 min · NewThe category replacing legacy antivirus on every business endpoint. What it does, what 24/7 SOC monitoring adds on top, and why your cyber-insurance carrier now treats it as table stakes.
Read the explainer Guide · 8 min · NewEight reliable signs you've outgrown your current MSP, the contract trap to check first, and the 90-day parallel-run cutover plan that switches providers without breaking anything on the production side.
Read the guide Guide · 9 min · NewA practical template for the 5-to-50-person business: the assets, threats, controls, and gaps to document — in the format auditors, regulators, and cyber-insurance carriers actually ask to see.
Read the guide Guide · 6 min · NewPer-user, per-device, tiered, and all-you-can-eat managed IT pricing — what each model rewards, when each one wins, and how to read a quote that mixes them.
Read the guide Explainer · 6 min · NewSecurity leadership for businesses that aren't ready for a six-figure CISO hire — what a vCISO actually owns, what the engagement looks like, and when a small business genuinely needs one.
Read the explainer Explainer · 6 min · NewThe control that blocks malicious sites before the browser ever connects. Cheap, low-friction, and (when deployed properly) the highest-leverage single security tool a small business can add.
Read the explainer Buyer's guide · 7 min · NewA buyer's guide for owners — what a managed DNS filtering service should do, DIY vs. managed, how to evaluate providers, and what it actually costs.
Read the guide Guide · 7 min · NewA neutral comparison — what each does well, where the real cost sits, and which one fits which kind of company. From an MSP that supports both.
Read the guide Explainer · 6 min · NewThe discipline of keeping every OS and third-party app up to date — on a documented cadence, with evidence. Unsexy, table-stakes, and the single most-cited finding in post-incident reports.
Read the explainer Explainer · 6 min · NewThe Security Operations Center is the humans who watch the alerts so an owner doesn't have to. What a SOC does, why EDR without one is just notifications no one reads, and what it costs.
Read the explainer Checklist · 8 min · NewThe 12 sections every serious managed IT agreement should contain — scope, SLAs, pricing, term, security obligations, BAAs, and offboarding — and the lines worth questioning before you sign.
Read the checklist Guide · 9 min · NewA plain-English guide to PCI DSS for merchants who take cards — what the standard is, which merchant level you are, the 12 requirements, the right Self-Assessment Questionnaire, and how to keep your scope small.
Read the guide Guide · 9 min · NewA practical guide to the FBI's CJIS Security Policy for small police departments and sheriff's offices — the 13 policy areas, what an audit asks for, and what an MSP owns vs. the agency.
Read the guide Guide · 9 min · NewA plain-English guide to GLBA and the FTC Safeguards Rule for small financial firms — who has to comply, what 16 CFR 314.4 requires, a working checklist, and what an MSP owns vs. you.
Read the guide Guide · 9 min · NewA plain-English guide to FERPA for schools and districts — what the law is, the rights it creates, the reasonable-methods standard it sets, a working checklist, and what an MSP owns vs. the district.
Read the guide Comparison · 7 min · NewThe honest math: what an in-house IT hire actually costs fully loaded, what an MSP includes for less, where in-house wins, and where the hybrid co-managed model works better than either alone.
Read the comparison Guide · 7 min · NewThe honest answer is "both, plus immutability." What local, offsite, and cloud backup each get you, what the 3-2-1 rule really means in 2026, and why ransomware-survival beats location.
Read the guide Guide · 8 min · NewA DR plan you've never tested is a document, not a capability. The small-business template — RTO/RPO targets, the recovery runbook, the contact tree, and the annual test that makes it work at 2 AM.
Read the guide Guide · 7 minThe five things separating a managed IT partner you'll keep for ten years from one you'll regret in six months — written for the owner doing the evaluation, not the IT person.
Read the guide Guide · 8 minA side-by-side comparison of what break-fix really costs over 24 months versus a flat managed plan — including the hidden costs most owners forget.
Read the guide Checklist · 5 minIf you ask only five questions before you sign, ask these. The answers reveal more about the next three years than any sales deck.
Read the checklist Article · 6 minThe line on your invoice is rarely the whole bill. The real cost of small-business IT is what you pay when nobody's measuring — in lost time, broken processes, and surprise renewals.
Read the article Guide · 7 minThree numbers and one annual review give you a 12-month plan accurate within a few percent — and one that never gets surprised by hardware again.
Read the guide Article · 6 minEvery MSP wants to sell you the full stack. The honest answer for most small businesses is somewhere between "you need more than you have" and "you don't need everything." Here's how to tell.
Read the article Article · 6 minA short field guide to the three patterns we see most often — and what makes each one obvious once you know what to look for.
Read the article Article · 5 minBusiness email compromise has been the FBI's most-reported, highest-loss cybercrime category for years. A one-page rule prevents almost every attempt.
Read the article Article · 5 minMulti-factor authentication is the single highest-impact security control for a small business — and the one most often skipped because it adds a step. Here's the math.
Read the article Article · 6 minEvery backup that hasn't been restored is hope, not a plan. The discipline that separates a working backup from a checkbox is testing — quarterly, on purpose.
Read the article Article · 5 minCo-managed IT keeps your internal IT person and adds a partner for the layers they can’t cover alone. Here’s when it’s the right call — and when it isn’t.
Read the article