The company
It’s no surprise that Susan St. Amand prioritizes cybersecurity in everything she does. With a background in finance and governance, coupled with director experience on an estimated 20+ corporate boards, she understands the importance of managing risk.
Running her company, Sirius Financial Services, that focus is stronger than ever before.
Susan founded the Ottawa-based company in 1990, offering corporate and personal planning with a specialty in financial analysis, as well as continuity and strategic risk management for wealthy clients.
“On a daily basis, I’m managing all facets of a client’s financial portfolio—income sources, capital assets, registered funds, investments, personal debt, business and income tax obligations, and more,” she explains.
“Integrity and client respect are paramount and you can’t uphold that trust and commitment without very strict cybersecurity and risk management measures.”
Her work is also reliant on close collaboration with a professional network of insurance, legal firms, and client advisors—underscoring the importance of keeping confidential data private and secure as it’s shared, transacted, or stored.
The challenge
While Susan had put fundamental security measures in place at Sirius and worked with an IT support firm—she needed the ability to understand or assess new threats targeting her operations. This became even more critical once the COVID-19 lockdown began.
“Everything we do has a high-touch factor in terms of face time and paperwork exchange with clients, partners, and advisors,” Susan says. “In a flash, we went from working onsite in offices and collaborating in person with clients and business associates, to relying purely on exchanging sensitive data through emails, phone calls, and video meetings. This requires stringent cybersecurity controls to make a safe transition to a remote work environment and ensure communications are secure and encrypted from end to end, files can be stored safely, and confidential data remains private.”
The solution
Several years ago, an accountant colleague introduced Susan to the team at Field Effect, a global provider of advanced threat monitoring, detection, and response solutions and training services.
Soon after, Susan began using Field Effect MDR across her entire IT environment—endpoints, networks, and cloud services.
Field Effect MDR's sophisticated, proprietary monitoring and detection technologies are designed to deliver end-to-end coverage. This means Field Effect MDR can monitor, detect, and report potential cyber threats and security vulnerabilities across a company’s IT infrastructure, with all threat data and analysis accessible from the same, single platform.
“I was very impressed with Field Effect’s depth of cyber knowledge and the intelligence of Field Effect MDR,” says Susan. “This is a product developed and backed by a team that really understands cybersecurity and cares about securing businesses.”
This was the first time Susan had experienced comprehensive threat monitoring and reporting. “The set-up was fast for Field Effect MDR and it is amazing to see the monitoring results. Because the reporting is provided in a format that’s easy to understand, we have a better sense of our risks,” she says. “This helps all of us—my team, our IT support, and Field Effect—stay on the same page.
“There are rarely any surprises because the monitoring reports always include both immediate actions needed and future recommendations, and we can always reach the Field Effect team for any questions.”
By delivering its threat data as focused, actionable reporting, Field Effect MDR helps businesses understand their threats and the actions to take, providing three types of alerts—Action, Recommendation, or Observation (AROs). Each alert includes a straightforward description of the issue and detailed steps for resolution. This eliminates hours investigating a volume of threat alerts that may not be critical and provides the relevant information that stops threats and improves security.
Susan also appreciates that Field Effect MDR is accessible to any size and type of business. “The Field Effect team has created a product that removes the barriers that a lot of small businesses face when it comes to cybersecurity. I think a lot of companies don’t look into solutions like this because they think it’s going to be cost-prohibitive or complicated. But that’s a mistake,” she adds. “Working with Field Effect, we never feel like we’re a small fish in a big pond. The team is always a phone call away and we have access to continual improvements included without new fees. You actually gain a realistic path to improving your security and reducing risk.”
