For those of us who manage technology lifecycles every day, the signs are unmistakable. The market is tightening, timelines are stretching, and the organizations that wait too long to act are the ones feeling the most pain.

Leapfrog Services Chief Technology Officer, Emmett (Trey) Hawkins, advises, “In 2026, timing and availability are now part of the risk profile of every technology decision.” This year rewards leaders who plan and treat procurement as a strategic motion rather than an administrative step.

Why Are Technology Components So Hard to Source This Year?

The root cause isn’t a mystery. Manufacturers are shifting enormous amounts of production capacity toward AI infrastructure. Hyperscale data centers consume the same DRAM, NAND flash, and semiconductor components that mid‑market organizations rely on for servers, storage, and laptops.

Industry analysts reported memory and storage price increases approaching 90% in Q1 2026 compared to late 2025. Availability is tightening in parallel. For those of us who track these cycles closely, this isn’t a temporary spike. We know it’s a structural imbalance that will take time to correct.

Trey adds, “AI infrastructure is consuming the world’s memory supply, and that ripple effect is hitting mid‑market refresh cycles harder than most leaders expect.”  The result is a market where scarcity is the baseline, not the exception.

How Do These Constraints Affect Mid‑Market Organizations?

Mid‑market companies feel these disruptions more acutely than large enterprises. They often operate with leaner teams, tighter project windows, and more interdependent initiatives. When a refresh slips, it doesn’t just inconvenience IT, it slows down revenue projects, delays compliance work, and pushes modernization efforts into the next fiscal cycle.

The patterns we’re seeing include:

• Inventory disappearing between approval and purchase
• Lead times doubling without warning
• Pricing shifting mid‑project
• Standard configurations becoming unexpectedly scarce

Leaders who still assume they can “place the order when we’re ready” are the ones encountering the most friction.

What’s Driving the Shift Toward Earlier Decision‑Making?

From our perspective as a managed IT partner, the biggest change is how far upstream availability now influences planning. The AI boom has pulled manufacturing capacity toward hyperscale environments, leaving fewer conventional components for the rest of the market. That pressure flows directly into mid‑market refresh cycles.

We’re seeing:

• Longer timelines for servers and storage
• Higher pricing for common laptop builds
• Increased backorder risk for everyday components
• Greater variability in project execution

How Can Procurement Become a Strategic Advantage?

Organizations that navigate 2026 successfully are the ones treating procurement as part of execution. At Leapfrog, we’ve lived through enough supply‑chain cycles over the past few decades to know that procurement discipline is one of the most underrated operational advantages a mid‑market company can have.

Our dedicated procurement team tracks inventory across distributors, monitors manufacturer pricing trends, and identifies early signals of emerging constraints. Over the years, this has allowed us to secure inventory before it tightens and advise clients before scarcity becomes a bottleneck.

When a refresh or project for one of our clients is on the horizon, we coordinate across procurement, account management, and technical leads to:

• Time purchases intelligently
• Lock in inventory before it becomes scarce
• Surface risks early and design around them
• Stabilize costs relative to real market conditions

This is the difference between reacting to the market and staying ahead of it.

“If you wait until the end of a project to buy equipment in 2026, you’re already behind.” — Emmett (Trey) Hawkins

Why Does Locking In Purchases Earlier Protect Your Business?

Early purchasing isn’t only about spending sooner; it’s about protecting the plan. Leaders who have been through past cycles know that the cost of waiting is rarely just financial. It’s operational.

Locking in purchases earlier:

• Preserves project timelines
• Aligns budgets with real‑world pricing
• Reduces the risk of forced redesigns
• Ensures scarce inventory goes to mission‑critical initiatives

Not every request carries the same urgency. Leaders who prioritize revenue-driving, compliance-critical, or security essential initiatives will navigate 2026 far more effectively than those who treat all upgrades as equal.

Concluding Thoughts

The organizations that thrive in 2026 won’t be the ones squeezing vendors hardest at the end of the cycle. They’ll be the ones who’ve planned earlier, prioritized and standardized where it reduces variability.

“A dedicated procurement function may not sound strategic, but in a constrained market, it becomes a quiet competitive advantage,” Trey concludes.

In a year defined by scarcity, experience matters. Leaders who treat procurement as a strategic discipline, not a transactional task, will keep technology from becoming the bottleneck to business execution.

If you need an IT partner to help absorb volatility on your behalf, Leapfrog has over 25 years of experience helping organizations navigate procurement. Reach out today for a conversation.

The post Technology Purchasing in 2026: What Mid Market Leaders Need to Know appeared first on Leapfrog Services.

At Leapfrog, we’ve supported organizations through multiple technology waves —cloud, mobility, virtualization — but AI is different. It’s a force multiplier for both innovation and risk. And because it’s evolving at unprecedented speed, mid‑market leaders can’t rely on traditional IT models to protect tomorrow’s business.

