IT compliance programs for Watertown and North Country businesses
If a regulator, an insurer, or a big customer has asked about your IT compliance, we can help you build a program that holds up, and keep it running. Northern Computers has worked with Watertown businesses since 1999.
Our compliance work is led by Tom Riley, CISSP®.
What we do
- IT compliance program development, from scratch or fixing the one you have
- NY SHIELD Act compliance
- HIPAA privacy, security and compliance
- PCI DSS compliance for businesses that take cards
- CMMC and NIST SP 800-171 readiness for defense contractors
- NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation (23 NYCRR 500)
- Security risk assessments
- Written security policies: a 20+ policy suite built on NIST CSF 2.0
- Security awareness training, with records you can show
- Incident response planning
- Vendor risk review
- CIO-level consulting (vCIO)
Who we help
- Small and mid-size businesses in Watertown, Fort Drum and across Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Counties
- Municipalities and town offices
- Medical, dental and behavioral health practices
- Defense contractors working with Fort Drum and the DoD
- Insurance agencies, lenders and other businesses regulated by NYDFS
How a program gets built
Find out what applies
Which laws and contracts cover you, and what data you hold. Our free Compliance Check is a quick first pass.
Assess where you stand
A risk assessment of your network, accounts, devices and vendors.
Write it down
Policies and procedures fitted to your business, not a binder of templates. See our Governance Policy Suite.
Fix the gaps
Our managed IT, monitoring and backup teams put the controls in place, so the paperwork matches reality.
Keep it current
Training, reviews and updates every year, with the records to prove it.
Why it matters now
In October 2026, New York’s Attorney General settled with a pediatric health network and its IT company for $2.64 million after a breach exposed about 825,000 New Yorkers’ records. The gaps cited were basic: no incident response plan, no checks on the IT vendor, unencrypted records. A written, maintained program is what closes those gaps. Read the Attorney General’s release.
Common questions
Do I need a compliance program if I’m a small business?
If you hold New Yorkers’ private information, the SHIELD Act requires reasonable safeguards, scaled to your size. A program is how you show that.
We already have antivirus and a firewall. Isn’t that enough?
Tools help, but regulators look for written policies, risk assessments, training and a response plan.
Can you work with our current IT provider?
Yes. We can build and run the program while they handle day-to-day IT, or handle both.
How long does it take?
For most small organizations, the first version is in place within weeks, not months.
Get started
Take the free Compliance Check, or call (315) 779-1385 for a free solutions review.
Get a Free Solutions Review