Happy Friday! Here’s what’s on deck this week: a quick tip you can use today, the latest cybersecurity news worth knowing, and a reminder on how to make the most of your P3C support.
Thank you for reading. Stay safe out there.
– Brad Otto
Tip of the Week
Surge Protector or Battery Backup? Know the Difference
A surge protector and a battery backup (UPS) are not the same thing. A surge protector guards your equipment against sudden voltage spikes from lightning, utility hiccups, or big appliances kicking on, but when the power goes out, so does everything plugged into it. A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) has a battery inside that keeps things running through a short outage, giving you time to save your work and shut down properly. Most include surge protection too.
Put your desktop computer, modem, router, and firewall on a UPS. Monitors, chargers, and printers are fine on a surge protector. Laser printers should never go on the battery side of a UPS, because they draw too much power.
Common mistakes to avoid:
• Don’t daisy-chain power strips or surge protectors (plugging one into another). It overloads the circuit and is a real fire hazard.
• Don’t use an extension cord that isn’t rated for the load you’re putting on it.
• Surge protectors wear out. Replace one after a major surge or when its “protected” light goes dark.
• UPS batteries usually last 3–5 years.
IT Vocab of the Week
Hard Drive
The hard drive in your computer is where your data is stored. It’s sometimes called “non-volatile” memory because it keeps your stuff stored even when the computer is off. (We’ll talk about volatile memory another day…)
The hard drive is NOT the entire box sitting on your desk. That box is so much more: it’s a computer with many parts inside, and the hard drive is just one of them.
Is your computer running slow? Lower-budget computers often come with a slower hard drive inside. We frequently upgrade those drives, usually to a faster solid-state drive (SSD), to give a slightly older computer a real performance boost.
Cybersecurity News
The Pop-Up That Called for Backup (and It Wasn’t the Bank)
Last week, a client got a pop-up warning that people were trying to break into his accounts. It asked for his phone number so “the bank” could help. Minutes later, his phone rang. The friendly voice on the other end walked him through letting them connect to his computer, and they stayed connected for 20 to 30 minutes.
It wasn’t his bank. It was an attacker.
As soon as he called us, we disconnected the attacker, removed the remote access tool they had installed, and had him pull the network cable on that PC. We changed his email password from a separate, clean computer, then walked him through the next steps: reset his account passwords, turn on multi-factor authentication everywhere he could, and call his bank and credit card companies to lock things down, using only the phone numbers printed on the back of his cards.
Here’s the part that matters most: this client had chosen not to be on a proactive protection plan. He had some à la carte services, but none of the layered, lock-it-down protections that would have stopped the remote tool from ever running. Security is layers. When you skip them, a single click and a single phone call are all it takes. And as we all know, once you let Dracula in the door, you’re in grave danger. 🧛
The good news: the client has since decided to move to a plan with zero-trust protections, so this door gets bolted shut.
Read more about fake pop-ups in last week’s Friday Firewall →
Working With P3C
Your Contractors Are Part of Your Security, Too
Do you hire contractors? Do you know how they protect their own computers before you let them into your data and applications?
We recently saw this with a client who brought in a third-party fractional CFO. They gave him full access to their systems from his own computer and communicated with him through his own email account. What nobody knew: an attacker was lurking in that CFO’s inbox, quietly reading every email. Then the attackers called him, posing as our client’s IT support.
A single compromise on a contractor’s PC can let an attacker log every keystroke, capturing usernames, passwords, and anything else that person types while working in your systems.
Contractors are a great way to delegate work or bring in expertise you don’t have in-house. But you need to make sure they’re protected and educated, or at the very least that they meet a minimum standard that protects your organization.
Need a checklist for this? Are contract workers using your systems on computers we aren’t protecting? Email us at support@p3ctech.com and we’ll help you figure out the best way to work with them safely.
The AI and Automation Minute
Don’t Leave AI Alone With the Keys
AI should not be left alone with the keys to research, make decisions, and implement things unchecked. Keep a HITL: a Human In The Loop.
Why? Just this past week, our AI agent renamed a ticket subject as part of our ticket triage process, and the new subject told our technician to create a Microsoft email account for a client. But guess what? The client never asked for a Microsoft email account, only an email account, and they don’t even use Microsoft 365 for email.
AI agents can be very smart, but they are not always right. Are you supervising your agents and double-checking that their output makes sense?
Your company, and you individually, are responsible for the results. If an AI agent is in charge of a critical decision, you still made that decision when you signed off on the agent’s authority to make it. Keep that in mind as you design your automations.
Want to go deeper? Visit our AI and automation hub at ai.p3ctech.com for the book Beyond the Prompt and our free AI Acceptable Use Policy download.
Product of the Week
Our Hero: The Eaton Tripp Lite 25-Foot Surge Protector
That outlet behind the desk, under the counter, or across the room? The Eaton Tripp Lite TLP825 has a 25-foot cord, so it reaches where you need it. No extension cord, no daisy-chained power strips, which are exactly the habits this week’s tip warns you about.
It has 8 outlets (3 spaced for bulky power adapters), 1,440 joules of protection, and a flat right-angle plug so furniture sits flush against the wall. Diagnostic lights show grounding and protection status at a glance, and it automatically cuts power if its protection is ever used up. It can mount on a wall or desk, and it comes with a lifetime warranty and $75,000 in connected-equipment insurance.
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