This is exactly when the right partner becomes essential.

Why is AI governance a leadership imperative?

AI adoption is happening faster than AI governance. Employees are experimenting with tools, vendors are embedding AI into their platforms, and data is flowing across systems in ways leadership can’t fully track. The biggest risks we see aren’t from the AI models themselves; they come from what we refer to as shadow AI: unapproved tools handling sensitive data, unclear vendor practices, and well-meaning employees exposing intellectual property without realizing it.

99% of organizations have sensitive data dangerously exposed to AI tools, including gen AI copilots and unsanctioned apps, according to Varonis.

Effective AI governance provides the structure that keeps innovation safe. It requires a holistic approach with visibility, policy discipline, employee education, and continuous monitoring — capabilities most internal teams simply don’t have the bandwidth to maintain while also supporting daily operations.

How are AI‑driven cyber threats outpacing traditional defenses?

Cybercriminals are using AI to scale attacks in ways we’ve never seen. Phishing is more convincing, social engineering is more personalized, and malware is being generated and adapted at machine speed. We’re seeing deepfake-enabled fraud, automated vulnerability scanning that outpaces patch cycles, and attackers using AI to mimic internal communication styles.

16% of all breaches in 2025 involved AI-assisted attacks, according to IBM.

These are not theoretical risks. They’re real incidents affecting mid‑market companies right now. The organizations that recover fastest are the ones with mature monitoring, disciplined patching, incident response plans in place, and a partner who can respond in minutes, not days.

Safe AI adoption requires structure, not guesswork

Leaders want to innovate. Teams want to be more productive. But safe AI adoption requires more than enthusiasm. Organizations need clear acceptable‑use policies, vendor risk assessments, data‑classification rules, and guardrails around accuracy and hallucination risk. They also need visibility into shadow AI and training that builds confidence without slowing down productivity.

We’ve helped several clients roll out AI responsibly, and the pattern is consistent: the organizations that succeed treat AI as a strategic business initiative, not a technical experiment.

Why can’t internal IT teams keep up alone?

Internal IT teams are dedicated and capable, but they’re already managing daily operations, user support, infrastructure maintenance, ticket queues, patching, vendor management, and incident response. Adding AI governance, advanced cybersecurity, and continuous monitoring on top of that workload isn’t realistic.

The expertise required involves security engineering, threat intelligence, AI risk management, and governance design, which are all specialized skills that are constantly evolving. Expecting internal teams to master all of it while running the business is a recipe for burnout and exposure.

How does a modern MSP close the gap?

A modern MSP is not just a help desk. It’s a strategic partner that, in our case, can fully manage, or co-manage, your organization’s IT environment by supporting your existing team and bringing continuous monitoring, governance expertise, safe‑AI‑adoption support, and scalable security capabilities that would take years to build internally. We track AI and cybersecurity trends daily because it’s our job, not yours.

It’s not All‑or‑Nothing: You can scale at your pace

One of the most important messages for mid‑market leaders is that AI governance and cybersecurity maturity are not all‑or‑nothing investments. You don’t need a massive overhaul to make meaningful progress. You can build in phases aligned with your business priorities, risk tolerance, operational capacity, and budget.

We help organizations by creating roadmaps to scale step by step, adding capabilities as the business grows, as threats evolve, and as leadership sees the value. It’s about building sustainable maturity, not chasing perfection.

The Bottom Line for Mid‑Market Leaders

AI and cybersecurity are evolving too quickly for traditional IT models. The risks are too high, and the opportunities are too significant to navigate this alone. Leaders who get ahead of this shift will protect their organizations, empower their teams, and unlock the real value of AI. Leaders who wait will find themselves reacting to risks they never saw coming.

Ready to Strengthen Your IT Strategy?

If your organization needs an IT partner to help keep pace with AI’s rapid evolution and the rising cybersecurity threat landscape, Leapfrog Services is here to help. With over 25 years of experience supporting mid-market businesses, we bring the expertise, discipline, and proactive management needed to protect your operations and guide your AI journey safely. Reach out to our team to explore how we can help your organization scale confidently and securely.

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As Leapfrog Services’ Chief Technology Officer, Emmet (Trey) Hawkins, puts it, “These issues aren’t hypothetical. They’re being used right now to compromise systems, and the gap between exposure and business impact is shrinking.”

For mid‑enterprise leaders evaluating operational risk, this month’s update cycle deserves elevated attention.

What makes this month’s Microsoft vulnerabilities more dangerous?

These vulnerabilities are already being used in active attacks, which shortens the time between exposure and real operational impact. Several of the issues patched make it easier for attackers to bypass security warnings and execute malicious files on employee devices. Others allow attackers with even minimal access to escalate privileges and gain deeper control of systems.

