Cybersecurity
Security that fits the way your team actually works. We harden systems, audit access, monitor threats, and put incident-response plans in place before you need them.
Cybersecurity built for business.
Security work built on what you actually have running. Audit, access hardening, monitoring, and an incident-response plan the team could run tomorrow.
Our security work starts with what you actually have running, not a template checklist. We map your systems, users, and data flows, then close the gaps that would matter to a regulator, an insurer, or an attacker. The output is not a 90-page report you file and forget: it is a short list of things to change, a monitoring posture that catches what matters, and an incident-response plan the team could actually run if the alarm went off tomorrow.
If any of these sound like your business right now.
- Anyone in the company can add or remove team members from your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 without an approval step.
- MFA is turned on for some accounts, but not on the ones that have admin access to your most sensitive systems.
- Your last security audit was more than 18 months ago, or you have never had one at all.
- You back up your databases and file shares but have never actually restored one from those backups to verify they work.
- Employees leave and their accounts stay active for weeks before someone remembers to deprovision them.
- You handle regulated data (PIPEDA, HIPAA, PCI, SOX, US state-level privacy laws) but do not know which specific controls the regulator or your insurer actually expects.
How we run a cybersecurity engagement.
- 01
Inventory what you actually run
Map the systems, cloud accounts, endpoints, third-party integrations, and data flows that touch customer or regulated data. Most breaches start in something nobody remembered was still running; the inventory is the whole game.
- 02
Gap analysis against a real baseline
Score the inventory against the framework that matters to your business (SOC 2, PIPEDA, HIPAA, PCI, state-level US privacy laws) rather than a generic checklist. The output is a short list of concrete gaps ranked by regulator, insurer, and attacker priority.
- 03
Harden the controls that matter
MFA rollout, access role cleanup, endpoint posture, backup verification (not just backup existence), and monitoring tuned to signal instead of noise. We fix the gaps in the order that closes the most risk per hour of effort.
- 04
Playbook and rehearsal
Written incident-response plan the team has actually walked through, quarterly review with a change log, and a defined kill-switch for the systems that carry the highest blast radius. When the alarm goes off you run a plan you already agreed to, not one you improvise at 3am.
What we ask before we scope.
Every cybersecurity engagement starts with a discovery call, not a template quote. These are the questions we open with so both sides know whether the fit is real before anyone signs anything.
- Q01
What is the last piece of security work you had done, when was it done, and by whom?
- Q02
Which systems handle customer, financial, or health data today, and who at the company can access each of them?
- Q03
If a laptop or a phone got stolen tomorrow, what data would leave with it and what would you have to disclose?
- Q04
Are you or your clients subject to a specific compliance regime (SOC 2, HIPAA, PIPEDA, PCI, US state-level privacy laws, GDPR)?
- Q05
Do you have a written incident-response plan today, and when was it last actually tested against a scenario?
- Q06
What is the largest single loss you could not absorb from a breach, either in dollars or in customer trust?
Concrete outputs at the end of every project.
- Security posture audit across systems, access, and data flows
- Access controls, MFA rollout, and role hygiene
- Monitoring + alerting tuned to signal, not noise
- Incident-response playbook the team has rehearsed
- Backup and restore verification (not just backup existence)
- Quarterly review with a written change log
How this fits with the rest of the studio.
Sapere Digital runs eight disciplines under one operating standard. Cybersecurity lands harder when it is scoped alongside the practices it naturally reinforces.
Web Development
Security decisions get baked into the build (secure defaults, dependency policy, secrets management, access controls) rather than retrofitted onto a live production system where every fix carries deployment risk.
Data Analytics
Data pipelines carry access controls, encryption, and audit trails from day one, so the same regulator sees the same posture whether your data lives in a spreadsheet, a SaaS tool, or a warehouse.
Artificial Intelligence
AI agents run on your own data with prompt-injection defense, output validation, and human review checkpoints rather than exposed model endpoints touching your customer records.
A real engagement that used cybersecurity.
Mercury Foodservice needed a DNS cutover from an abandoned WordPress install on Plesk hosting to Vercel, without breaking two decades of mailboxes printed on their delivery trucks. We planned and executed the migration with every MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC record preserved. Info@ and orders@ never bounced through the cutover.
Read the full case studyQuestions before you start.
Do small businesses actually get targeted by cyber attacks?
Yes. Small businesses are the most-attacked segment specifically because most assume they are not targets. Automated attacks scan the internet for vulnerable systems regardless of business size. Industry reporting from the annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report has consistently shown small businesses represent a large share of breach victims, with average recovery costs running well into six figures.
What is the difference between a security audit and a penetration test?
An audit maps your systems, access, and data flows against a baseline. Think inventory plus gap analysis. A penetration test attempts to actually break in like an attacker would. Most small businesses need the audit first (know what you have) and penetration testing only on higher-risk systems.
Do we need cyber insurance?
Increasingly required by clients, insurers, and some regulations. Cyber insurance policies now require baseline controls (multi-factor authentication, tested backups, an incident-response plan) that you would want anyway. We help you implement the controls the insurer will ask about before renewal season.
What is your incident response process?
We put a written incident-response playbook in place before you need it: who calls whom, which systems get isolated first, what gets communicated to customers and when. When an incident happens, we run the playbook you already agreed to, not one we improvise under pressure at three in the morning.
Do you cover compliance frameworks like SOC 2 or HIPAA?
We scope security work around whichever frameworks actually apply to your business: SOC 2, HIPAA, PIPEDA, PCI, or state-level US privacy laws. We do not sell a generic checklist. If you handle regulated data, we align the controls to the specific regime rather than to a marketing certificate.
SEO
Search work that earns trust and traffic, not algorithm tricks. Technical audit, keyword strategy, and structured data tuned to the queries you can credibly own.
Data Analytics
Analytics that answers business questions, not dashboard questions. We start with the decision, then build the pipeline, the model, and the report around it.