Spectra Networks

10/31/2026

Do you know which laptops, phones, tablets and network devices your company owns and who has each one?

▶️The device type, manufacturer, model and serial number.
▶️The employee or location assigned to the device.
▶️The purchase date, warranty and planned replacement date.
▶️Whether encryption is enabled and whether the company can lock or erase the device remotely.
▶️Whether the device is in use, being repaired, stored or retired.

Update the inventory whenever equipment is issued, returned, replaced or disposed of.

We can help you create an inventory and identify any company devices that are missing, unsupported or due for replacement.

10/31/2026

The only thing scarier than ghosts and goblins? A suspicious link. 👻💻

Happy Halloween from Spectra Networks! 🎃 Stay safe, stay secure, and enjoy plenty of treats, with no tricks!

10/30/2026

Would you recognize a phishing email before clicking?

Cybercriminals know busy employees move quickly. That’s why an unexpected message, urgent request, or suspicious link deserves a second look.

Thinking like a hacker doesn’t mean becoming one. It means understanding what an attacker is hoping you’ll do, and stopping to verify before you do it.

Our latest Spectra Networks article shares practical ways businesses can build a more security-conscious mindset.

Read the full article:
https://www.spectranets.com/r/ybI

What’s the first red flag you look for in a suspicious email?

The best way to stop a hacker is to think like one. From phishing awareness to Zero Trust security, explore 5 strategies to help safeguard your business.

10/30/2026

After you allow a website or app to use your camera or microphone, that permission can remain 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐭.

On Windows, a camera light or notification appears when the camera is active. A microphone icon appears in the taskbar when an app is using the microphone.

Review these permissions under Privacy and Security in Windows Settings. Check your browser’s website permissions too.

Remove access from websites and apps that no longer need it. 🛑

We can review camera and microphone permissions across your company computers and remove access that is no longer required.

10/29/2026

💾 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭

A question that comes up all the time: “Should I save this in OneDrive or SharePoint?” It might seem like a small thing, but putting files in the wrong place can cause real headaches, especially when people leave the business and take key documents with them.

Here’s how to go about it: 👇
• OneDrive is tied to your user account. When your account is gone, so do your files (unless someone remembers to move them).
• 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 for personal files, notes, drafts, or anything you're working on alone.
• SharePoint is built for shared, long-term access. It’s typically used per department or team.
• 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 if the file needs to be seen, edited, or accessed by others, now or in the future.
• Save business-critical stuff like SOPs, client folders, quotes, templates, HR docs, and pricing sheets in SharePoint.

If your team’s still guessing where things go, it’s worth writing a simple internal SOP.

If you don’t know how, reach out and we’ll help you.

10/29/2026

𝐀 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬.

Positive Pay is a service offered by many banks to help detect fraudulent checks.

When your business issues a check, it sends the bank details such as the check number and amount. Some versions of Positive Pay also compare the payee’s name.

The bank flags checks that do not match the information provided by the business. Your business then decides whether the check should be paid or returned.

Ask your bank whether it offers Positive Pay, which details it checks and how quickly you need to review a flagged payment.

10/28/2026

Security teams have spent years teaching users to check URLs. But what happens when the malicious experience begins on a legitimate, trusted domain?

That’s what makes the abuse of Custom GPTs particularly interesting from a security-awareness perspective.

The attack covered in our latest article combines several effective techniques: paid search placement, impersonation of a supposed ChatGPT model, trusted-platform abuse, off-platform redirection, and ClickFix-style social engineering.

Rather than exploiting software, the final step attempts to get the user to execute the command.

We break down the attack and the lesson businesses should take from it:
https://www.spectranets.com/r/Qe5

For IT and security professionals: Are your users trained to recognize ClickFix techniques, or does your awareness program still focus primarily on traditional phishing?

10/28/2026

👉 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐮𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭.

If Microsoft 365 goes down, you may lose Outlook and Teams at the same time. If you think an account has been compromised, don't use either one to discuss the response because the attacker may be reading those messages.

Set up a separate way to contact staff during an outage or cyberattack. A managed SMS service or private messaging group can work for a small business.

Check how staff sign in before choosing the service. A backup messaging app that relies on Microsoft for its login may stop working alongside Microsoft 365.

Keep a copy of the staff contact list somewhere you can access without your main work account. Include the details for your IT provider and cyber insurer.

Decide who can send an emergency alert and how employees can confirm that the message is genuine. Then test the channel by sending a message and checking who receives it.

Need help setting this up? Send us a message and we'll work through it with you.

10/27/2026

Not every business system needs to come back online at the same time.

A smart disaster recovery strategy starts by identifying which systems are mission-critical, which can tolerate several hours of downtime, and which can wait longer. That prioritization can make a major difference when your team is responding under pressure.

Our latest article explains how asset inventories, risk assessments, backups, recovery priorities, and clearly defined team roles fit together.

Read the full article:
https://www.spectranets.com/r/sTu

If your systems went down today, would your team know what to restore first?

Hope for the best. Plan for the worst. A well-designed disaster recovery plan can mean the difference between a temporary setback and a business-ending event. Learn how to prepare your SMB for the unexpected

10/27/2026

Microsoft recommends at least two emergency administrator accounts for Microsoft Entra, the service that controls Microsoft 365 logins.

These accounts are used when the normal administrator accounts cannot sign in.

They should use security keys or another sign-in method that does not depend on the same phones or apps used by the normal administrators.

Store the access details securely, create an alert for every login and test the accounts at least every 90 days.

We can set up and test these emergency accounts without changing how your employees normally sign in.