This combination is exactly the kind of vulnerability mix that can turn a routine phishing attempt into a business‑wide disruption. One employee opening the wrong file can quickly become an organization‑wide incident if systems aren’t patched promptly.

Why is timely patching still one of the highest‑ROI cybersecurity actions?

Timely patching closes known attack paths that adversaries are actively walking through. Delaying updates doesn’t just increase theoretical risk; it also extends the window where known attack techniques can be used against your environment with a high likelihood of success.

As Trey often reminds leadership teams, “When attackers already know the door is open, every day you wait is a day you’re betting they won’t walk through it.”

Is patching alone enough to protect business continuity?

No, patching is essential, but it cannot eliminate the exposure window between disclosure and full deployment. Even well‑run environments have gaps that attackers can exploit through new vulnerabilities.

This is where managed security monitoring becomes a critical compensating control. Continuous monitoring, detection, and response capabilities help identify suspicious behavior early, even if a system is compromised before a patch is applied. The goal isn’t just prevention. It’s rapid detection and containment so issues never escalate into business‑disrupting events.

How is Leapfrog responding to these actively exploited threats?

Leapfrog integrates patching and monitoring into a coordinated operational motion designed for mid‑market organizations. Our security and operations teams review each month’s Microsoft security updates, prioritize the highest‑risk fixes, and coordinate deployment through our managed patching processes.

In parallel, our managed security monitoring is tuned to detect behaviors associated with these newly disclosed attack techniques. This gives us the ability to respond quickly if there’s any sign of attempted or successful exploitation. We also monitor for stability issues that sometimes accompany large update cycles so that protection doesn’t come at the cost of unnecessary disruption to your business.

What should business leaders take away from this month’s update cycle?

Patch cycles are no longer just IT hygiene; they are frontline defense activities that directly protect availability, data integrity, and business continuity. Managed security monitoring is the safety net that catches what prevention controls miss. Together, timely patching and continuous monitoring significantly reduce both the likelihood of compromise and the time it takes to know something has gone wrong.

As Trey says, “Our job is to make this risk invisible to your business by addressing it early and detecting issues before they become material incidents.”

If you are an existing client and want to understand how these updates apply to your environment, how patching is being handled across your systems, or how managed security monitoring fits into your broader risk strategy, reach out to your Leapfrog account manager.

For organizations that are exploring MSP options, this is also a moment to evaluate the kind of partner you want at your side. Leapfrog has been in business for more than 25 years, supporting mid‑market companies through every major shift in technology and cybersecurity. That longevity isn’t just a milestone. It’s proof that our methodology works. We’ve seen threat landscapes evolve, we’ve helped clients navigate disruption, and we customize IT management models to keep your businesses stable, secure, and moving forward so your team can stay focused on the business.

Ready to Leap into a secure future? Reach out to us today.

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AI adoption is accelerating across marketing, finance, HR, operations, and customer service. It is quietly expanding the organization’s cyber-attack surface faster than traditional security and governance models were designed to manage. Employees experiment with AI tools, vendors quietly add AI features, and departments adopt AI‑enabled platforms independently.

This creates shadow AI—AI usage that occurs outside IT visibility and outside established governance.

Shadow AI isn’t malicious. It’s the natural result of teams trying to move faster. But without guardrails, it introduces cybersecurity risks that leadership rarely sees until something breaks. And because AI is now embedded in everyday workflows, not just strategic initiatives, leaders often underestimate how quickly unmanaged usage can scale across the business.

What Hidden AI Risks Are Mid‑Market Executives Overlooking?

The most significant AI risks aren’t dramatic failures. They’re the quiet, everyday exposures that accumulate across the organization.

1. Departmental AI Use That Circumvents Governance

Departmental AI adoption becomes risky when it happens outside governance structures. Common examples include:

• Marketing uploading customer data into generative AI tools
• Finance using AI assistants to analyze sensitive spreadsheets
• HR drafting performance reviews with public AI chatbots

These actions create:

• Untracked data flows
• Inconsistent security controls
• Unvetted third‑party tools
• Exposure of regulated or confidential information

Without architecture oversight, leaders lose visibility into where data is going and who can access it. In mid‑market environments, teams often self‑select tools to move faster, causing this decentralization to happen far more quickly than leaders expect.

2. Real‑World Misuse That Happens Quietly

AI misuse often looks like normal work:

• Pasting confidential information into public AI tools
• Relying on AI‑generated outputs without validation
• Allowing AI models to make decisions that violate internal policies
• Vendors enabling AI features without notifying IT

These issues rarely surface until an audit, customer complaint, or security incident forces them into view. Because these behaviors feel “helpful” rather than risky, they often go unreported, creating blind spots that compound over time.

