INSIDE THIS ISSUE
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
PRST STD 
US POSTAGE 
PAID 
BOISE, ID 
PERMIT 411
6 Questions Smart Companies Ask 
Their IT Provider Every Quarter ... 1
How SMB Leaders Can Build 
a Workplace People Don’t 
Want to Leave ... 3
The Most Dangerous Risks in Your 
Business Don’t Swim on the Surface ... 4
On the surface, the water looks calm.
That’s what makes Shark Week fascinating every 
year. The danger is rarely visible right away. It’s 
what’s already moving underneath.
Cybercriminals operate the same way. The 
threats businesses face are designed to blend 
in with normal operations until the moment 
something breaks, money moves or systems 
go down.
During the summer, when schedules shift, 
employees travel and oversight gets thinner, 
attackers know businesses are often paying 
less attention.
Here are three ways they’re circling right now.
1. Fake invoices and vendor 
impersonation
Attackers don’t need to hack anything. They 
need just one believable email.
Business email compromise (BEC) works by 
impersonating a vendor, supplier or executive 
your team already trusts. The email arrives 
looking normal, someone pays the “vendor,” and 
by the time anyone realizes it wasn’t legitimate, 
the damage is done.
These attacks spike during vacation season. When 
the person who normally approves payments is 
out, requests get rerouted to people who don’t 
know what normal looks like. Temporary stand-
ins are less likely to question urgency.
The fix: Build a verification process for any 
financial request via email. A quick confirmation 
call to a known number stops most of these 
before they go anywhere.
2. Phishing attacks that target 
distracted employees
Phishing works because it’s engineered around 
how people behave when they’re busy. A distracted 
employee sees a password reset and clicks. 
DON’T SWIM ON THE SURFACE
THE MOST DANGEROUS RISKS IN YOUR BUSINESS 
Someone gets a text from “IT.” An email arrives before 
a meeting requesting urgent approval.
Nobody stops to verify because stopping feels like 
losing time.
The fix: Employees need to feel comfortable slowing 
down when something seems off—an unexpected 
login, a payment instruction out of nowhere or a link 
they weren’t expecting. Speed is a weapon attackers use 
against you. Slowing down is how you take it away.
3. Third-party risks that travel fast
When a vendor with access to your systems is 
compromised, the threat travels directly into your 
environment. This supply chain exposure is often far 
greater than businesses realize. Software tools, service 
providers with credentials and contractors with 
lingering access all present paths most owners have 
never mapped.
Outsourcing a service doesn’t outsource accountability.
Answer these three questions:
•	
Which vendors can access your data or systems?
•	
What are they connecting to?
•	
Who is responsible internally for managing 
those relationships?
If those answers aren’t clear, your exposure is 
increasing your risk.
Technology That Works!    •    844-KLOUD9IT (556-8394)    •    4
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