Three things worth knowing this month
This is the whole newsletter, on the page, exactly as subscribers got it. If you'd rather have it in your inbox on the first week of the month, the box at the bottom of this page does that.
The scam doing the rounds
Black Friday is on 27 November, and the fake shops are already running ads. Gardaí recorded 2,288 online shopping frauds in the first nine months of last year, more than double the whole of the year before, with over €1.1 million reported lost.
They look real: a logo, nice photos, a sob story about a family business closing down, a countdown clock. Two habits beat nearly all of them. Go to shops by typing the address, never by clicking an ad. And pay by card or PayPal, never by bank transfer, because a transfer is almost impossible to get back.
A price worth knowing
If your Microsoft 365 renewal looked higher this year, it was. Business plans went up on 1 July by roughly 9 to 25%, and the “with Copilot” bundles are now the standard products.
Worth checking before your next renewal: who actually uses the desktop Office apps? Staff who only need email, Teams and the web versions can sit on Business Basic at €6.07 per user per month (ex VAT, paid yearly) instead of the €20-plus plans. On a small team that's real money every year.
One thing to check
This year's Verizon breach report found people are more than four times as likely to be using a password that has already leaked as one that's simply too weak. A leak from some small website years ago is enough, if you used the same password on your email.
Two minutes, free: put your email password into a breach checker that never sends it anywhere (the one on fentech.ie runs entirely in your browser). If it has been seen in a breach, change it today, and make your email password one you use nowhere else.
Where these came from
Online shopping fraud: An Garda Síochána, Black Friday shopping advice. Microsoft 365: heise on the July 2026 price rise and Microsoft Ireland business prices (October 2026). Passwords: Verizon DBIR 2026, via Descope.
Want a hand with any of these? The longer versions are on the blog: spotting a fake shop, cutting your software bill and why reused passwords are the real problem. Or tell me what you're looking at, or ring 085 165 0606.