The questions we get asked most, answered in full and in plain words. Each one has its own page. Read the short answer here and open the page when you want the detail.
Every answer here holds on the phone too. Ask the same question out loud and you get the same answer.
Same business day, usually within an hour
Monthly IT support from us starts at $1,900 a month for an office of 5 to 15 people, $3,400 a month for a business of 10 to 40 people, and $8,900 a month for 30 to 150 people. The fee covers the whole business, so hiring inside that range leaves your bill where it is. Hardware and software licences are passed on at what they cost us, with nothing added on top.
Read the full answerPaying by the hour is cheaper in a quiet month and expensive in a bad one, because you are buying repairs while nobody is paid to prevent them. A fixed monthly fee costs the same every month and pays somebody to watch the machines, install the updates and test the backups, so less reaches you in the first place. Add up last year’s invoices and the hours your staff lost waiting, and you will know which side your business sits on.
Read the full answerA plain IT contract answers four things: what is inside the monthly fee, what triggers a separate invoice, how fast somebody responds and during which hours, and what you get back on the day you leave. Anything you cannot find in it is something you are trusting to memory. Read the exit clause first, because that is where the surprises live.
Read the full answerYour first job is to get the keys back: the administrator accounts, the domain name, the email admin login, the password vault and the backups. Turn off the access that person still holds, write down everything only they knew, and prove that a backup can be restored. A person here calls you back the same business day, usually within an hour, and works through that list with you.
Read the full answerMost faults are fixed remotely and the work starts on the callback, so the useful question is how fast somebody starts. A person calls you back the same business day, usually within an hour, and tells you on that call whether the job needs hands on the equipment. An on-site visit is booked with you, at a time your front desk can plan around.
Read the full answerAfter a cyber attack or a ransomware attack, keep the affected computers exactly as they are, leave the ransom unpaid and the attacker unanswered, and make the calls: local police (911 if anyone is in danger), your cyber insurer, and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s online report. Then send the form on our emergency page, and a person takes the technical side from there.
Read the full answerA backup counts only after somebody has restored from it. Ask for a restore test while you watch: name a file from three weeks ago, have it brought back, and note how long it took. When nobody can do that in front of you, what you have are copies rather than backups.
Read the full answerThe invoice scam works when somebody is quietly reading your email and waiting for a real payment to be discussed. Two habits stop most of it: a second step on every login, and a rule that any change of bank details gets confirmed by phoning a number you already had. Neither one costs much to put in place.
Read the full answerShut the access off on the last day, working from one written list: the email and file account, the shared passwords, the remote access, the door, and anything that sends login codes to their personal phone. Turn the account off instead of deleting it, so the mail and files stay with the business. Give us the date and we work the list with you.
Read the full answerInsurers ask a short list: does every person use a second step to log in, are backups kept out of reach and tested, is there a written plan for the day something is locked, and who holds administrator access. Answer from evidence, and write “no” where the answer is no. A hopeful yes is the answer that costs you the claim.
Read the full answerOften, yes. Canadian cyber insurers ask about multi-factor authentication (MFA) on the application, and an insurance trade publication reported in 2022 that they were requiring it before qualifying a business for coverage. Whether it is a condition of your own policy is set by your insurer’s application and policy wording, so the answer you sign has to match what is actually switched on.
Read the full answerO. Reg. 51/26 is Ontario’s cyber security regulation for school boards, colleges and universities, Group A, B and C public hospitals, the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and children’s aid societies, in force since 1 July 2026. Each must run a cyber security program, name two senior contacts, complete a first maturity assessment by 1 July 2027 and report critical incidents within 72 hours of confirming them.
Read the full answerFor a small business with one website, one email domain and a few servers, our security audit report usually lands two to three weeks after the scope letter is signed; bigger or more spread-out systems take longer. A maturity assessment for an Ontario public body runs on its own clock, set mostly by how prepared the organization is, and the timeline for either one is written into the scope letter before work starts.
Read the full answerA cyber security maturity assessment rates how well an organization manages cyber security today, area by area, and shows what to improve next. Ontario’s provincial tool is built on NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 with Ontario-specific adaptations and rates more than 100 statements from Level 0 (non-existent) to Level 5 (optimized). Under O. Reg. 51/26, school boards, colleges, universities, children’s aid societies and covered public hospitals must complete one.
Read the full answerFor a dental office, an IT company keeps the practice-management software, the imaging, the operatory computers and the front desk running, and keeps patient records backed up and locked down. Most of that work is invisible: updates, monitoring, tested restores, and control over who can open what. When a chair goes down mid-morning, somebody answers.
Read the full answerYour data, your accounts and your domain stay yours through a switch, as long as they are registered in your business’s name. The handover is a list: administrator logins, the domain, the email tenant, the file storage, the backups, the licences, and the written notes on how it is all set up. Ask for that list in writing before you give notice.
Read the full answerMost small offices can run on cloud email and cloud file storage with nothing in the back room. A server still earns its place when a program you depend on requires one, when your files are very large, or when your internet connection is unreliable. The answer comes out of the list of programs you actually use.
Read the full answerLeave your name and your number. A person calls you back the same business day, usually within an hour, and you can ask anything on this page again in your own words. If you would rather start with something written, the infrastructure audit is free.