What attacks on Marietta businesses look like
Real-world cybersecurity problems for small firms are rarely dramatic. They look like an invoice with new bank details, a mailbox that starts sending odd messages to clients, or a Monday morning when every file on the server has a strange extension. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged about 25,900 complaints from Georgia in 2025, and Georgians reported about $535 million lost that year. In those reports, schemes that hijack or imitate business email to steer payments rank near the top for dollar losses.
Several kinds of Marietta business are frequent targets:
- Closing attorneys and title offices. In Georgia, attorneys conduct real estate closings, and wire fraud aimed at closings is a known scam. One spoofed email to a buyer can divert a down payment.
- Medical and dental practices. Patient records are valuable to criminals and protected under HIPAA. A breach means notification work, possible federal scrutiny and lost trust.
- Defense suppliers. Firms supporting programs at the Lockheed Martin plant and Dobbins Air Reserve Base hold drawings, specifications and other controlled information that foreign and criminal groups want.
- Distributors and contractors. Large, regular payments to suppliers make them good targets for fake invoices and changed payment details.
Controls we set up for Marietta clients
- Sign-in protection. MFA is required for mailboxes, VPN or remote desktop, and all administrator logins. We favor app prompts or hardware keys, tuned so nobody is asked a dozen times a day.
- Inbox screening that stops fake login pages, impersonated senders and booby-trapped files, with a one-click button for staff to flag a suspicious message.
- EDR on all endpoints. Each PC and server runs detection software that spots actions such as rapid file encryption or strange logins and can quarantine the device.
- Human review of alerts. Alerts go to people who investigate and act, not to a mailbox nobody checks.
- Patch management on a schedule, with any exceptions written down and revisited.
- Tight accounts. Accounts for leavers disabled on their last day, administrator access held by only a handful of people, and a business password manager in place of shared spreadsheets.
- Network segmentation so guest Wi-Fi, cameras, card terminals and shop-floor machines can't reach your file shares or accounting system.
- Security awareness training with short lessons and simulated phishing emails, so staff get practice spotting fakes.
A note for defense suppliers
If you handle Controlled Unclassified Information under a Defense Department contract, the DFARS 7012 clause already requires the 110 security requirements in NIST SP 800-171. The CMMC program now lets contracting officers require a certified level before award, phased in from November 2025. Good managed security covers a lot of the technical ground: MFA, logging, patching, device control and backups. A formal CMMC assessment is done by an accredited third party, and some firms will also need a specialist to write their System Security Plan. We focus on keeping the everyday systems secure and documented so that work goes faster.
When something gets through
No defense is perfect. If a mailbox is taken over or a computer is infected, we isolate it, find out what was accessed, rebuild clean systems and help you decide who needs to be told: clients, patients, your bank, your insurer or a prime contractor. A written incident plan, made in advance, saves hours of confusion on a bad day.
Insurance questionnaires
Cyber insurance renewals now come with long checklists about MFA, endpoint detection, backups and training. We help you answer them accurately and fix the gaps that could raise your premium or weaken a claim.
Where we start
A security review covers Microsoft 365 settings, sign-in history, device protection, firewall rules, backup coverage and who holds admin access. You get a short report in plain English, ranked by risk. The biggest wins, like enforcing MFA and shutting off legacy authentication, usually land within a fortnight. From then on, alerts are watched continuously, accounts get a monthly audit and every quarterly meeting includes a security briefing.
Questions about cybersecurity
Can you make us CMMC certified?
No provider can certify you. Level 2 certification comes from an accredited assessment organization. We help small suppliers put the technical controls in place and keep them running, which is most of the daily work.
Our staff are too busy for training. Is it worth it?
The lessons take a few minutes a month. Since most attacks start with an email, a team that pauses before clicking is one of the cheapest protections you can buy.
