Real Security vs Security Theatre: Are You Buying the Right Protection?

Fear Is Expensive

Cybersecurity vendors often lead with fear. Ransomware, phishing, compliance fines. And yes, there are real threats out there. But fear without direction leads to wasted money and a false sense of safety.

Too often, I see small businesses pitched the equivalent of a Rolls Royce when all they really needed was a reliable Toyota Corolla. That’s not just overkill, it’s poor strategy. Real security starts with knowing what you’re protecting and what it’s worth to your business.

Start With What Matters

Real security begins with asking: what are the critical things you’re trying to protect? For most small and mid-sized businesses, especially accounting firms and service companies, that list is pretty short. Client data. Financial records. Internal documents. Access to systems that let you do your work.

It’s not about locking everything down just in case. It’s about protecting what actually matters and making smart decisions with limited resources. The most secure business in the world is one that no longer functions. That’s not a win.

Security Theatre Is Easy to Buy Into

Security theatre is what happens when you buy protection that looks impressive but solves the wrong problems. A client once showed me their premium firewall with behavior analytics. It looked powerful on paper, but missed the fact that all of their apps were cloud-based. This is on top of having nobody actually monitoring the firewall or dealing with alerts, and no plan if a notification was triggered.

In that case, they didn’t have security. They had expensive theater.

The problem is, theatre feels like progress. It checks boxes. It gives the illusion of action. But without grounding those decisions in actual business needs, it’s just money spent with little to show for it.

Vendors Are Not Your Risk Advisors

Vendors are not bad actors. They’re doing their job, selling what they know. But they do not know your risk profile. They don’t know how your teams use data, what systems are most critical, or what your clients expect from you.

It’s not their job to know. It’s yours to inform them, and if you don’t know those things yourself, they’ll just recommend the most secure solution they can offer. That often means complexity, cost, and features you’ll never need.

Real security isn’t about the best tool. It’s about the right one.

Why You Need an Unbiased Assessment First

Before you even bring vendors into the conversation, take a step back. Look at your business from the outside. Where are the real risks? What kind of disruption could actually hurt your operations? Where are you duplicating tools or wasting time with overlapping security solutions?

This is where an unbiased cybersecurity assessment comes in. Done well, it identifies your critical data, your weak points, and how much risk is truly tolerable for your size and industry. It helps you prioritize the most effective actions, not the most expensive ones.

You walk away knowing where your time and budget should go. That way, when a vendor offers a solution, you can actually judge whether it fits the plan.

Real Security: Practical Over Perfect

Perfect security doesn’t exist. What you need is practical security. The kind that fits your budget. The kind that gets used. The kind your team understands.

The goal is not to chase every threat. It’s to reduce the chance that a major one ever gets through, and to know exactly what to do if it does. That’s real security.

Not a logo on a vendor slide deck. Not a blinking dashboard no one checks. Real, intentional protection for the things that keep your business running.