Security monitoring for small businesses, in plain English

Rules flag it and a person at oowl checks it. If we confirm it as urgent, we will contact your nominated person and help your IT provider act. How we reach you, and how fast, is still being built and tested, so we promise no response time yet. Anything less pressing goes into your monthly report, with steps your IT provider can follow. We check the fix in the next report.

The agent is designed to be light on memory and processing, and most people should not notice it. We will measure it on your computers during the settle weeks. It only sends data out, so nothing needs to be opened up on your network.

On oowl's monitoring server in an Australian data centre. One coded flow leaves Australia: alert details, with names, email addresses, usernames and device names replaced by codes, are sent to an AI provider (Anthropic, US) to help sort them, and may be kept there for up to 30 days. That part is running in oowl's own internal pilot, and the no-AI option avoids it. Reports are designed to reach you by email. How urgent messages reach you is still being built and tested.

oowl shield is set up not to collect the content of emails, files or documents. The Microsoft 365 connection (running in oowl's own internal pilot) is read-only and reads activity records such as sign-ins and mailbox rules, not messages.

No. oowl shield works alongside your existing IT provider or IT person. We watch and advise; they make the changes.

Yes. oowl shield isn't antivirus and doesn't block anything automatically on your computers. Keep Microsoft Defender for Business or similar.

Detection is automated and runs 24 hours a day. People at oowl review alerts in business hours; we do not monitor outside business hours. Shield Plus is planned to add a best-effort SMS after hours if we see a confirmed urgent issue (in development). oowl shield is not a 24/7 staffed security operations centre.

Monitoring covers work accounts and computers, so staff should be told before it starts. We are preparing a template notice for you to use. Employers may need to notify staff in advance, and some states (including NSW and the ACT) set specific written-notice rules, so take advice on what applies to you.

We plan on about three weeks from the first call to your baseline report. We estimate your IT provider's install at 30 to 60 minutes, then we spend two weeks learning what's normal for your business.

Those two settle weeks are for tuning out normal activity. After that, a person at oowl reviews an issue before we contact you, so we only contact you about things we think need action. We can't promise there will be no false alarms.

It may help you answer insurer questions. On Shield and Shield Plus we plan to provide a quarterly evidence summary set against the Essential Eight, and written evidence for insurer questionnaires, both in development. Insurers decide what they accept, and we do not give insurance advice. It is not an assessment or a certification.

A one-off setup fee equal to one month, then a monthly fee that starts after your baseline report. Plans start from A$490 a month for Watch, A$890 for Shield and A$1,490 for Shield Plus, in Australian dollars, ex GST. Your final price depends on how many devices you have (computers, phones, tablets and handhelds) and is confirmed in your written quote.

We remove the agents with your IT provider and disconnect Microsoft 365. Raw monitoring data is deleted automatically within 90 days, reports are kept for the period set out in your agreement, and we confirm the deletion in writing. The notice period is set out in your agreement.