An employee leaves the company. Two weeks later, someone needs to change a Microsoft 365 setting. The password works, but the verification code goes to the former employee’s personal phone. Then another problem surfaces. That employee was also the only person who could manage the company’s email accounts. The router password is saved on their old computer. The company’s QuickBooks file still lists an outside bookkeeper as the primary administrator. Nobody is certain who contr

It happens fast. An email arrives that looks like a shipping notification, a payment confirmation, or a message from someone the employee recognizes. They click the link. A page loads, or nothing happens, and within a few seconds the question sets in: was that real? What happens next matters more than the click itself. The businesses that handle these situations best are usually the ones that already have a plan. Steven Burstyn has worked with businesses that caught an incide

Most small business owners think about this at some point, usually right after a close call. A computer freezes. Work stops for an hour. Someone says, half-joking and half-serious, “What happens if this thing dies?” For a lot of businesses, the honest answer is not a good one. Not because the scenario is unusual, but because nobody has really worked through it. The Question Worth Asking Before It Happens Hard drives fail. It is not a matter of whether it will happen, only whe

Most people picture a malware infection as an obvious event. A pop-up warning, a locked screen, a message demanding payment. That attack exists, but it is not the most common one. More often, malware runs quietly. It sits on a machine for days, weeks, or months before anyone notices. By the time the damage is visible, it has already been done. How Infections Actually Happen Small businesses are not randomly targeted. They are opportunistically compromised. Attackers cast a wi