Cybersecurity · Finance & accounting

Managed IT and security for an accounting firm

An accounting firm holds exactly what attackers want and what regulators care about, with seasonal peaks and limited protection. intSignal matched the security to the sensitivity of the data and sized support to absorb the busy season.

The problem

Highly sensitive client financial data with limited protection.

What we did

Full and complete IT support with national coverage.

The outcome

One provider across support, security, network, and phones.

The challenge

What the business was up against

Highly sensitive client financial data with limited protection. Seasonal workload peaks with no elasticity in support. Regulatory and client compliance expectations to evidence. Credential reuse and phishing exposure across staff.

From exposed to fully monitored

8

security controls now in place, correlated and monitored around the clock — up from none.

  • SIEM
  • XDR
  • EDR
  • FWaaS
  • SD-WAN
  • Dark-web monitoring
  • Password manager
  • Compliance evidence

The approach

What intSignal did

Full and complete IT support with national coverage. Cybersecurity and compliance: SIEM, XDR, EDR, FWaaS, SD-WAN. Microsoft 365, password manager, dark-web monitoring. NaaS and UCaaS.

The thinking

Why we did it this way

A firm holding this much sensitive financial data can't afford gaps between security tools, and can't scale a support team up and down with tax season. We chose an integrated security stack and a managed engagement sized to absorb the peaks — one provider accountable for both the data's protection and the seasonal load, instead of point products and temporary hires that nobody owns end to end.

Why it works

One vendor, accountable

The bigger lesson underneath the numbers is about accountability. Spread the same scope across a dozen small vendors — one for the firewall, one for email, one for the phones, one for each site — and every incident becomes a conference call where nobody is responsible and everybody points sideways. Consolidating to one provider ends that: a single team owns the outcome, a single number gets called, and the systems are unified rather than bolted together at the seams. It also changes the incentives. A large managed engagement is a serious relationship for the provider — real revenue, real stakes — so the provider has every reason to keep it healthy, where a small vendor with a small contract simply doesn't. You stop being one of a hundred accounts spread thin and become the account that matters.

Built to hold up

Resilience and risk

SIEM, XDR, and EDR protecting client financial data. Dark-web monitoring for exposed credentials; password manager to stop reuse. FWaaS and SD-WAN for a consistent, resilient perimeter. Compliance controls documented and evidenced.

24/7
Detection on client financial data
0
Temporary hires to survive busy season
0
Network hardware owned

What changed

DimensionBeforeAfter intSignal
Client dataLimited protection24/7 detection
Busy-season capacityTemp hiresAbsorbed by MSP
PerimeterInconsistentFWaaS + SD-WAN
ComplianceUnevidencedDocumented

Outcome

The result

Client financial data is now covered by SIEM, XDR and EDR, credential reuse ended with a password manager, and the perimeter is consistent on FWaaS and SD-WAN. Seasonal peaks are absorbed without temporary hires, and compliance posture is documented and evidenced.

NaaS and FWaaS removed network and firewall hardware costs. Managed coverage absorbed seasonal peaks without temporary hires. Bundled security tooling replaced separate subscriptions.

How these figures were derived

Effort and outcomes are reconstructed from production systems of record — ticket histories, call detail records, dispatch and SOC/NOC telemetry — read end to end rather than sampled. Cost comparisons are indexed to a baseline, never a fee or rate. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured it is labelled as such, and the model is documented and available to defend on request.

Who was this for?

Customer

An accounting firm

Confidential by contract.

Facing something similar?

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