Endpoint Protection Rollout for Australian SMBs: Catch the Credential Theft Before It Becomes a Fake-Invoice Email

A staff member at your business clicks a link in what looks like a Microsoft 365 login prompt and types their password. Nothing visibly breaks. Two weeks later an attacker is reading their inbox, has set a quiet auto-forwarding rule on a supplier thread, and is preparing the email that will redirect your next invoice payment. Business Email Compromise rarely begins in the inbox — it begins on an endpoint, with credential theft, a token stolen from a browser, or info-stealer malware that nobody noticed. Endpoint Protection Rollout from Cyber by Exegesis is the engagement that puts proper detection on every laptop, mobile, and server in an Australian SMB so the precursor activity surfaces before the fake invoice goes out.

The problem

ACCC Scamwatch consistently reports business email compromise as one of the highest-loss scam categories affecting Australian businesses. The visible part of a BEC is an email; the invisible part is almost always an endpoint that has been quietly compromised — usually weeks earlier — through a phishing link, a malicious document, or a stolen browser session token.

Most Australian SMBs still rely on the antivirus that came bundled with their operating system, with no centralised visibility, no alert routing, and no one whose job it is to look at detections. The ACSC Small Business Cyber Security Guide is consistent on this point: SMBs need to be able to see what is happening on their devices, not just hope built-in defaults catch it. Without that visibility, a credential-theft event on one laptop becomes a mailbox takeover, which becomes a redirected invoice, which becomes a possible eligible data breach reportable to the OAIC under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

What an Endpoint Protection Rollout does

Cyber by Exegesis runs a fixed-scope engagement to put a working endpoint detection and response (EDR) layer across your business:

• Selection of an EDR tool appropriate to your size, tenant (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), and existing device estate — laptops, mobiles, and servers.
• Deployment across all in-scope endpoints, with a documented inventory at handover.
• Alert routing configured so detections land somewhere a human will actually see them — not buried in a console no one opens.
• A 30-day tuning window where we triage detections, suppress noisy false positives, and lift signal-to-noise to a level your business can sustain.
• A short written report covering what was deployed, what was tuned, and what remains for you to review at 90 days.

Cyber by Exegesis is the cyber consultancy line of Exegesis, the same company behind the DRMO live product. This engagement is preventive and detective — we set the controls and the alert path; we are not your MSP and we are not your incident responder.

How it works

1. We confirm scope on a short call: endpoint count by type, operating systems, mobile device management state, and email tenant.
2. We propose two or three EDR tools that suit your size and tenant, and you pick one. We do not resell — the licence is yours.
3. We deploy the agent across endpoints in waves (pilot group → general rollout) over one to two weeks so you see no operational disruption.
4. We configure alert routing — to an inbox, a chat channel, or a managed reviewer — and document the runbook for what to do when a detection fires.
5. We run a 30-day tuning window, then deliver the written report and a 90-day review checkpoint.

Why this matters in Australia

BEC is a national-scale problem for Australian SMBs, not a capital-city one. ACCC Scamwatch reporting reflects losses across every state and territory, and the pattern is the same regardless of postcode: a quiet endpoint compromise weeks before the fraudulent invoice. For SMBs caught by the OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches scheme — turnover above $3M, or specific sectors regardless of turnover — an unmanaged endpoint estate also means you may not be able to assess whether a suspected breach is eligible for notification within the statutory timeframe. Putting a real EDR layer in place, properly tuned, closes that visibility gap for less than the cost of a single redirected supplier payment.

Sources

• ACSC Small Business Cyber Security Guide: https://www.cyber.gov.au/protect-yourself/resources-protect-yourself/personal-cyber-security-guides
• ACCC Scamwatch (National Anti-Scam Centre): https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/
• OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches scheme: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/notifiable-data-breaches
• ACSC Essential Eight Maturity Model (endpoint hardening context): https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/essential-eight/essential-eight-maturity-model
• Cyber by Exegesis — Endpoint Protection Rollout (waitlist)

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when Cyber by Exegesis opens Endpoint Protection Rollout for Australian SMBs

We are sequencing engagements by endpoint count and by tenant type (Microsoft 365 first, Google Workspace second). Join the waitlist with your endpoint count and current email tenant — we will tell you when we are ready to take a brief from your business.