Services / Cybersecurity & Compliance
Cybersecurity & Compliance
Defense-in-depth built around your actual risk — not checkbox security.
24/7 monitored security stack — EDR / MXDR / SIEM / SASE — plus dark web monitoring, phishing simulations and security awareness training, risk reviews, HIPAA / SOC 2 / CMMC readiness, and backup and continuity. The compliance-heavy stuff, done right.
Context
Cybersecurity & Compliance in Houston — what actually matters.
Every Houston business is now in the cybersecurity business — whether they planned to be or not. Ransomware groups have moved downmarket from Fortune 500 targets to small and mid-size firms, because SMBs pay faster and fight less. Cyber insurance premiums have tripled in five years and carriers now ask technical questions that answering wrong gets you denied at claim time. State-level privacy laws that didn't exist a decade ago (Texas Data Privacy and Security Act among them) now create documented compliance obligations for organizations that never thought of themselves as 'regulated.' The threat surface and the compliance surface have converged.
The pragmatic response is not 'buy more security products.' Most Houston breaches we've seen post-mortem didn't fail for lack of tools — they failed because the tools weren't configured, nobody was monitoring the alerts, MFA had exceptions nobody audited, or backups existed in name but had never been restore-tested. Defense-in-depth is not a sales line; it's the only approach that survives contact with a real attacker. Layered controls, continuous monitoring, documented incident response, and a backup posture that assumes the primary environment may already be compromised.
Mako delivers cybersecurity for Houston-area businesses under four main framings: continuous security operations (24/7 monitored EDR / MXDR / SIEM), compliance readiness (SOC 2, HIPAA, CMMC, IRS Publication 4557 / WISP, CFATS, PSM), cyber-insurance support (accurate questionnaire answers plus the evidence to back them), and incident response (tabletop exercises, breach response, ransomware recovery). Every engagement starts with an honest Risk Review — not a vendor-funded marketing 'assessment,' an engineer-led look at what's actually broken and in what order to fix it.
The industries we serve where this matters most: healthcare under HIPAA, CPAs under IRS Publication 4557 and the FTC Safeguards Rule, law firms under ABA ethics rules, energy and petrochemical under CFATS and PSM, professional services under FCRA / EEOC, and the long tail of Houston-area businesses whose clients or carriers now require documented controls. The compliance framework differs; the underlying controls overlap substantially. We implement them once, well, and keep the evidence current.
Who this is for
Businesses where a breach is a six-figure event — healthcare, financial services, professional firms, and any DoD-adjacent supply chain. If compliance is part of your business, this pillar is your floor.
What’s included
The full picture.
| Service | What’s included | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| EDR / MXDR / SIEM / SASE | 24/7 managed detection + response across endpoints, network, and cloud identities; SIEM-backed log correlation; SASE for secure remote access | Active threat hunting and response — not just alerts sitting in an inbox until Monday |
| Dark Web Monitoring | Continuous scans of dark-web forums and paste sites for leaked credentials, email addresses, and company data tied to your domain | You find out your credentials are exposed before attackers use them — not after |
| Phishing Simulations & Security Awareness Training | Scheduled phishing campaigns, role-based training modules, individual and company-level reporting, remedial training for clicks | Your people stop being the weak link — demonstrable training records for cyber-insurance and audit |
| Risk Review | Network, endpoint, identity, and policy audit with a plain-English findings report | You know where you're exposed before an attacker (or auditor) finds out |
| Endpoint & Network Security | Firewall management, network segmentation, MFA enforcement, identity hardening, conditional access | Layered defense that makes a breach materially harder |
| Email & Spam Protection | MXsnap filtering, DMARC / SPF / DKIM alignment, quarantine review, banner tagging of external mail | Email-borne threats stopped before they reach your users |
| Backup & Disaster Recovery | On-site and offsite backups, restore testing, documented DR plan | You can actually recover — not just check a box that says you have backups |
| Business Continuity Planning | BC plan documentation, tabletop exercises, vendor contingency planning | When (not if) something goes sideways, you have a playbook |
| SOC 2 / HIPAA / CMMC Readiness | Gap assessment, control implementation, audit support, evidence collection | You pass audits instead of scrambling for them |
The details
What each piece actually looks like.
Risk Review
A security audit that tells you what's actually broken — in plain English, not a 40-page PDF nobody reads.
We start every client relationship with a risk review. We also offer it as a standalone engagement for businesses that aren't ready to switch MSPs but want an honest second opinion. You'll walk away with a prioritized findings report you can actually act on.
Full details →Backup & Disaster Recovery
Backups that actually restore — and a DR plan you could execute at 2 a.m. without calling us.
Most backup failures aren't about missing backups — they're about backups that nobody tested. Ours get tested. We document restore procedures your team can follow, and we rehearse them. When something goes wrong, you don't find out your backups are corrupt on the day you need them.
Full details →HIPAA Managed IT Services in Houston
A managed IT partner for Houston-area healthcare practices — HIPAA-aware every day, not just at audit time.
HIPAA is not a yearly project. It's how an MSP has to operate every day — MFA on every system touching PHI, documented access controls, encrypted and tested backups, breach-response readiness, and a signed BAA that actually reflects who does what. Mako Logics delivers managed IT services to Houston-area mental-health, dental, multi-location medical, and clinical-trial-participating practices under HIPAA Security Rule requirements from day one of the engagement, not after the first OCR questionnaire arrives.
