Heart of Texas Network Consultants Blog

Ransomware has emerged as one of the most dangerous modern threats to businesses, and when you consider just what’s at stake with a ransomware infection, you’ll realize we’re not exaggerating. The worst variants of ransomware will attempt to extort you through any means necessary, and when you don’t give in so easily, they’ll pull out the big guns: double and triple extortion.

With so many devices now connecting to the Internet, decreasing your business’ threat surface area is more important than ever. Your threat surface area consists of any device that connects to your organization’s IT infrastructure, and if you’re not careful or forget a couple of oddball wearables, you could be looking at a data breach. Today, we want to go over how you can prevent that from happening.

Fairly recently, news circulated that a data breach had exposed 16 billion—yes, with a “b”—passwords for various logins, including social media accounts, virtual private networks, corporate tools, and more. Effectively, every online service imaginable was represented in this breach.

This is very bad… arguably unprecedented.

However, this impression is at best misleading. Let’s dig into the truth of the matter, while still acknowledging that there are some lessons to be learned.

As a business owner, you wear many hats. You're the CEO, the head of sales, the marketing guru, and often, the de facto IT department. It's understandable that with so much to do, dealing with a sluggish computer or a temperamental software program gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. A laissez-faire attitude towards your technology can have serious consequences, however. Today, we’ll go through why being lazy with your IT causes more harm than good.

Technology is meant to be the wind in your business' sails, propelling you forward, simplifying tasks, and making operations smoother than a freshly paved highway, right? Sometimes, it is! Other times, it feels more like a mischievous gremlin has been let loose in the engine room, and certain seemingly small habits can escalate into full-blown operational nightmares.

Here at Heart of Texas Network Consultants, we've seen a pattern or two. Today, let's shine a spotlight on three common technology missteps that might be silently sabotaging your productivity or even worse, leaving your digital doors wide open.

For all the effort and investment a modern business needs to put into its cybersecurity, it is equally important to acknowledge each team member's role in an organization’s security protections. Many of your employees, through no inherent fault of their own, are themselves a vulnerability as they allow many cyberthreats into your infrastructure through scams and simple mistakes. However, this doesn’t have to be the case.

Let’s go over why it is critical that you train your team to be a cybersecurity asset and how to do so.

How often do you find yourself feeling the weight of your agenda putting pressure on you, stressing you out, and—counterproductively—distracting you from the task you’re currently working on? Believe it or not, one of the best ways to power through and stay on track is to step away and take a minute to get your stress back under control. 

While it’s the longest-running joke in the world of IT, the question “Have you tried turning it on and off again?” is still an important one to consider when things are going awry. There’s a good reason why it’s such well-known advice, too: turning your device off can help solve a significant amount of technical issues. Why is this the case, and what can you learn from it?

Over time, you might add new technology solutions to your infrastructure to solve specific problems. Before you know it, you might have an overwhelming amount of technology that keeps your business operational. This issue—tech sprawl—can hold your business back from efficient operations, but don’t worry… we have a solution for you.

We’ve all heard it, perhaps even rolled our eyes at it: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” This seemingly simplistic question has become a running gag in the world of IT support. But beneath the humor lies a fundamental truth: rebooting a device is often the most effective first step in resolving a surprising number of technical glitches.

We understand that, although it might sound elementary, this advice is based on solid technical principles.

The world of cybersecurity is in constant flux, demanding that organizations continually reassess their defensive strategies. A traditional focus solely on preventing breaches, while important, is proving insufficient in the face of sophisticated and persistent threats. As highlighted in a recent Illumio podcast episode, "Trust & Resilience: The New Frontlines of Cybersecurity," the very foundation of digital interaction—trust—has ironically become a primary vulnerability exploited by attackers. This necessitates a fundamental shift in perspective. 

If you're like many small and medium-sized business owners, you're juggling countless online passwords… for email, banking, software, supplier portals, and more. It's overwhelming! This often leads to using simple or repeated passwords, which unfortunately opens the door to cyber threats like data breaches, a serious risk for any business. Thankfully, there's a straightforward solution: a password manager.

Small businesses today generate a lot of data. From customer details and sales records to inventory tracking and employee schedules, you need to be able to structure this data so that you can use it effectively. Keeping that data organized and accessible is important, but managing it effectively can often be a hassle. This is where smart database management comes in. When done right, it helps businesses run smoother and often save money.

Does your business have an internal IT department or dedicated IT resource? We know it’s hard sometimes to find the talent you’re looking for, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Here are some of the issues you’ll want to keep in mind if you want to get an IT technician on your staff.

Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, is a common approach for businesses that want to take advantage of mobile technology to kickstart productivity. Instead of supplying each individual employee with company-owned devices, businesses allow employees to use their own devices for work-related purposes. While this is great on the budget, it’s only really effective (and safe) if the employee prioritizes security on their devices; otherwise, it’s a liability.

The Android operating system periodically receives updates and patches detailed in online publications called Android Security Bulletins. In the March 2025 edition, Google announced that 43 malicious bugs had been resolved, two of which were zero-day vulnerabilities.

Let’s talk about how to implement these fixes and why this is a practice that should reach every aspect of your business’ IT.

It should come as no surprise that cybersecurity is a big challenge for businesses and individuals alike. The problem: life pretty much revolves around being online these days, so there’s no avoiding it. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to ensure that any data you collect from your customers, employees, and other key stakeholders in your business is well-protected, otherwise you will face severe consequences.

In the United States, tax season is prime time for hackers to take advantage of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. They do this through all kinds of nefarious activities, such as phishing attacks conducted through text messages and emails claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service. If you want to avoid getting scammed this tax season, be sure to keep the following tips in mind to stay safe while you conduct your typical tax routines.

Hardware is far from the most fun topic for a business owner to learn more about, but that doesn’t diminish its importance. If you want to ensure your business stays ahead of the game, then you need to be strategic about your hardware implementation. Otherwise, you risk falling behind, put your business in danger, and—even worse—imperil your budget. Today, we want to help you get the most out of your hardware, long before you have to invest in anything new.

If you want your business to succeed, you need to take care of your employees, but businesses sometimes let this important task slip in the throes of the day-to-day. Deloitte estimates that around 8 out of every 10 wage workers show signs of burnout. So the question then becomes… What are you doing about it?