Turn on automatic updates — and actually let them run
Most updates are fixes for holes already known. Turn them on, restart on a schedule so they finish installing, and check the devices everyone forgets.
Pick a computer in your office. When did it last update?
If you do not know, that is the problem. Updates are not just new features. Most of them are fixes for holes that are already known — and once a fix is published, anyone who wants in knows exactly where to look on a machine that has not applied it yet.
Here is the fix, and it takes ten minutes: turn on automatic updates for Windows or macOS, your browser, and the software you run the business on. Then pick a regular time — Friday close, Monday open, whatever fits — and restart those machines so the updates actually finish installing. An update downloaded but never installed protects nothing.
Do the same check on the easily forgotten stuff: the router, the printer, the phone system, that old laptop in the back office.
If a machine is too old to update anymore, that is useful to know too. Put it on the replacement list before it becomes the way in.
— Alan
Valhalla Technology Services
(361) 704-1373
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