Insights
Practical insights for a safer business
Articles on managed IT, cybersecurity, and compliance for Pacific Northwest businesses.
Nov 10, 2026 · 11 min read
How to Make Sure Your Business Owns Its Domain Name
Article Summary: Your business should control the account where its domain is registered. The registration details, recovery methods, billing information, renewal settings, and DNS access should not depend on one employee, contractor, web designer, or IT provider. Once your webs…
Nov 5, 2026 · 10 min
How Hackers Keep Access to Your Email After You Change the Password
Summary: Changing the password blocks someone from signing in with the old password. However, they may still have an active session, a forwarding rule, access through a connected app, mailbox permissions, or a recovery method they added. When someone gets into a business email a…
Oct 30, 2026 · 11 min
How Long Business Computers Last and When to Replace Them
Summary: Three to five years is a practical replacement range for many business computers. The right time depends on security support, reliability, performance, warranty coverage, repair costs, and the employee’s work. Replace any computer that cannot run a supported operating s…
Oct 25, 2026 · 14 min
Small Business IT Budget: What to Include and How to Plan It
Summary: Your IT budget should include the technology you already use, the support required to maintain it, and the upgrades you expect to make during the year. It should also cover cybersecurity, backups, employee changes, planned projects, and a reserve for urgent repairs or r…
Oct 20, 2026 · 7 min
Why Guest Wi-Fi Should Be Separate From Your Business Network
Summary: Guest Wi-Fi should provide internet access while blocking connections to your internal business network. A different Wi-Fi name and password do not confirm that the networks are separated. The router, access points, and firewall must also be configured to prevent guest …
Oct 15, 2026 · 8 min
What Happens to Your Data When You Cancel a Cloud Service?
Summary: Before canceling a cloud service, export your data and confirm that the files can be opened or imported. Move any connected applications and sign-ins, then check the provider’s current rules for access, billing, retention, and deletion. A cloud service may hold years of…
Oct 10, 2026 · 10 min
Should Employees Use Personal Devices for Work?
Summary: Allow personal devices only for approved work, through approved apps, and when the device meets your security requirements. Use company-owned devices for administration, sensitive work, or jobs that require large amounts of data to be stored locally. Employees often use…
Oct 5, 2026 · 8 min
Why Your Employees Shouldn’t Have Administrator Access to Their Computers
Summary: Employees should use standard accounts for email, web browsing, and everyday work. Administrator access should be limited to approved IT tasks and protected with a separate account. Administrator access often starts with one request. An employee needs to install a print…
Sep 30, 2026 · 5 min
The 30-Minute IT Check Every Small Business Should Do Once a Month
Summary: Most IT problems don't appear out of nowhere. Backups quietly stop running, updates sit unfinished for weeks, and old staff accounts stay switched on for months. A short check once a month catches these while they're still cheap to fix. This post covers the six things t…
Sep 25, 2026 · 6 min
How to Keep Your Business Running When Microsoft 365 Goes Down
Summary: The tools that run your business, like Microsoft 365, your accounting app, or your booking system, are reliable most of the time, but they do go down. When one does, work can stop for hours, and you often can't do anything but wait for the provider to fix it. A simple p…
Sep 20, 2026 · 6 min
OneDrive or SharePoint? Where Your Business Files Should Live
Summary: If your business uses Microsoft 365, you have both OneDrive and SharePoint, and files usually end up scattered across them with no clear rule. OneDrive is for your own work, and SharePoint is for files the team shares. Getting this right makes files easier to find, safe…
Sep 15, 2026 · 6 min
Is Your Business Website a Security Risk?
Summary: Most small-business websites run on WordPress, and the biggest risk is usually old plugins that nobody has updated. Attackers scan the web for these known weak spots and use the sites they find to spread malware, post spam, or steal what visitors type into forms. Keepin…
Sep 10, 2026 · 5 min
Why You Should Scroll Past the First Result on Google
Summary: Scammers buy ads on Google and other search engines using the names of trusted brands and software, so their fake site shows up at the very top, above the real one. Click it and you can land on a fake page that steals your login or installs malware. You can avoid nearly…
Sep 5, 2026 · 6 min
How to Spot a Scam Email Now That They Look Real
Summary: Scammers now use AI to write their phishing emails, so the spelling and grammar mistakes that used to give them away are gone. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre and the FBI both warn that AI makes these messages cleaner, more personal, and harder to spot. The way …
Aug 30, 2026 · 5 min
What to Do in Case of a Cyberattack (Step by Step)
Article Summary: If your business is hit by a cyberattack, the first hour matters. Disconnect the affected devices from the network instead of powering them off, call your IT provider by phone, and leave the evidence in place. If money was wired to a scammer, call your bank righ…
Aug 25, 2026 · 6 min
What Are Passkeys, and Should Your Business Use Them?
Article Summary: A passkey lets you sign in to an app or website using the same fingerprint, face, or PIN you use to unlock your phone or laptop, with no password to type. It's built on a security standard called FIDO that can't be phished, because the passkey only works on the …
Aug 20, 2026 · 6 min
Still on Windows 10? Here's Why You're Putting Your Business at Risk
Article Summary: Windows 10 reached the end of Microsoft support on October 14, 2025, which means it no longer gets security updates. The computers still work, but any new flaw found in Windows 10 will never be fixed, which makes them easier to attack and can cause problems with…
Aug 15, 2026 · 7 min
QR Code Scams: What They Are and How to Protect Your Business
Article Summary: A QR code scam, sometimes called quishing, hides a malicious web link inside a QR code. Because the link is buried in an image instead of written as text, it slips past the email filters that normally catch bad links, and scanning the code usually moves the vict…
Aug 10, 2026 · 7 min
How to Stop Scammers from Sending Emails in Your Company's Name
Article Summary: Email spoofing is when a scammer sends a message that appears to come from your domain, often to trick your clients or staff into paying a fake invoice or changing banking details. Three DNS records (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) prove that a message really came from yo…
Aug 5, 2026 · 6 min
Who Can See What Your AI Note-Taker Records?