3. Data Leakage Through Everyday Workflows

The most common AI‑related data leaks come from routine actions:

• Uploading contracts, financials, or PII into unapproved AI tools
• Using AI‑powered browser extensions that sync internal documents
• Allowing AI assistants to access shared drives without proper scoping

Once sensitive data enters an AI ecosystem, it can spread quickly, often without any logging or traceability. This is especially challenging for mid‑market companies that rely heavily on SaaS platforms, where AI features may be enabled by default.

4. Compliance Violations Hidden Inside AI Outputs

AI can unintentionally violate:

• SOC 2 controls
• HIPAA or PCI requirements
• Data residency rules
• Vendor management obligations
• Cyber insurance conditions

Because AI decisions are often opaque, compliance gaps can remain invisible until an external auditor uncovers them. This is why AI governance, not just cybersecurity, is essential. AI outputs can also create “derived data” that falls outside existing policies, an area many mid-market compliance programs haven’t yet accounted for.

Why Are Mid‑Market Organizations More Exposed to AI Risk?

Mid‑market companies sit in a uniquely challenging position:

• Complex enough to have real data, vendor, and compliance risk
• Lean enough to lack dedicated AI governance resources
• Fast‑moving enough for shadow AI to spread quickly
• Dependent on vendors whose AI features may bypass internal controls

This combination creates a perfect environment for hidden AI risks to grow unnoticed. And unlike enterprises, mid‑market organizations rarely have the luxury of centralized AI strategy teams, meaning risk often grows faster than oversight.

How Can Leaders Ensure Their Organization Is Using AI Safely?

The question is no longer whether teams are using AI. The real question is whether they’re using it safely, consistently, and in alignment with business goals.

Safe AI adoption requires:

• Treating AI governance as a cybersecurity control layer.
• Architecture oversight to prevent data sprawl and shadow AI
• Cybersecurity leadership to enforce controls and reduce risk
• Co‑managed or fully managed operational scale to support internal IT
• Long‑term modernization strategy to prepare for AI‑driven transformation

Equally important: enabling teams to use AI confidently and productively, rather than restricting usage through fear or unclear policies. AI becomes a force multiplier only when governance and enablement move together. This is how organizations move from reactive experimentation to predictable, governed AI operations.

The Bottom Line

AI’s biggest risks aren’t the ones leaders can see—they’re the ones unfolding quietly across departments, vendors, and everyday workflows. Organizations that address these hidden risks early gain a stronger compliance posture, more predictable operations, reduced friction with cyber insurance carriers, lower operational debt, and a far more stable foundation for responsible, AI‑era growth. If your teams are already using AI (and they are), now is the time to ensure they’re using it safely.

How Leapfrog Helps Leaders See and Solve These Hidden Risks

Leapfrog helps mid‑market executives see and solve the hidden risks that often derail AI initiatives by bringing clarity, structure, and long‑term strategy to every stage of adoption. This includes establishing practical AI governance frameworks with approved tools, policies, and guardrails that reduce risk without slowing innovation; providing architecture and data oversight to illuminate where data lives, how it moves, and which AI systems interact with it; and delivering cybersecurity and compliance leadership aligned with cyber insurance requirements, regulatory obligations, and internal policies.

Leaders also gain operational scale through co‑managed or fully managed programs that support internal IT teams and reduce burnout, along with multi‑year modernization planning that ensures AI adoption strengthens, rather than destabilizes, the organization’s long‑term strategy.

Leapfrog’s 25+ years of experience as a strategic advisor and managed IT partner give us the expertise to help organizations uncover these blind spots early and build the governance, architecture, and cybersecurity leadership required for safe, scalable AI adoption.

If you want visibility into how AI is being used across your organization, reach out today to get the conversation started.

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The question is no longer “Should we use AI?”

It’s “Are we operationally ready to use AI safely, strategically, and at scale?”

And importantly, AI readiness is not an all-or-nothing state. Most organizations move through a progression from early experimentation to controlled adoption, to governed scale. Framing readiness as a journey helps leaders focus on the next achievable step rather than feeling they must be fully mature on day one.

This readiness requires more than experimenting with tools. It demands alignment across departments, governance structures that protect the business, and a data architecture capable of supporting AI without exposing sensitive information. This is where many organizations discover the gap between AI enthusiasm and AI preparedness.

What misconceptions are holding organizations back?

Even the most forward‑thinking leadership teams can fall into common traps as AI adoption accelerates. A few misconceptions consistently surface across mid‑market organizations:

“AI is just another IT project.”

AI touches every department—HR, finance, operations, sales, customer service, and compliance. Treating it as a standalone technology initiative leads to fragmented adoption and inconsistent risk management.

“Our data is already secure, so AI won’t change much.”

AI tools, especially generative AI which creates new content, introduce new data exposure pathways. Sensitive information can be unintentionally shared, stored, or used to train external models if guardrails aren’t in place.

“Employees will use AI responsibly if we give them guidelines.”

