Cybersecurity Policies for Small Regulated Firms

The policy set

• Information Security Policy: access and least privilege, 2-step sign-in, file sharing, encryption, secure exchange of sensitive documents, devices, acceptable use and enforcement.
• AI Usage Policy: approved tools, disclosure when an AI note-taker is on a call, how long recordings are kept, and protecting privileged or client-confidential material.
• Incident Response Plan: severity levels, step-by-step playbooks, who notifies your regulator and clients and by when, and a review afterward.
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan: how fast each system must come back and how much data you can afford to lose, set by your owners or directors.
• Data protection and records retention: what you keep, for how long, and how messaging apps are handled.

Behind the policies

• A risk strategy and risk tolerance statement for leadership to approve.
• An asset inventory, data classification and a risk register.
• A table that maps each requirement of your regulator to the policy and evidence that meets it.
• A briefing for owners or directors, and two rounds of revisions before approval.

How the work is ordered

1. 1 · Remediate. Auditors compare your written policy with what they find, and any gap becomes the finding. So we close the known gaps first: public file links, too many admins, sign-in protection that is on but not enforced, unsigned email, unapproved apps with broad access.
2. 2 · Document. A risk assessment, an information security policy, an AI usage policy, an incident response plan and a business continuity plan, written to match how you actually work, not a template.
3. 3 · Test. Vulnerability scans, a realistic penetration test, AI-driven attack testing and a phishing simulation, with a formal report, the fixes made and a retest.
4. 4 · Maintain. Security awareness lessons, monthly phishing tests, quarterly scans and risk reports, a yearly tabletop exercise and a yearly policy refresh.

Who does the work

Christian Ririe leads every compliance engagement personally. He spent 15 years at the World Bank, where he worked with its Internal Audit department on the yearly audits, testing servers and systems for vulnerabilities. We test to the public NIST SP 800-115 guide and OWASP testing methods.

We use AI to draft, scan and test, and every deliverable is reviewed, tailored and owned by TechFort. That is how a small firm gets a complete program at a fraction of what it usually costs.