Advantage I.T.

A short power cut can shut down your server, firewall or network equipment. A UPS battery gives those devices time to stay on or shut down safely. Ask your IT provider which equipment has power protection and when the batteries were last tested.

Check what people outside your company can see on your work calendar. Meeting titles may reveal client names, projects, interviews or travel plans. External users usually only need to see whether you're free or busy.

RingCentral says a social engineering campaign led to a breach affecting about 1.6 million accounts. Names, email addresses, phone numbers and physical addresses were exposed. If someone contacts you about your account, call RingCentral on its official support number.

RingCentral data breach exposed info of 1.6 million accounts The ShinyHunters extortion group stole personal information from 1.6 million RingCentral accounts after hacking the company in July, according to the data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned.

Your bin might be the easiest place to steal your customer data from. Invoices, bank statements and employee files go in the rubbish and anyone can pull them back out. One rule: personal, financial or customer info gets shredded, not binned. Use a cross-cut shredder.

An email from a supplier says their bank details have changed. You update them, pay the invoice, and the money goes to a criminal. Sometimes the supplier's own account was hacked, so it's genuinely from them. Never change bank details without calling on a number you already have.

Researchers found the DragonForce ransomware group hiding inside normal Microsoft Teams traffic, undetected for up to two months. Their malware disguised its connection as ordinary Teams activity. Basic antivirus misses this. Ask your IT provider if what you have would catch it.

DragonForce Hackers Abuse Microsoft Teams Relays to Hide Backdoor.Turn C2 Traffic DragonForce-linked hackers used Backdoor.Turn to route C2 traffic through Microsoft Teams relay infrastructure during a U.S. firm attack.

When did anyone last look closely at your card terminals? Skimmers get attached and terminals get swapped, and neither is obvious unless someone checks. Look at each one at the start of the day. If it looks different or loose, stop using it and call your provider.

You've thought about what you'd do in a cyberattack, but have you practiced it? Sit your key people down for an hour and talk it through: files encrypted Monday morning. Who do we call first? Can we reach our contacts with email down? Note what nobody could answer.

Microsoft will never call you about a virus on your computer. Neither will Apple. If a pop-up or a caller says your machine is infected and wants you to call a number, install something or pay, it's a scam. Close it or hang up, then call your own IT provider if you're worried.

If you want your team to work fast, don't skimp on their computers or your internet.

Everything moves quicker than it used to. Customers want fast replies, and the jobs often go to whoever gets back to them first. Your team can't be quick if their tools are slow.

A laptop that takes an age to load, internet that keeps dropping, cheap software that hangs, all of it means your people spend half the day waiting around and working out ways past the problem. It's frustrating, and good staff hate not being able to get on with the job because of the gear they've been given.

Spend a bit more here and you get it back. The work goes faster, and people are happier doing it.

You don't need top-of-the-range everything. You just need computers and a connection that are quick and reliable enough to stay out of your team's way.