CANADA NEXTECH / 75-SECOND EXPLAINER
Cybersecurity: your first practical review
A short visual explainer showing how a Canadian small business can turn a cybersecurity review into practical actions and evidence.
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NOW PUT IT TO WORK
Small Business Cybersecurity Checklist
Work through 12 checks and record evidence, owners and next steps.
Full transcript
The video uses on-screen text throughout. The complete explanations are also available here.
Start with the essentials.
A practical cybersecurity review begins with the work your business needs to keep doing.
Know what matters.
List your essential services, the information they depend on, and the person responsible for each one.
Protect the accounts.
Prioritize multi-factor authentication for email and administration. Check recovery methods and remove access that is no longer needed.
Maintain the devices.
Give updates and device protection a named owner. Agree how relevant fixes are checked and how exceptions are tracked.
Test a small recovery.
Choose an authorized restore test in a separate location. Confirm that a recovered sample actually opens and is useful.
Make reporting simple.
Give the team a trusted way to report suspicious messages and unexpected sign-in prompts. Keep incident contacts accessible.
Pick the next three moves.
Choose three unresolved checks. Give each an owner and target date, then set a date to review progress.
Put it into practice.
Use the Canada NexTech checklist with your team or IT provider. It supports planning and is not a security certification.
Sources behind the guidance
Prepared by Canada NexTech. Source guidance checked October 28, 2026.
- Cyber Centre: Baseline controls for small and medium organizations ↗
- Cyber Centre: Foundational security actions (ITSAP.10.300) ↗
- Cyber Centre: How updates secure your device (ITSAP.10.096) ↗
- Get Cyber Safe: Cyber security checklist ↗
This is independent educational material, not an endorsement by the source organizations. Apply the guidance to your own systems with the person responsible for your IT. A completed checklist is not a certification or a complete security assessment.