Cybersecurity for SMEs in Rawalpindi

Cybersecurity for SMEs does not have to mean a big budget or a room full of screens. It means doing a handful of unglamorous things properly.

Small companies get hit too

There is a comfortable idea that attackers only go after big banks. In practice most attacks are automated: a bot tries every office router it can find, or a fake invoice email goes to ten thousand inboxes at once. Small businesses get caught because they have the same weaknesses as big ones and nobody whose job it is to look after them.

We start with what usually goes wrong, not with a shopping list.

The five things that stop most trouble

A real firewall. The free box from your internet provider is not one. A business firewall lets you decide what comes in and out, keeps guest Wi-Fi away from the accounts computer, and logs what happened when you need to know. Depending on budget it can be a commercial appliance or a well-configured open-source one.

Protection on every computer. Endpoint protection that updates itself and reports to one screen, so you know which laptop has been switched off or left unpatched for four months.

Backups that work. Most ransomware stories end badly because the backup was on the same network, or nobody ever tried to restore from it. We keep a copy away from the main network, and we do a test restore with you before calling it done.

Secure remote access. If staff work from home, a VPN with two-step sign-in is far safer than leaving remote desktop open to the internet, which is something we still find on sites we visit.

Updates and passwords. Boring, and responsible for a huge share of problems. We help with a simple routine for patching and with a password manager the whole team can actually use.

People are the other half

Most break-ins begin with an email that looks like it came from the boss or the bank. We run a short session with your staff, in plain language, with real examples of what these emails look like. It takes about an hour and usually prevents more trouble than any piece of hardware.

What we will not promise

Nobody can promise you will never be attacked, and be wary of anyone who does. What we can do is make you a much harder target than the business next door, and make sure that if something does happen, you can recover in hours and not weeks. We also say clearly when something is outside what we do, for example a legal or compliance audit.

Security works best on top of a sound network, so it pairs with Wi-Fi and cabling and with the backups in storage and disaster recovery. Our hardware and network page covers the basics, and the office network checklist is a good place to start.

Products for this job: business firewalls and NAS storage.

Frequently asked questions

We are only ten people. Is this really necessary?

Some of it, yes. A proper firewall, protection on each computer and a backup that has been tested cover most of the risk for a small office, and none of it needs a big budget. We will not sell you what you do not need.

What does a test restore mean?

We take a recent backup and restore real files or a whole machine from it, in front of you, to prove it works. Many backups look fine until the day they are needed, so we treat this as part of the job.

Can you look after it after the setup?

Yes. We can check logs, updates and backups on a regular schedule under a maintenance contract, and be on call when something looks wrong. Or you can run it yourself, and we will explain how.

Do you do penetration testing?

We do a basic health check of your network, firewall rules and exposed services. A full penetration test with formal reporting is a specialist job, and if you need one we will say so.