Yes. Smahh conducts comprehensive security assessments and penetration tests covering web applications, APIs, cloud environments, and network infrastructure. Our certified ethical hackers simulate real-world attacks to identify vulnerabilities before malicious actors do. Every assessment ends with a written report, prioritised findings, and remediation guidance. We serve businesses across Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, and the broader ANZ region.

Yes — backend and application development is one of Smahh's primary technology services. We build production-grade backends in Python (FastAPI, Django) and Node.js (Express, Fastify), serverless architectures on AWS Lambda, and complete full-stack web applications using React and Next.js. Every project is threat-modelled before development begins and delivered with full documentation. We also offer ongoing maintenance plans for applications we build or inherit.

Our Security Services focus on protecting existing systems — through penetration testing, cloud security architecture reviews, and cybersecurity awareness training for your team. Our Technology Services focus on building new systems with security engineered in from the start — backends, serverless APIs, DevOps pipelines, and web applications. Many clients use both: we build their system and then test it, or assess their existing system and then optimise it.

Security protocols should be reviewed quarterly and updated whenever significant changes occur to your IT environment, after any incident, or when new threats emerge. For software, Smahh recommends scheduled dependency updates monthly and critical security patches applied immediately. Our maintenance plans handle this automatically — monitoring dependencies, applying patches, and delivering monthly reports so you always know the current security and performance status of your applications.

Yes. Smahh helps organisations meet compliance requirements relevant to New Zealand and Australian businesses, including the NZ Privacy Act 2020, Australian Privacy Act 1988, PCI DSS for payment processing, ISO 27001 frameworks, ISO/IEC 42001 for AI management systems, and Essential 8 (Australian Cyber Security Centre's mitigation strategies). Whether you are building a new system that needs to be compliant from day one, or auditing an existing system against regulatory requirements, our team combines security and technology expertise to assess, document, and implement what is required.

Yes — Cybersecurity Awareness Training is one of Smahh's core security services. Over 90% of successful cyberattacks begin with a human action. Our training programmes include phishing simulations, secure data handling workshops, social engineering defence, and role-specific modules tailored to your industry and team. Training can be delivered as workshops, online modules, or ongoing security bulletins. We serve businesses across New Zealand and Australia including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Sydney, and Melbourne.

Our DevOps service covers CI/CD pipeline design and setup (GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline), infrastructure as code (Terraform, AWS CloudFormation), container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, ECS), cloud cost optimisation, monitoring and observability, and DevSecOps — security scanning integrated directly into the build pipeline. We work with AWS, Azure, and GCP. A typical outcome is 3–10× faster deployment cycles and 20–40% reduction in cloud infrastructure spend.

Our incident response process follows a proven methodology: containment to limit damage, eradication of the threat, recovery of affected systems, and thorough post-incident analysis to prevent recurrence. We maintain defined procedures for different threat types — ransomware, data exfiltration, account compromise, and denial of service events. Smahh's security background means we understand not just how to recover from an incident, but how to redesign the affected systems to prevent the same attack class from succeeding again.

Website and application maintenance is an ongoing service covering security patches and dependency updates, performance monitoring, uptime monitoring and incident response, content and minor feature updates, database backups, and compliance monitoring. Smahh offers three tiers: Essential (small sites, next-business-day response), Growth (business sites with regular content, 4-hour response), and Business (web applications, 1-hour response with a dedicated engineer). All plans are monthly with no lock-in. Custom enterprise plans are available for large or multi-application environments.

Yes — Smahh serves clients across both countries. Key cities include Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Tauranga in New Zealand, and Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide in Australia. We are a remote-first team and work with clients across the ANZ region without requiring on-site presence, though we do conduct on-site engagements for security assessments and team training where appropriate.

A simple internal tool or admin panel typically ranges from NZD 20,000–50,000. A mid-complexity SaaS product ranges from NZD 80,000–200,000. A full enterprise platform with mobile integration and compliance requirements starts at NZD 200,000+. Smahh provides fixed-price estimates after a discovery session — no open-ended hourly billing on project work. For penetration testing and security assessments, pricing is scoped per engagement based on the surface area and depth of testing required.

For backend development, we primarily use Python (FastAPI, Django, Flask) and Node.js (Express, Fastify, NestJS). For serverless, we build on AWS Lambda with Python and Node.js. For full-stack applications, we use React, Next.js, and TypeScript on the frontend. For DevOps, we work with Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, Docker, Kubernetes, and GitHub Actions. We choose technologies based on your requirements, team capabilities, and long-term maintainability — not trends.

Yes — API Performance & Optimisation is one of our core technology services. We diagnose slow database queries, N+1 query problems, missing indexes, inefficient data structures, and backend bottlenecks. Our process includes performance profiling, database query analysis, caching strategy review, and load testing. Most clients see 3–10× performance improvements after optimisation. We work with PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, and other common databases.

Yes — ongoing support and maintenance is available for all projects we deliver. Our maintenance plans include security patching, dependency updates, performance monitoring, uptime monitoring, bug fixes, and minor feature updates. We offer three tiers (Essential, Growth, Business) with different response times and support levels. Many clients start with a project engagement and transition to a maintenance plan once the system is live. All maintenance plans are month-to-month with no lock-in contracts.

We primarily work with AWS (Amazon Web Services) and have deep expertise in serverless architectures, Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, RDS, S3, CloudFront, and more. We also work with Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for clients with existing infrastructure on those platforms. Our cloud security architecture service covers all three major cloud providers. For DevOps and infrastructure as code, we use Terraform which works across all cloud platforms.

Project timelines vary based on complexity. A simple REST API or internal tool typically takes 4–8 weeks. A mid-complexity SaaS product with authentication, payments, and core features takes 12–20 weeks. A full enterprise platform with integrations and compliance requirements takes 6–12 months. Smahh works in 2-week sprints with regular demos and feedback cycles. We provide a detailed timeline and milestone breakdown after the discovery phase.

Smahh serves businesses across multiple industries including fintech and financial services, healthcare and medical technology, e-commerce and retail, SaaS and software companies, education and training, government and public sector, professional services, and manufacturing. Our security-first approach is particularly valued by regulated industries where compliance and data protection are critical. We have experience with industry-specific requirements including PCI DSS, HIPAA-equivalent standards, and financial services regulations.