A backup nobody has restored from is not a backup. It is a folder you are paying for.
Every month we pick a client at random and restore a real file to a scratch machine. It takes twenty minutes and it is the only way to know the job is actually running — plenty of backup software reports success while writing nothing useful.
Most ransomware we see arrives through email and waits. The window between someone clicking and the encryption starting is usually long enough to stop it, if anyone is watching. Disconnect the machine from the network first. Do not shut it down — a running machine keeps evidence that helps us work out what was reached….
Write down what changed. Nine times out of ten something did, and remembering it later is much harder than noting it now. Then check whether it is just you or everyone, and whether it is one system or all of them. Those two answers narrow it down faster than anything else, and they are the…
Moving the router usually shifts the dead spot rather than removing it. Wifi is blocked by what is in the walls, and offices are full of exactly the wrong things — steel studs, filing cabinets, mirrors, fish tanks. The fix is nearly always a second access point on a cable, not a better router or…
Screen, keyboard, and how long the warranty lasts. Almost everything else in a laptop spec sheet is irrelevant to normal office work. Buy business-grade rather than consumer, not for the performance but for the next-business-day warranty. A cheaper laptop that is away for three weeks costs more than the difference.
Multi-factor sign-in is the single cheapest thing you can do to stop an account takeover, and it is the one people push back on hardest. It adds about four seconds to your morning. Almost every compromised mailbox we are called out to had a strong password and no second factor. The password was not guessed…