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Securing an accounting firm before tax season

A growing GTA accounting firm handled years of client tax records and financials with no real security behind them. A Health Check found the gaps; a focused project closed them before their busiest season.

Representative example — details anonymized to protect client confidentiality.

Cybersecurity for an accounting firm
The client

At a glance

IndustryAccounting
Size~18 staff
LocationMississauga, GTA
EngagementHealth Check → Secure plan
The challenge

Where they stood

The firm had grown fast and shifted to hybrid work, but security hadn't kept up. Backups ran but had never been tested for recovery, staff shared admin logins, there was no multi-factor authentication, and email had no phishing protection — all while holding sensitive client tax and financial data with CRA EFILE and CPA Ontario obligations in the background.

Our approach

What we did

  • Ran a fixed-fee AI + Security Health Check and delivered a scored report with a ranked risk list
  • Set up tested, offsite backups with verified recovery
  • Enforced multi-factor authentication on every account and hardened Microsoft 365
  • Rolled out managed email and phishing protection
  • Cleaned up access control and removed shared logins
  • Documented a simple incident-response plan and moved the firm to a Secure managed plan
The results

What changed

Within two weeks the firm went from an exposed setup to a hardened, monitored environment — and sailed through tax season with no security incidents and no downtime.

46→86
Security posture score
100%
Accounts with MFA
0
Downtime during tax season
Verified
Backups tested & recoverable

The Health Check gave the partners a clear, plain-language picture of their risk for the first time — and a fixed-price plan to fix it, with no jargon and no surprises.

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See where your firm really stands

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