Facebook is making headlines — again — with yet another revelation of privacy failure. A recent security audit found that, since 2012, hundreds of millions of user passwords have been stored in a plaintext format, exposing them to the view of more than 20,000 of the social media giant’s employees.

Unless you live under a rock, almost everyone knows to be extra cautious on April Fools’ Day. Still, though, many of us fall as prey to a prank every year. With over 4.3 billion users in March of 2019 alone, the internet is an unlimited library for creative prank planning, making it more challenging to see a mischievous trick coming at you until you're already an April Fool.

"To Server and Protect"
As the middle of March approaches, there is a not-as-well-known holiday that The Purple Guys find worthy of a grand celebration that pairs well with wine and Cheers! The month of March is widely known for green because of Ireland’s St. Patrick, but have you heard about Finland’s St. Urho?

Finland’s Patron Saint Urho is famous for fighting off grasshoppers who were destroying the nation’s grape crop and therefore threatening their beloved wine production.

The Purple Guys are still with rosy cheeks! Our Kansas City and St. Louis IT Support teams are more than honored to be recognized for our dedicated, responsive, and reliable customer support services that are continuing to help businesses grow and achieve their goals by keeping their systems protected and their people productive.

With more than 4 billion internet users currently worldwide, the internet is an incredible way for people to stream information and for businesses to make immense profits through online services and sales. It's also the leading cause of security breaches that put 61 percent of small businesses out of business within six months of a cyber attack.

Do you know how to spot a phishing email and are you training your employees on this as well? Why, we ask? Because email phishing is still the #1 cause of malware infections for small businesses.

According to the Wombat 2018 State of the Phish report, 92.4 percent of malware is delivered via email, 76 percent of organizations say they experienced phishing attacks and 49 percent of successful phishing attacks resulting in malware infections.

As seen in the February 2019 edition of The Small Business Monthly, Jamie Lembeck a Cybersecurity advocate for The Purple Guys is featured in their Cybersecurity expert panel offering education to small and mid-sized business owners regarding the rise in security threats small business owners face.

This article was originally featured on Thinking Bigger Business Media 
Hacking used to have one major barrier to entry: talent. Unfortunately, the dark web has enabled individuals with nothing more than a bad attitude and a small amount of spare cash to buy sophisticated hacking tools.

You already know that your business is always at risk of a data security breach, and you’ve taken all appropriate precautions. Your personal information is as vulnerable, if not more so. If either your business or your personal accounts are hacked, it can wreak havoc on your finances in both realms.

Your business has a lot of sensitive data about your operations, your partners, and your customers. You are likely (hopefully) doing everything you can to protect that information from hackers who want to steal it and make money off it. You’ve even hired an IT support company to make things more secure — unless your IT provider is inadvertently making you vulnerable to attack!

Many businesses, especially those too small to have an IT budget big enough for a robust internal defense team, turn to IT support companies to meet their IT needs.