Technology Advisor Blog

For many that are local with us, we share the news of Joann Fabrics, a beloved brand in the fabric and crafting world, filed for bankruptcy in February 2025. After 82 years of serving creative minds across the United States, the company announced that it would be closing all its stores down for good. This marks the end of an era for a company that has been a staple in the crafting community for generations including friends, family and loved ones.

IT spending choices directly impact your bottom line, with cloud solutions offering clear ways to control costs while building capabilities. Your technology investments - from email systems to cybersecurity tools - keep your company competitive without creating budget surprises.  I recall a conversation I had with a client years ago - a local business owner with about 25 employees - he said; "Ann, I just need all my tech to work, and at a reasonable price".  A lot has changed over the years - tech is so much more pervasive everywhere, and managing cyber risk is now a big part of it.  But the bottom line is the same:  IT spending choices directly impact your bottom line.

In a world where cyber attacks have become the great equalizer, no business - no matter how big or small - is immune. Many small enterprises mistakenly believe that cyber threats target only the giants, but in 2025, hackers are leveling the playing field. This report unveils the emerging trends in cybersecurity, exposing how vulnerabilities in small businesses can spell disaster and why investing in robust defenses is no longer optional but essential. Prepare to rethink your strategy and protect what matters most.

Cybersecurity threats to Microsoft 365 accounts can be reduced by 99.9% through one simple, free solution: multi-factor authentication. Only about one-third of users currently implement this powerful security measure!

Cybersecurity threats create unique challenges for small businesses. With smaller budgets and potentially weaker defenses, these companies often struggle to protect themselves against widespread attacks.  October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and this is a great time to step up your cybersecurity awareness training with your team!

Maybe you can relate to this: Your local business finally takes the plunge and starts getting serious about cybersecurity and suddenly things feel like they just got a lot harder for you. It’s the end of a long workday, and you go online to search for your favorite whiskey you want to enjoy over the weekend, and a security warning pops up that the site is blocked by your security. The website may be blocked because it falls into the broad category of “drugs and alcohol” but you’re not looking to abuse any substances, you’re just looking forward to enjoying a class of fine whiskey.

On Friday July 19, 2024, the world woke up to a major tech outage as a routine update from security software vendor CrowdStrike inadvertently caused computers to crash worldwide. Flights were cancelled, hospitals were shut down, and banking was disrupted. CrowdStrike clarified early in the day that the incident was NOT a cyber attack, but rather a (really) bad update, and a fix was available pretty quickly.  Still, undoing the damage was a major effort.  What can we learn from this?

The more you know about the various types of cyber scams out there, the safer you'll be online. We recently received a question from someone in our community who's doing a lot of hiring and reported that someone had posted a job on a spoofed website - "domaincareers.com" instead of "domain.com".  Why do scammers do this?  They're trying to trick people into providing personal information like a social security number and possibly financial information so they can steal it.  It is true that before you start a job, you'll need to give your employer your social security number and you'll probably want to set up direct deposit of a paycheck, but if a company is asking for this information too early, its a scam.   Both employers and potential employees need to know about these scams.

Business continuity planning helps your business operate nearly seamlessly in the event of a natural disaster, critical hardware malfunction, or even a cybersecurity breach. These events can cripple or even destroy your organization. But when you take precautions now before such things happen, you save yourself massive headaches down the road.