Article Summary: AI note-takers join your meetings, transcribe everything said, and save the recording and summary to the vendor's servers. Who can see that recording depends on the tool. Some keep your data inside your own Microsoft or Google environment and never use it for tr…
Jul 30, 2026 · 11 min
How Small Business Ransomware Attacks Work (And How to Protect Against Them)
Small businesses are the most common ransomware target by volume of incidents, even though many small business owners assume hackers focus on larger organizations. A 22-person company has enough revenue to be worth attacking, no dedicated security team to defend it, and a public…
Jul 15, 2026 · 11 min
How to Answer Cyber Insurance Renewal Questions Without Voiding Your Policy
If you have a cyber insurance renewal coming up, the application is probably longer than the one you filled in last time. It's also more specific. Each new question maps to a control that, if missing, allowed a major 2023 or 2024 claim to escalate. The wording reflects how carri…
Jun 30, 2026 · 4 min
Why Human Habits Are Your Biggest Security Risk
Most cyberattacks do not start with a sophisticated intrusion. They start with a click on a personal email, a reused password, or a file uploaded to a familiar cloud service because the approved option felt slower. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that 68% of …
Jun 15, 2026 · 4 min
What is Passkey Migration and How Can It Help Your Team Eliminate Passwords?
Your team locks everything down with passwords. Some are strong, some are not, and most have been reused somewhere over the years. Every month, IT fields reset requests. Every year, the same breach reports list stolen credentials as the leading cause. There is now a more effecti…
May 27, 2026 · 4 min
Micro-SaaS Vetting: The 5-Minute Security Check for Browser Add-ons
Browser add-ons have a funny reputation. They feel “small”. A quick install. A tiny productivity boost. A harmless little helper that lives in your toolbar. But in practice, a browser extension is more like a micro-SaaS vendor sitting inside your browser session. It can see what…
May 20, 2026 · 4 min
The "Backup Exit" Strategy: Can You Move Your Data Without the Vendor’s Help?
When you first sign up for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, everything is designed to feel effortless. The problem is that the first real test of a SaaS relationship isn’t the onboarding. It’s the exit. For many small businesses, the front door is wide open, but the emer…
May 15, 2026 · 4 min
The "Legacy Debt" Audit: Identifying the 3 Oldest Risks in Your Server Room
The most dangerous thing in a server room is often the phrase, “Don’t touch that.” It’s usually said with a half-joke and a grimace. It refers to the old box that “still works”, runs something important, and has survived so many fixes and workarounds that nobody feels confident …
May 15, 2026 · 4 min
LinkedIn "Social Engineering": Protecting Your Staff from Fake Recruitment Scams
A fake recruiter message is one of the cleanest social engineering tricks around because it doesn’t look like a trick. That’s why LinkedIn recruitment scams work so well inside real businesses. They don’t arrive as malware. They arrive as a normal conversation that nudges someon…
May 11, 2026 · 5 min
The "Session Cookie" Hijack: Why MFA Can’t Always Save You
MFA is a strong front-door lock. But it’s not the only thing that decides whether someone can get in. After you sign in, your browser keeps you logged in using a session token (often stored as a cookie). It’s the digital version of a wristband at an event: once you’ve been check…
May 1, 2026 · 5 min
"Clean Desk" 2.0: Securing Your Home Office from Physical Data Leaks
In the traditional office, a “Clean Desk” policy was a simple habit: shred the sensitive stuff, lock it away, and don’t leave passwords where someone can see them. In 2026, the same idea still matters but the “desk” has changed. For many teams, the home office is now the default…
Apr 30, 2026 · 4 min
The Essential Checklist for Securing Company Laptops at Home
At home, security incidents don’t look like dramatic movie hacks. They look like stepping away from your laptop during a delivery, or leaving it unlocked while you grab something from another room. Those ordinary moments, repeated over time, are how work devices end up exposed. …
Apr 25, 2026 · 5 min
The 2026 Guide to Uncovering Unsanctioned Cloud Apps
If you want to uncover unsanctioned cloud apps, don’t begin with a policy. Start with your browser history. The cloud environment most businesses actually use rarely matches the one shown on the IT diagram. It’s built through countless small shortcuts: a “just this once” file sh…
Apr 20, 2026 · 4 min
Stop Ransomware in Its Tracks: A 5-Step Proactive Defense Plan
Ransomware isn’t a jump scare. It’s a slow build. In many cases, it begins days, or even weeks, before encryption, with something mundane, like a login that never should have succeeded. That’s why an effective ransomware defense plan is about more than deploying anti-malware. It…
Apr 15, 2026 · 5 min
How to Run a "Shadow AI" Audit Without Slowing Down Your Team
It usually starts small. Someone uses an AI tool to refine a difficult email. Someone enables an AI add-on inside a SaaS app because it promises to save an hour a week. Someone pastes a paragraph into a chatbot to “make it sound better.” Then it becomes routine. And once it’s ro…
Mar 23, 2026 · 4 min
5 Security Layers Your MSP Is Likely Missing (and How to Add Them)
