2 Dog Digital

Reviews like this remind us why we do what we do.

Well... this review deserves an extra Milk-Bone.

Daniel, thank you for trusting my humans with your business and for taking the time to share your experience. Reviews like this never get old.

Love ya,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮 🐾
𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘛𝘢𝘪𝘭-𝘞𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘳

I regret to inform you that the hackers have a robot vacuum

Okay, not literally.

But they've got AI doing their dirty work while they sleep.

Ami DePierro got one of those robot vacuums for her birthday.

The cats are not handling it well.

Every morning that little machine wakes up, starts rolling through the house, and sends six perfectly innocent felines into a state of complete panic. You'd think a military invasion was underway.

Meanwhile, Ami sits on the couch drinking coffee while the robot does the work.

Which, frankly, is the dream.

Unfortunately, cybercriminals had the same idea.

They're using something called Agentic AI to do some of their work for them. Instead of manually targeting businesses all day, they can use AI to help find opportunities, adapt attacks, and operate at a scale that would've taken far more effort just a few years ago.

The difference is a robot vacuum mostly terrorizes cats.

Agentic AI can terrorize your business.

And if you're thinking, "We're too small to be a target," that's exactly why business owners need to understand what's changing. AI allows criminals to cast a much wider net than ever before.

Digit dug into what Agentic AI means for small businesses and what practical steps you should be taking now.

Blog in the links 👇

Love and Common Sense,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮 🐾



https://2dogdigital.com/ai-powered-cyberattacks-target-small-Veteran Owned Business Directory

AI-Powered Cyberattacks Just Got Smarter. Agentic AI Is Why. - 2 Dog Digital AI-powered cyberattacks now run without a human. Agentic AI targets your business automatically. Here's what it does and how to stop it. 2 Dog Digital.

Digit called me over to his computer the other day and said, "Dottie, my storage is full. Again."

I looked at the screen.
I looked at him.

I said, "Sugar, do you know what's taking up all that space?"
He had no idea.

Turns out he'd been backing up his phone to that computer for three years.

Every screenshot. Every photo of a receipt. Every duplicate of every duplicate.
Sixty-two gigabytes of the same picture of a tire.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've got a bark reflex that kicks in every time I see someone paying for something they already own.

And that includes storage.

But here's the part that really gets me: it's not just receipts and screenshots.

It's the fifteen photos Ami DePierro's phone took of the same plate of food until the lighting was right.

It's all those photos of presentation screens that she didn't want to forget and promptly did.

It's the forty-two shots of the same cat in the same sunbeam. (Why she has more pictures of the cats than me is the question of the ages)

It's the group photo where it took 15 takes to make sure everyone had their eyes open.

Every single one of those is sitting on your server. Backing up to the cloud. costing you money.

Here's the thing: most businesses are paying extra for Microsoft 365 seats, extra OneDrive space, extra cloud storage… because nobody ever went through and said "do we actually need this?"

Duplicate photos. Duplicate documents. The same receipt backed up six times from six different devices.

It adds up faster than you think.

𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐓𝐢𝐩 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲:
This week, go through your work computers and run a duplicate-file finder. Turn on OneDrive Files On-Demand so you can actually see what's living on your machine. And before you upload something big, ask: "Is this already here?"

Storage isn't free.
And duplicates are the quietest little thief in your business.

Love and a Little Common Sense,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮 🐾

Richard DePierro has a toolbox in the shed out back.

A very large toolbox.

A toolbox so large I suspect some of the drawers have their own zip code.

And Ami DePierro will attest, that owning the tools does not automatically complete the project.

I mention this because CISA is warning Fortinet customers after a credential-harvesting campaign exposed access to tens of thousands of devices.

And the thing that caught my attention wasn’t the technology.

It was how many business owners assume that once they buy a security product, the security part is handled forever.

Humans do this with all sorts of things.

They buy the truck and skip the oil changes.
They build the deck and forget to seal it.
They install the smoke detector and never check the battery.
They put in a new air conditioner and forget to change the filters.

Then they act surprised when maintenance comes knocking… often louder than your mama when you track mud in the house right after she mopped the floors.

Cybersecurity is no different.

A firewall is an important tool.
It’s still just a tool.

If your company uses Fortinet, this would be a good week to:
• Verify your FortiGate devices are fully patched
• Review administrator accounts and remove any that are no longer needed
• Change credentials if there is any concern they may have been exposed
• Make sure MFA is enabled wherever possible
• Review logs for unusual login activity
• Confirm someone is actively monitoring security alerts

This isn’t a reason to panic.

It’s a reminder that security is not something you buy.

It’s something you maintain.

Kind of like the house.

Or the truck.

Or that giant toolbox in the garage that somehow never puts itself away.

Love and Common Sense,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮🐾

Who let the dogs out?

Richard DePierro and Ami DePierro went to the Durham Bulls game last night… and when I say "they," I mean they.

As in, I stayed home because it was about 900 degrees outside and my humans are smart enough to know that a fur coat and a hot car don't mix.

But here's the good part: they were there as guests of Group Management Services, their payroll and benefits manager, who is celebrating 30 years in business.

THIRTY YEARS.

That is not a small thing, y'all. That's a "your great-grandmother probably did payroll by hand" era of staying power.

So here's to GMS! Thank you for having Rich and Ami out, and happy 30th. We hope you folks had a spectacular night.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lie on the coldest tile in the house and dream of hot dogs I will never eat.