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT, meaning that without governance, employees will use whatever tools help them move faster, often without understanding the risks.

“Compliance teams will catch any issues.”

Regulations around AI, privacy, and data usage are evolving rapidly. Compliance can’t protect the business if the organization lacks visibility into how AI is being used.

These misconceptions don’t signal failure; they signal the need for a more strategic, cross‑functional approach and a recognition that AI maturity develops over time.

Why does AI governance matter more than ever?

AI governance isn’t about slowing innovation. It’s about enabling innovation safely. A strong governance framework gives leaders confidence that AI is being used responsibly, consistently, and in alignment with business goals. At a minimum, mid‑market organizations should establish:

1. Clear AI usage policies: Define what tools employees can use, what data can be shared, and what workflows require approval.
2. Department level AI guidelines: Each function uses AI differently. HR needs rules for candidate data. Finance needs controls for forecasting models. Sales needs guardrails for customer information.
3. Risk and compliance oversight: AI introduces new categories of risk: model bias, data leakage, and regulatory exposure. Governance ensures these risks are identified and mitigated early.
4. Vendor and tool evaluation standards: Not all AI tools are created equal. Leaders need a consistent way to evaluate security, data handling, and integration requirements.

But governance isn’t only about risk. It directly supports business outcomes, allowing faster decision making, sustained productivity gains, brand protection, and reduced rework as regulations tighten. When governance is strong, AI becomes a force multiplier for business velocity and trust.

Is your data architecture ready for AI?

AI is only as strong as the data behind it. Many mid‑market organizations discover that their data environment isn’t prepared for AI‑driven operations.

Key questions executives should be asking:

• Do we know where all our sensitive data lives?
• Is our data clean, structured, and accessible enough for AI to use effectively?
• Are we unintentionally exposing proprietary or regulated data to external AI tools?
• Do we have identity and access controls that prevent unauthorized data use?

And critically: Were our systems ever designed with AI in mind? For most mid‑market organizations, the honest answer is no. Data is often fragmented, identity controls evolved organically, and legacy systems weren’t built for AI‑driven workloads.

That’s why AI readiness often begins with incremental improvements, not a full rebuild, but tightening access controls, improving data quality in key systems, and establishing lightweight governance that matures over time.

Without a secure, well governed data architecture, AI adoption becomes risky and, in some cases, non-compliant.

How big is the risk of data leakage through AI tools?

One of the fastest‑growing threats is accidental data leakage. Employees often paste sensitive information into AI tools without realizing:

• The data may be stored externally
• It may be used to train third‑party models
• It may be accessible to other users
• It may violate contractual or regulatory obligations

This risk is especially high in industries handling financial data, personal information, intellectual property, or regulated content. Leaders must assume that if AI is available, employees are already using it, whether approved or not.

How are compliance requirements changing with AI?

AI regulations are accelerating globally. Privacy laws, industry‑specific requirements, and emerging AI‑focused legislation are reshaping what organizations must track and document. Regulators are responding to the speed and scale of AI adoption, pushing companies to prove that their systems are fair, transparent, and secure. As AI becomes embedded in everyday operations, compliance teams must ensure that automated decisions don’t introduce bias, violate privacy rules, or mishandle sensitive data.

Mid‑market organizations need to prepare for:

• Requirements to document AI usage
• Transparency around automated decision‑making
• Data residency and retention rules
• Vendor accountability for AI models
• Sector‑specific compliance (healthcare, finance, legal, education, etc.)

Why are mid‑market leaders turning to managed IT providers for AI readiness?

AI readiness isn’t a one‑time project. It’s an ongoing operational discipline that requires:

• Security expertise
• Data architecture knowledge
• Governance design
• Compliance awareness
• Change management
• Continuous monitoring

Most mid‑market organizations don’t have the internal resources to manage all of this alone. The complexity grows quickly as AI touches security, data, compliance, and day‑to‑day operations in ways most teams aren’t staffed or specialized enough to handle.

A security‑first Managed Services Provider (MSP) like Leapfrog Services helps organizations:

• Build AI governance frameworks
• Strengthen data architecture and identity controls
• Reduce the risk of data leakage
• Ensure compliance alignment
• Provide ongoing monitoring and support
• Enable safe, scalable AI adoption across departments

The bottom line for executives

AI is everywhere. But operational readiness is not.

Leaders who take a strategic, cross‑functional approach to AI adoption will unlock competitive advantage, reduce risk, and build a foundation for long‑term innovation. Those who rush in without governance, data discipline, or security oversight will face unnecessary exposure.

And importantly, AI readiness is a progression, not a finish line. Organizations that take steady, pragmatic steps will move faster and with more confidence than those trying to “be ready” all at once.

