We audited 24 East Bay business websites. 22 had no cookie consent.
Original research: we ran 24 local small-business websites through a 12-point technical audit. The results were worse than we expected, and remarkably consistent.
Blog
Plain-English notes on security, backups and websites
No jargon, no fear-mongering, and no advice we wouldn’t give a friend. Every statistic here has a named source and a year — if we can’t attribute it, we don’t print it.
Hosting shouldn't be your job
You didn't start a business to renew SSL certificates. Here's what managed hosting should actually cover, and what to ask before you sign.
Three signs your website is quietly costing you business
Nobody emails to tell you your website lost them. They just leave. Here are the three failures that do the most damage.
Tax season is business email compromise season
April is when money moves, deadlines loom, and nobody wants to be the person who slowed things down. Attackers know the calendar too.
It's World Backup Day. Don't make a backup — test one.
Everyone will tell you to back up your data today. Almost nobody will tell you to restore it. That's the part that fails.
If your computer died today, what would you lose?
Not a rhetorical question. Most small businesses can't answer it, and that inability is the actual risk.
Passwords, MFA, and the myth of the disciplined employee
Password policies fail because they're designed for a person who doesn't exist. Here's what to do instead.
Going paperless without creating a bigger mess
Most paperless projects fail the same way: the paper disappears and is replaced by 40,000 unsearchable files nobody can find. Here's how to avoid that.
The holiday scams that target businesses, not shoppers
Everyone warns consumers about holiday scams. The ones aimed at small businesses are quieter, better targeted, and land in your inbox during your busiest week.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month: the four things that actually matter
Security advice for small businesses usually arrives as a list of twenty things. CISA's national campaign says there are four. Here they are, in plain English.