Full details →SOC 2 / HIPAA / CMMC Readiness
The technical and documentation work that makes audits routine instead of emergencies.
Compliance isn't a one-time project. It's a set of ongoing practices, evidence, and controls. We map your environment to the framework (SOC 2, HIPAA, CMMC), close the gaps, and keep the evidence current. When the auditor shows up, your binder is ready.
Full details →Our approach
How cybersecurity & compliance actually gets delivered.
- 1
Risk Review — engineer-led, plain-English findings
Every engagement starts here. Our Risk Review is an external and internal scan combined with access reviews, backup verification, email-security posture, and policy review. The output is a prioritized plain-English report you can act on — not a 40-page vendor template. We've also run Risk Reviews as standalone engagements for businesses that aren't ready to switch MSPs but want an honest second opinion.
- 2
Control implementation — layered, not lumped
We implement controls in layers: identity (MFA, privileged access, conditional access), endpoints (EDR, MXDR where monitored response is needed), email (DMARC enforcement, not just monitoring; anti-phishing; external-sender banners), network (segmentation, SASE where distributed workforces need it), and data (encryption, access logging, DLP where regulated data flows make it warranted). Each layer gets documented and tested. The evidence accumulates into your compliance binder as a byproduct, not as a separate project.
- 3
24/7 monitoring with an on-call that answers
Alerts hitting a dashboard that nobody reads aren't security; they're theater. Our monitored stack pushes alerts to on-call engineers who triage them the same shift. SIEM correlation keeps the signal-to-noise manageable. When something needs response (and it will, eventually), a real engineer is already investigating before your business is.
- 4
Incident response — rehearsed, not improvised
Every client gets a documented incident-response plan, tabletop-tested at least annually. For regulated clients (healthcare, legal, financial), tabletop-tested quarterly. When a real event happens, we execute the plan — preserve evidence, contain impact, communicate with counsel and cyber carrier, manage the breach-notification timers (HIPAA 60-day, state laws vary). No client of ours has paid a ransom, and that's not luck — it's because the plan, the immutable backups, and the recovery rehearsal all exist before they're needed.
- 5
Compliance binder — evidence that's continuous, not scrambled
The audit you're worried about (SOC 2, HIPAA, CMMC, cyber-insurance renewal) goes well when you produce evidence the same day it's asked for. We instrument control evidence collection into the operating environment itself — access logs retained, MFA reports pulled monthly, backup-restore test results timestamped, training completions tracked per employee. When the auditor asks, the answer is ready.
Related case study
Healthcare
Woodlands Family Psychiatry
HIPAA posture across multiple locations, nine clinicians, and clinical-trial data.
Multi-location psychiatric practice in Spring and Conroe. Mako runs the IT that keeps patient portals up, PHI protected, and clinical-trial infrastructure compliant.
How switching works
Four steps. No disruption.
The #1 reason businesses stay with a bad MSP is the fear of switching. Here’s how we make that fear unfounded.
01
Discovery
We learn your environment, your people, and your real pain points. No sales-team script — actual technical conversation.
02
Plan
We audit and deliver a written plan — what stays, what gets replaced, what gets hardened, what the monthly number looks like. No surprises.
03
Transition
We take over day-to-day without disrupting your work. Your current provider's runbook, your access, your vendor relationships — we document every piece before anything changes hands.
04
Running
Proactive support, 24/7 monitoring, quarterly strategy reviews. Your people call, a real person answers. Typically 2–4 weeks from signed agreement to fully operational.
Typical timeline from signed agreement to fully operational: 2–4 weeks. We document everything so if you ever leave, the next provider picks up without starting over.
FAQ
Cybersecurity & Compliance — common questions.
Is Mako a compliance consultancy or an MSP?
We're an MSP that takes compliance seriously. For deep framework interpretation we partner with auditors and compliance consultants. For the technical controls and documentation that make you audit-ready, we do the work.
What's the difference between a Risk Review and an audit?
A Risk Review is our internal assessment — we find gaps and fix them. An audit is a third-party certifying that your controls work (SOC 2 report, HIPAA attestation, etc.). We prepare you for the audit; we don't issue it.
Do we need to be on your full Managed IT plan to get cybersecurity services?
No — we can do security-only engagements. But most compliance-sensitive clients end up fully managed because the two overlap so much.
Can you help with cyber insurance applications?
Yes. We'll complete the technical sections of your cyber insurance questionnaire accurately — which often saves meaningful money on premiums.
What if we already had a breach?
Call us first. We have an incident response playbook we can execute with or without being your current MSP. For existing clients, it's part of the contract.
Industries we do this for
Who relies on cybersecurity & compliance most
- HealthcareHIPAA-aware IT for mental health clinics, dental offices, and multi-location practices.
- CPAs & Accounting FirmsIRS Publication 4557 and WISP-compliant IT — built to survive tax season and cyber-insurance questionnaires.
- Law FirmsIT that treats attorney-client privilege the way a bar ethics committee expects — and that keeps you running the day a ransomware gang pivots to law-firm season.
Want to talk through cybersecurity & compliance?
Real person, real conversation, no pressure.