Leapfrog helps mid‑market organizations bridge the gap – turning AI ambition into AI readiness. For over 25 years, Leapfrog has partnered with growing businesses to deliver reliable operations, strategic guidance, and a proactive risk approach. If you’re ready to unlock the powerful capabilities of AI and team up with an IT partner, reach out to Leapfrog today.

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What are the three fundamental currencies of cybersecurity every leader should know?

Bryant began by framing the foundation of his philosophy:

“Every decision we make in technology and risk management revolves around three fundamental currencies: Risk, Time, and Budget. These are not abstract concepts—they are the levers that determine the resilience and reputation of our organization.”

He explained that these currencies are interconnected. When one is reduced, the others absorb the pressure.

“Cutting budget simply transfers that risk into time delays and operational exposure. Accelerating timelines without adequate security controls and investment often results in vulnerabilities that can lead to catastrophic breaches.”

Why is cybersecurity a business risk, not just an IT issue?

Bryant emphasized that cybersecurity is no longer confined to an IT discussion; it’s a boardroom issue.

“Cybersecurity is no longer just a technical issue—it is a business risk. The cost of a major breach today is measured not only in dollars but in market capitalization, brand equity, and executive accountability.”

He noted that regulatory bodies and investors are increasingly scrutinizing how companies protect sensitive data and maintain operational continuity. A single incident can trigger cascading effects: legal liabilities, loss of customer confidence, and even leadership changes.

What’s the smartest way to invest in cybersecurity?

When asked about the balance between cost and protection, Bryant was clear:

“Prioritizing cybersecurity isn’t about spending more—it’s about investing wisely. Every dollar put into proactive measures reduces the likelihood of multimillion-dollar losses from breaches, ransomware, or compliance failures.”

He added that time is just as valuable as money:

“Every hour spent on strategic planning accelerates our ability to respond to emerging threats. And every risk we mitigate strengthens our competitive position in an environment where trust is the ultimate differentiator.”

Why should cybersecurity be a leadership priority?

Bryant believes leadership plays a pivotal role in shaping a company’s security posture.

“By elevating cybersecurity to the boardroom, you signal to stakeholders that your organization values resilience as much as revenue. This commitment enables us to align security initiatives with business objectives, ensuring that growth does not come at the expense of exposure.”

Do you have any final thoughts?

Closing the conversation, Bryant left us with a powerful reminder:

“Cybersecurity is not a cost center—it is a strategic enabler. The question is not whether we can afford to prioritize it; the question is whether we can afford not to.”

Bryant’s insights highlight a critical truth: cybersecurity and business strategy are inseparable. Leaders must balance risk, time, and budget, but the ultimate return is trust. By treating security as a driver of growth rather than a line-item expense, organizations can protect their reputation, strengthen stakeholder confidence, and unlock sustainable success. At Leapfrog, we are committed to helping businesses make that transformation because resilience is the foundation of innovation.

If your organization is ready to treat cybersecurity as a driver of growth, Leapfrog Services is here to help. We have been partnering with organizations as their managed IT provider for over 25 years. Reach out today to learn how we can manage and secure your IT with resilience at the core.

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“Cybercriminals know this is the moment when inboxes overflow, shipping notifications multiply, and employees rush to close out the year. They strike when people are clicking quickly and when the analysts who normally catch unusual behavior are not watching as closely.”

What scams should you watch out for during the holidays?

Fake Invitations and Holiday Event Messages

Phishing campaigns often mimic platforms like Evite, Punchbowl, Canva, and Google Calendar. For individuals, these fake invites may look like school events, office parties, or family gatherings. For businesses, they can appear to come from colleagues or leadership. In both cases, one careless click can expose personal accounts or corporate systems, especially when IT staff or family members who normally help with tech issues are unavailable.

Bogus Shipping Notifications and Delivery Issues

Fraudulent delivery notices disguised as UPS, FedEx, USPS, Amazon, or DHL alerts blend seamlessly with legitimate updates. Individuals risk giving away payment details or login credentials, while businesses face added exposure because administrative staff or facilities teams receive dozens of real alerts daily. Malicious ones can slip through unnoticed, especially during holiday breaks.

Gift Card Fraud and Urgent Executive Requests

Attackers impersonate trusted figures—CEOs, managers, pastors, or even family members—demanding gift card purchases under the guise of secrecy or appreciation. For individuals, this often looks like a relative or friend in need. For businesses, it’s a fake executive request targeting employees. Reduced verification during holiday travel makes this tactic highly effective across both personal and professional settings.

Fake Charity and Year-End Giving Schemes

Fraudulent donation requests exploit generosity during the holidays. Individuals may see appeals for disaster relief or local shelters, while businesses encounter fake invoices or donation requests that appear to come from reputable nonprofits. Rushed approvals and emotional appeals make even careful people and organizations vulnerable.

