Top Rated Cybersecurity Companies in Canada

While it may sound like a subscription to a digital police force, cybersecurity services are essential today for individuals and businesses of all sizes. High speed internet has opened up a whole new world for us all, allowing us to share images and videos with friends across the globe in seconds, allow anyone to buy products from businesses regardless of location and so much more, but with it has come risks.

Data security is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today, where data, rather than tangible objects, have become their most valuable possession. The kind of protection offered varies depending on each unique situation, but with initiatives such as GDRP and other privacy regulations covering an increasing number of countries, having a genuine security strategy for data and digital operations is not only advisable, but in many cases may be legally essential.

Cybersecurity can be categorized into five distinct types:

Each presents its own unique challenges, and all are equally important in protecting your data from potential attacks. In turn, they refer to the protection of the servers and data storage systems within your IT systems that are essential for business operation, the various applications you use to access and manipulate data, your network itself, including any remote workers who may log into the network externally and any mobile devices used within the system, any cloud systems used, such as Office 365 implementations and other cloud-based apps, and all smaller connected devices.

Covering the above should be part of any cybersecurity solution you adopt. Leaving any area without protection invites attacks that will eventually bypass all other protections, leaving your data vulnerable. If you only cover some parts, it's like locking all your windows and leaving the front door wide open. Eventually a thief will stop bothering with the windows and just walk in.

The majority of entry-level cybersecurity jobs do not require coding skills. However, being able to write and understand code may be necessary for some mid-level and upper-level cybersecurity positions that you will become qualified for after you've built a few years of experience.

For the most part though, a cybersecurity expert will be using a range of tools, usually app based, to test and assess your systems for vulnerabilities, and deploy custom cybersecurity application to protect data and systems against such issues.

With some solutions such as email filtering based on a per user cost, the cost of some aspects of cybersecurity can vary dramatically depending on the company size and the range of solutions needed. However, an essential for every business is a firewall, which can cost between $8,000 AUD and $35,000 AUD over a three year contract depending on scale.

In general though, smaller businesses with less than a hundred employees should expect to pay out between $500 AUD and $1000 AUD a month for their cybersecurity needs, which can seem a lot until you put it into perspective.

The Australian Cybersecurity Centre performed a study to analyse how much cyber-crime costs businesses today, and found that small businesses incurred costs of around $9,000 for a single incident, with medium businesses losing $33,000 per incident and larger organisations $19,000 with each cybercrime on average. It is that middle ground where businesses are most vulnerable, usually because they have grown from small companies but do not yet have the enterprise level infrastructure of a big business.

As we can see, set against such losses, a cybersecurity service that protects against just one attempt every year offers a great investment, and with the level of cybercrime ongoing that could be 5, 8, 10 or more cyber-crimes being stopped, giving cybersecurity exceptional return on investment for businesses today.

The starting cost for a typical cybersecurity risk assessment for a business with 50 employees is $10,000 AUD. Managing the cost of a cybersecurity risk assessment is of course very important - but a cybersecurity risk assessment must follow a sound approach, with experienced assessors to provide value to the organization.

With the high level of losses that a cyber-crime can deliver, investment in cyber security pays off in the long run with quality, effective systems that protect business data.