First off, why do we always say Surrey and Langley?

It’s because our office is in Surrey (Cloverdale) but closer to downtown Langley than downtown Surrey. Meaning we have pretty much a 20 minute driving radius that covers all of Surrey and Langley. We want more clients in Surrey and Langley.

We should really get a name that covers both cities. Like Surlang. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Also, since the area is so new, it has a larger proportion of new businesses and startups than the Vancouver area. Less years of business experience unfortunately equals more risk.

So, it’s expected that cybersecurity is going to be a major challenge for Surrey and Langley BC in 2026 and beyond, especially while we’re currently seeing possibly the most exponential change in technology ever with the development of AI.

The baseline security we put in place for clients

Here’s what we do for our clients.

Take notes so you can DIY it into your business, make sure your current IT company is doing it, or just call us and we’ll take care of it for you.

For our clients, we start with a basic security stack that gives them a solid foundation, and while the exact setup can vary between businesses, the core pieces tend to stay pretty consistent.

That stack usually includes an enterprise-level firewall to protect the physical office from internet-based attacks, along with a unified system like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace so company data stays contained inside a controlled environment instead of being scattered across personal accounts and devices.

On top of that, we deploy specialized antivirus that we can manage and monitor from a central portal, and that software goes on every company-owned laptop, PC, and server so nothing slips through the cracks.

We also make sure multi-factor authentication is enforced on as many systems as possible, because even simple extra steps can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

All of these things are relatively easy for us to implement and don’t require much ongoing effort from the client side, which most business owners appreciate, because once everything is set up, it just runs in the background.

Where attacks are actually getting through now

The harder part, and the part we see becoming the most important going into 2026, is employee security awareness, because more and more attacks are succeeding without doing anything technical at all.

One of the biggest examples of this is phone impersonation attacks, where AI voice models have become good enough that an attacker can spoof someone’s voice in real time and make the call sound exactly like a person the victim already knows.

In some cases, the attacker can even spoof the phone number, which removes another layer of suspicion and makes the situation feel normal in the moment.

We’ve already seen this work on both business users and home users, and it’s been surprisingly effective because it relies on trust instead of exploiting a system vulnerability.

CEO and finance impersonation is a major risk

A common version of this type of attack involves someone impersonating a CEO and calling a CFO with a request for a wire transfer, often framed as urgent and time-sensitive so there’s pressure to act quickly.

Because the voice sounds real and the request feels familiar, people sometimes follow through before stopping to verify, and unfortunately this has worked many times across different organizations.

That’s why employee awareness training has become such a big focus for us, because these attacks don’t rely on breaking into networks or bypassing software controls, they rely on convincing a real person to take action.

What awareness training actually looks like

Security awareness training does take time from the company and from employees, and that part can be inconvenient, but these risks can’t be ignored anymore.

Some of the safeguards we recommend are straightforward and practical, like approving large transactions in person, hanging up and calling a trusted number to verify a request, or adding additional approvers so financial decisions don’t rest with just one person.

For larger transactions, we often recommend having both the CEO and the CFO involved in the approval process, because even small delays and extra checks can stop an attack before any money leaves the business.

These steps don’t require advanced tools or complicated systems, they just create enough friction to prevent most impersonation attempts from succeeding.

Why cyber insurance still matters

Even with strong technical protections and trained employees, no system is ever 100 percent secure, and that’s just the reality of running a business today.

That’s why having a cyber insurance policy is still important, because if something does get past the protections, insurance can help cover the financial impact while the business works through recovery.

It’s not a replacement for security measures, but it does provide a level of protection when something unexpected happens.

How we think about cybersecurity for Surrey businesses

Cybersecurity today is layered, and it works best when each layer supports the others instead of standing on its own.

It includes the firewall and systems that protect the network, the way employees respond to requests and verify information, and the insurance coverage that’s there if something still goes wrong.

All of those pieces matter, and leaving any one of them out creates a gap that attackers are more than willing to take advantage of.

For local Surrey and Langley businesses (Surlang), the goal isn’t to overcomplicate things or overwhelm people with tools, it’s to put the right protections and habits in place so the business can keep operating smoothly even when something unexpected happens.

But no matter what, do something, and always be improving.

Stay safe!