Too-Good-to-Be-True Deals

Polished scam sites advertise unbelievable discounts on luxury items or high-demand gifts and can even look like well known store fronts. Individuals risk losing money or exposing card details, while employees shopping from work devices risk credential compromise if they enter information on spoofed login screens. The merchandise never arrives, but the stolen data fuels further attacks.

Account Compromises and Fake Password Reset Notices

Attackers mimic legitimate password reset alerts from Microsoft 365, Google, Amazon, or Okta. Individuals may lose access to personal accounts, while businesses face attackers gaining footholds in corporate systems. Reduced monitoring during the holidays allows these compromises to go unnoticed longer than usual.

Travel-Related Scams and Fake Itinerary Updates

Fake airline confirmations, hotel updates, or car rental changes lure victims into fraudulent login portals. For individuals, this can mean stolen personal accounts. For businesses, reused passwords can open doors into corporate systems. During holiday change freezes, even minor anomalies may not be investigated promptly, giving attackers more time to exploit access.

Why do holiday scams work so effectively?

The end of the year brings urgency, emotion, and distraction. Employees juggle deadlines, shopping, and travel. IT teams operate with vacation schedules, reduced monitoring, and change freezes that limit patching. Cybercriminals thrive in this environment. According to Trey, “A distraction at home or a delayed alert in the SOC [Security Operations Center] can be enough for an attacker to gain a foothold and quietly escalate access.”

What should business leaders do to protect themselves now?

• Send seasonal reminders: Train employees to scrutinize holiday-themed messages.
• Reinforce verification protocols: Executives will never request gift cards via email or text.
• Promote secure password practices: Reset credentials only through known portals.
• Increase monitoring: Watch for account anomalies, failed MFA attempts, and unusual logins.
• Plan for holiday staffing gaps: Ensure alerts are routed to available personnel.

What should families and consumers keep in mind?

• Pause before clicking: Treat urgency, secrecy, or emotional appeals with caution.
• Verify requests: Confirm unexpected messages with a phone call or trusted contact.
• Gift Cards=Cash: Handle them with the same care.
• Skepticism saves: Be wary of unsolicited charity appeals and unbelievable deals.

Final Thought

Cybercrime surges every holiday season because the conditions make success more likely. With a little extra awareness and attention to verification, individuals and businesses can protect their employees, customers, and reputations. According to Trey, “The holidays should bring cheer, not compromise and cleanup. Smart habits and a brief pause before clicking can keep everyone safer.”

Happy Holidays, Friends. Stay cyber-safe out there!

Leapfrog is an IT managed service provider that prides itself on being a true IT partner to our clients. We have been providing IT and cybersecurity services to SMBs for over 25 years, with a 98% client satisfaction rate. If your organization needs IT and Cybersecurity support, reach out today to get the conversation started.

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In today’s cloud-reliant world, businesses rely heavily on platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to power their operations. These providers offer scale, speed, and innovation, but they’re not immune to failure. In October 2025, AWS (Amazon) experienced a 15-hour outage due to a DNS race condition, where multiple processes attempted to access the same resource simultaneously, affecting over 3,500 companies across 60+ countries. Just nine days later, Azure suffered a global disruption caused by a misconfigured update.

These weren’t cyberattacks. They were internal missteps – proof that even the most sophisticated systems can falter.

What’s The Real Risk Behind Cloud Outages?

Cloud downtime is one of the most costly and visible risks in today’s digital-first economy. Even brief outages can disrupt millions of users, stall operations, and cause significant financial loss. The complexity of distributed systems and interdependent apps and programs means that a single error can cascade across regions, vendors, and industries.

For small and medium-sized businesses, the risk is amplified. Without the resources of a hyperscaler or a dedicated IT team, a single misstep can lead to hours of downtime, lost revenue, and damaged trust.

SMBs stand to lose $127 – $427 per minute during downtime, according to an ITIC SMB Report.

How Can MSBs Protect You From These Risks?

This is where experienced Managed Service Providers (MSPs) make all the difference. A seasoned MSP brings:

• Mature and Tested Processes: Proven playbooks for change management, incident response, and recovery.
• Defined Methodology: Structured frameworks that align infrastructure with business goals and compliance standards.
• Comprehensive Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Management: From proactive monitoring to layered threat defense, MSPs ensure your cloud environment is secure, stable, and scalable.

What’s the Bottom Line For My Business?

Outages happen, even to the best. But they don’t have to happen to you. With the right MSP, your business gains not just technical support but strategic resilience. Leapfrog Services is here to help you leap ahead – securely, confidently, and without compromise.

 Why Choose Leapfrog As Your MSP?

At Leapfrog, we’ve spent over two decades helping businesses avoid the very pitfalls that brought AWS and Azure to their knees. Our clients benefit from:

• Expert cloud architecture and governance
• Real-time threat detection and remediation
• Business continuity planning that works
• A team that’s seen and solved it all

We don’t just manage infrastructure. We design for long-term resilience. If you’re looking for a partner to leap ahead with secure, reliable, and scalable IT – we’re ready for a conversation. Contact us today!

