The email shows up on a Tuesday morning.

It looks like it’s from the CEO. The name matches. The tone is right. Even the signature looks familiar.

“Hey — can you help me with something quickly? I’m in back-to-back meetings.

Picture walking up to a house and lifting the welcome mat to find a key underneath.

It’s convenient, predictable and exactly where someone with bad intentions would look first.

Most businesses treat their passwords the same way.

It’s Monday morning.

You’ve got coffee. You’ve got a plan.

This is the week you’re finally going to get ahead.

You walk through the door.

Before you set your bag down:

“The printer’s not working again.

Remember blowing into Nintendo cartridges to make them work? That was our version of IT support.

Cartridge won’t load? Blow on it. Still won’t load? Blow harder.

If that failed, you smacked the console.

We thought we were pretty good at technology.

Spring cleaning usually starts with closets, but for most businesses, the real clutter isn’t just on a rack.

Sure, it might be on a server rack, but it could also be sitting in a storage room or a back office, or even in a pile labeled “we’ll deal with that later.

April 1 comes and goes. The pranks and fake announcements that have you second-guessing everything on April Fools Day disappear.

Unfortunately, scammers don’t get the memo.

Spring is one of the most productive seasons for hackers.

It’s Monday morning. Coffee in hand. Laptop open. You’re ready to get moving. Then your elbow clips the mug. Time slows down just long enough for you to watch coffee spill across the keyboard and disappear into places coffee should never go.

The screen flickers.

It’s March. Your accountant is buried. Your bookkeeper is scrambling. Deadlines are looming. Emails are flying faster than anyone can keep up. Everyone’s head is down, just trying to get through the month.

This isn’t news to you. But it isn’t news to hackers either.

Spring break gets a bad reputation. College kids. Questionable decisions. Stories that start with "we thought it was a good idea at the time…"

But adults make plenty of spring break mistakes, too. They're just quieter. And they usually involve technology.

It's February. Tax season is ramping up. Your accountant is getting busier. Your bookkeeper is pulling documents. Everyone's thinking about W-2s, 1099s and deadlines.

Here's the part nobody puts on the calendar: the first real tax-season headache usually isn't a form.