Do this: Before this week ends, work out which of your everyday devices anyone on the internet can reach, and close the ones that should be private.
PASTE THIS
I run a small business. List the ordinary devices in a small business that are often reachable from the internet without anyone meaning to expose them: fridges, thermostats, security cameras, doorbells, printers, routers, card machines, smart TVs, door locks, coffee machines. For each one, give me (a) the single plain question to ask my supplier to find out whether ours is exposed, and (b) the one change that closes the hole.
You'll get: A one page checklist you can hand to whoever manages your tech, with the device, the question and the fix on it. It takes two minutes to run and about an hour to act on, and it turns 'are we exposed?' from a worry into a list of names and owners.
The one page you grab in a breach
Print this, fill in the blanks and keep a copy somewhere that is not on the computer. When something goes wrong, nobody wants to be hunting for a phone number.
Then run it once a quarter, out loud, so the numbers are still right. A plan nobody has read is a wish.
Nobody budgets for the fridge. Owners spend on laptops and card machines, then bolt a smart doorbell, a thermostat and a camera onto the same network, set it up from the box and forget it. Those are computers. They run old software and they answer to the internet. The cheapest way in is no longer a phishing email.
Hackers reached into supermarket refrigeration systems across France and turned the heat up until stock spoiled and fires started, per The Register and CNBC. Several hundred stores were affected, and the cooling gear was running outdated firmware.
Cheap networked gear, added by a supplier and left on the same network as everything that matters, is now the easiest way in. Nobody chose to expose it; it arrived switched on. So what: this week, walk your premises, list every device with an app, and get them isolated and off the default admin login.
Character.AI filed for bankruptcy
The chatbot platform told a Delaware court that keeping it alive had become too expensive and too tangled in lawsuits, The Verge reports. Five years after launch, the app is folding. So what: if any part of your business leans on a free AI app, export your data this week and write down what you would use instead.
A notetaker that keeps notes on your machine
Google released a local-first meeting notetaker, a rival to Granola that TechCrunch says is built to keep the transcript on the device rather than send your calls to someone else's server. For anyone who waved off a meeting recorder over where the audio ends up, that objection just got smaller. So what: try it on your next client call this week, then read the transcript and decide whether the accuracy earns a place in your routine.
Bank regulators are asking about AI agents
US banking regulators have begun questioning banks about how they deploy agentic AI, their use of Chinese models and the guardrails on autonomous systems, Reuters reports via Techmeme. Those questionnaires reach the software that feeds a lending or pricing decision. So what: this quarter, write down which AI tools touch a credit, pricing or underwriting call, and who signed off on each. 'We think it is fine' is not an answer a regulator accepts.
This week's question: if the same wifi carries the card machine, the fridge and the office laptops, does that actually matter? It is the cheapest thing on this page to fix and the one most often skipped. One network means one password stands between a visitor's phone and your takings. The desk's rule is dull and it works: business traffic on one network, everything else on a second, and the router's admin page never reachable from the internet. Setting the second network up is one call to whoever installed your broadband, and it usually costs nothing. Ask them to name which device sits on which network, and to write it down.
Which of these sits on your business wifi right now?
A. A fridge, freezer or coffee machine with an app
B. A camera, alarm or door lock
C. A smart TV or a speaker
D. None of them, or they sit on their own network
Reply with one letter — results next issue.
Anthropic warned this week that small AI models could soon copy themselves onto everyday devices. Which kind of device did its researchers single out?
Answer tomorrow — and no, we are not printing it here.
YESTERDAY'S ANSWER
Microsoft is cutting the cloud storage included with several of its business plans. How much can an affected subscriber lose?
Up to 4 TB of OneDrive storage, according to The Register's report this week.
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