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In just one week recently, six+ critical zero-days were disclosed across major platforms, including Microsoft, Apple, Fortinet, Ivanti, and others. These weren’t theoretical risks. They were actively exploited before patches were released, leaving businesses scrambling to respond.

Zero-Day Exploits Are Accelerating

According to Google’s 2024 Zero-Day Trends, 75 zero-day vulnerabilities were exploited in the wild last year, with a sharp increase in attacks targeting enterprise and security products. Nearly half of these flaws were aimed at technologies like firewalls, endpoint protection, and networking appliances – the very tools designed to keep your business safe.

One of the most alarming examples? A critical zero-day in Microsoft SharePoint was weaponized in a large-scale campaign before a patch was even available. Attackers used deserialization flaws to execute remote code, forge trusted payloads, and move laterally across networks, all while blending in with legitimate activity. Over 85 servers were compromised across 29 organizations, including government agencies and multinational firms. (The Hacker News)

And it’s not just enterprise platforms. Consumer-grade devices and apps are also under siege. Recent exploits in WhatsApp, FreePBX, and TP-Link routers have been flagged by BleepingComputer and CISA as active threats. These vulnerabilities are often overlooked in SMB environments, especially when employees work remotely, using outdated or unsupported hardware.

Why Periodic Patching Isn’t Enough

Attackers are moving faster than ever. By the time your next scheduled update rolls around, the damage may already be done. Today’s threat environment demands:

• Emergency patching capacity: The ability to deploy fixes immediately, not quarterly.
• Assume-breach models: Operating under the assumption that attackers may already be inside.
• Continuous vulnerability management: Real-time scanning, prioritization, and remediation.

Executive Call to Action

Zero-days don’t wait. Neither can you.

If your organization still relies on periodic patching, it’s time to evolve. Invest in continuous vulnerability management and round-the-clock monitoring with Leapfrog – before attackers find the gap.

At Leapfrog, we have over 25 years of experience helping SMBs leap ahead of threats, not just react to them. Our team stays ahead of the latest zero-day intelligence and brings the operational muscle to protect your business, without the cost of building an internal security department. If you are ready to Leap Ahead of threats to your organization, reach out today to inquire about our Ring of Security CyberRisk assessment.

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The recent NX Build supply chain breach marked a chilling milestone: the first confirmed case of AI weaponization in a software development pipeline. But it’s not an isolated incident. Anthropic’s Claude model was hijacked by threat actors to automate ransomware creation, credential harvesting, and even generate psychologically targeted extortion demands, all without human oversight.

For years, artificial intelligence was seen as a powerful ally, a tool to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and strengthen cybersecurity. But in 2025, the narrative has shifted. AI is no longer just a tool. It’s an attacker.

Impersonation Scams Are Exploding

AI isn’t just attacking systems, it’s mimicking people. In 2025, a study in TechRadar showed AI-driven impersonation scams surged by 148%, with deepfake voice, video, and text used to convincingly pose as executives, colleagues, or family members. These scams are no longer science fiction. They’re boardroom reality.

In one case, highlighted by The Wall Street Journal, deepfake impersonations of CEOs led to over $200 million in fraudulent wire transfers in Q1 2024 alone. Employees were tricked during video calls with digitally fabricated executives, a tactic that’s nearly impossible to detect with traditional security tools.

Security Teams Are Struggling to Keep Up

Despite the growing threat, many organizations remain dangerously underprepared. Cisco’s 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index reveals that 86% of security leaders experienced at least one AI-related incident in the past year, yet only 48% believe their staff truly understands the risks. That gap in awareness is a vulnerability in itself.

From Awareness to Action: What SMB Leaders Must Do Now

Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are especially vulnerable. You don’t need to be a Fortune 500 company to be targeted, and you don’t need to be one to fight back.

Here’s how to move from awareness to action:

• Invest in AI-aware detection and governance: Traditional tools won’t catch AI-driven threats. You need systems that understand machine behavior and adapt in real time.
• Partner with a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP): MSSPs – like Leapfrog Services – bring the expertise and operational capacity to immediately deploy defenses, without the overhead of building an internal security team.

The Bottom Line

AI is no longer just a tool in your tech stack – it’s a weapon in the hands of your adversaries. The question isn’t whether your business will be targeted, but whether you’ll be ready when it is.

At Leapfrog, we have over 25 years of experience helping SMBs leap ahead of threats, not just react to them. Our AI-aware frameworks are built to detect, disrupt, and defend against the new generation of cyberattacks. If you’re ready to Leap Ahead, reach out today and inquire about our Ring of Security CyberRisk Assessment. Let’s move from awareness to action.

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