🐾💙 𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮

Y'all ever notice that the first instinct when something isn't working right is to get on Amazon and buy a gadget?

Laptop running hot?
Cooling pad.

Wi-Fi acting up?
Wi-Fi booster.

Not drinking enough water?
Smart water bottle.

Can't sleep?
A machine that sounds like a thunderstorm trapped in a washing machine.

Humans do love buying things.

I was talking with a client whose laptop sounded like a crop duster circling the county fair. They were ready to order a cooling pad before we even looked at the computer.

Turns out the poor thing was sitting on a blanket.

Bless its heart.

Before you spend money, check the basics:

• Make sure vents are clear and airflow isn't blocked
• Use your laptop on a hard surface
• Clean dust from the vents occasionally
• Keep papers and clutter from covering airflow openings

Now, if you're running a gaming laptop or heavy-duty applications like CAD, engineering software, video editing, AI tools, or rendering software, a quality cooling pad or elevated stand may help.

Notice I said quality.

Some cooling pads help. Some are just noisy dust collectors with a marketing department.

For most office users, the biggest improvement comes from giving the laptop room to breathe.

Turns out technology and Southern grandmothers agree on at least one thing:

Everybody needs a little fresh air.

With Love and a Little Common Sense,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮 🐾

The thing that still amazes me about this scam is that somebody thought I would believe sending them a verification code would somehow prove I owned the cat.

I was already searching the neighborhood, shaking treats, crawling through bushes, and questioning every life choice that had led me to that moment.

What I was not doing was handing over account access to a stranger on the internet.

The cat eventually came home.

No explanation. No apology. No acknowledgement that half the neighborhood had been looking for him.

He walked in, ate dinner, and acted like we'd all been overreacting.

Which is pretty much the cat version of gaslighting.

Y'all ever notice how some people collect stories the way other people collect coffee mugs?

That's Ami DePierro.

Now, if you look through her photos, you'll find mountains, travel adventures, skydiving, bungee jumping, and all sorts of things that make perfectly sensible people say, "Absolutely not."

The funny part?

She's extremely afraid of heights.

That's Ami in a nutshell.

Not fearless.

Just willing to do the thing anyway.

I've watched her tackle challenges the same way she tackles everything else.

One step at a time.
A lot of determination.
And occasionally a level of stubbornness that ought to be studied by professionals.

That attitude shows up at 2 Dog Digital every day.

She's the person behind the scenes keeping projects moving, solving problems, building processes, helping clients, managing marketing, supporting our team, and making sure important things don't fall through the cracks.

She's the one asking questions nobody else thought to ask.

The one connecting people who need to know each other.

The one who sees a problem and starts figuring out how to fix it.

And when she's not doing all that, she's usually volunteering somewhere, helping a business owner, supporting veterans, organizing an event, or planning the next adventure that scares her just enough to make it interesting.

That's probably what I admire most.

Not that she isn't afraid.

It's that she rarely lets fear make the final decision.

So today we're celebrating our co-founder, Director of Operations, professional problem-solver, community builder, and collector of stories.

Happy Birthday, Ami.

We'd tell you to take the day off, but let's not get carried away.
Somebody around here still has to remember where everything is.

Love ya,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮 🐾💙

You see a sign. I see volunteers duct-taping a miracle together.

Ami DePierro is headed to a Raleigh Crime Stoppers board meeting 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 to start planning the next golf tournament, and it reminded me of this photo.

Now, isn't that a pretty sign?

That's the part everybody sees.

What they 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 s the volunteer work behind it...
the emails, the phone calls, the sponsor wrangling, the prize sorting, the “what if it rains?” planning…

…all the little details that multiply faster than kittens in a barn.

Bless them.

Community work has a funny way of looking simple from the outside.

You see a successful event.

You don't see the meetings that got it there.

For the past 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬, 2 Dog Digital has been proud to be a 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐫 for Raleigh CrimeStoppers. But the real champions are the folks who keep showing up long after the photo is taken.

The volunteers.
The board members.
The sponsors who come back year after year.
The people who care enough to keep pulling on the same rope.

That's what this picture reminds me of.

Not the sign.
The people standing behind it.

Now if you'll excuse me, Ami's fixing to spend the next few months helping plan a golf tournament, which means somewhere a spreadsheet is about to grow three sizes.

🐾💙 𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮

I once watched somebody buy an air fryer with enough buttons to control air traffic.

A year later they were still using exactly one setting.

At that point they basically owned a very expensive ON button.

Technology is funny that way.

Most businesses aren't suffering from a lack of tools.

They're suffering from a lack of time to learn the tools they already have.

That's why Microsoft 365 Copilot is so interesting right now.

Most people know about the email-writing part.

What they don't always realize is it can help with meetings, presentations, spreadsheets, documents, research, organization, and a whole pile of tasks that quietly eat up the workday.

If you're already paying for Microsoft 365, it might be worth knowing what else is hiding under the hood.

We rounded up some Copilot features you may not be using but probably should.

Your Favorite Scottie,
𝓓𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓮 🐾

Microsoft 365 Copilot Features Your Team Is Paying for and Not Using - 2 Dog Digital Most businesses use Copilot for meeting notes and email drafts. The Microsoft 365 Copilot features that actually save time are sitting in apps your team already has open.