School’s out, which means for many people the workday doesn’t look quite the same as it did a few weeks ago.

Maybe you’re starting earlier so you can wrap up sooner. Maybe you’re working from home more, with a little extra background noise—Brutus barking, Johnny Jr. crying—and fewer stretches of uninterrupted time.

The proposal looked great.

It was polished, professional and exactly the kind of document that makes a business look like it has everything under control.

Then the client called.

The market research cited in section two — the statistics that anchored the entire recommendation — didn’t exist.

While you’re firing up the grill or sitting in beach traffic, someone else is getting to work.

They’ve been planning for this.

They know which businesses will be running on skeleton crews and which alerts will go unanswered.

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.