January is often when businesses reassess how their technology environment supports productivity, security, and overall operational health. At Securafy, we see consistent patterns in SMB environments: well-intentioned teams continue relying on habits that seem harmless in the moment but create systemic risk over time.
These six habits are among the most common — and the most damaging. Replacing them with structured practices significantly reduces downtime, security exposure, and long-term IT cost.
Updates are frequently postponed because they feel disruptive. However, delaying patches exposes organizations to known vulnerabilities that attackers actively exploit. Research consistently shows that unpatched systems are one of the primary causes of successful breaches. According to the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report SMB Snapshot, a significant portion of attacks succeeded because systems were missing available patches that would have neutralized known threats (Verizon DBIR).
This pattern mirrors the infamous WannaCry outbreak, where organizations worldwide were compromised months after Microsoft released a fix. The issue was not the vulnerability — it was delayed patching.
Recommended shift: Automate updates and schedule them outside working hours. This eliminates manual deferral and closes high-risk gaps promptly.
Password reuse remains one of the most exploited behaviors in cyberattacks. Attackers frequently use credential stuffing — testing stolen username-password pairs across multiple platforms — because it consistently works. Research shows that credential-based attacks are among the most common intrusion methods across SMB environments.
In our assessments, Securafy routinely finds that the same password is used for email, business apps, banking portals, CRM systems, and remote access tools. Once exposed, attackers can move laterally with minimal resistance.
Recommended shift: Deploy a password manager organization-wide to enforce unique, complex credentials without adding cognitive burden to your team.
SMBs often exchange passwords via email, text, or chat for convenience. However, this creates permanent, searchable records that become exposed if any inbox or messaging account is compromised. Compromised email accounts are a leading source of secondary breaches, largely due to stored sensitive information like sent credentials.
Once attackers gain access to a mailbox, they can quickly extract passwords using simple keyword searches.
Recommended shift: Use encrypted credential-sharing tools built into enterprise password managers. This prevents passwords from ever appearing in inboxes or message logs.
Excessive administrative privileges dramatically increase the blast radius of a breach. SMBs often assign admin rights simply to bypass permission issues, but this exposes critical system functions to accidental changes or attacker misuse.
Verizon’s SMB analysis highlights that misconfigurations and human error contribute significantly to breach incidents, often magnified by elevated permissions.
From our incident response experience:
Malware spreads faster on admin-enabled accounts
Security tools can be disabled without detection
Attackers gain instant system-wide access once a privileged account is compromised
Recommended shift: Enforce the Principle of Least Privilege and regularly audit permissions. Proper access governance materially reduces the risk of widespread damage.
SMBs regularly create temporary fixes to keep work moving — a manual process here, a shared folder there, a repeated workaround for a recurring error. Over time, these patchwork solutions become embedded workflows that slow operations and increase fragility.
These workarounds create measurable productivity loss. Studies show that aging systems, fragmented workflows, and outdated processes can reduce employee productivity by almost 30% (Intel SMB PC Study).
In Securafy environments, these losses typically show up as:
Extra steps repeated hundreds of times per week
Recurring user frustration and support requests
Process failures when a key staff member is unavailable
Recommended shift: Document recurring workarounds and escalate them for permanent resolution. This is one of the fastest ways to improve efficiency without additional headcount.
Spreadsheets are excellent tools but poor platforms. When a business runs scheduling, inventory, financial modeling, or customer management from a single file, risk accumulates quickly.
Common risks include:
Corruption with no recovery path
No audit trail for changes
No access controls or user permissions
Dependency on one individual’s institutional knowledge
Data loss is still one of the most damaging disruptions an SMB can face. Research indicates that a significant percentage of businesses do not fully recover after severe data loss events (Data Loss Business Impact Study).
A single spreadsheet serving as a mission-critical system magnifies that risk.
Recommended shift: Identify the processes behind the spreadsheet and migrate them to appropriate business systems with logging, permissions, and built-in backups.
These behaviors remain common not because leaders are unaware, but because the environment makes them easy:
Short-term convenience hides long-term risk
The negative impact remains invisible until a major incident
Team norms reinforce insecure or inefficient patterns
IT responsibilities are distributed among staff with limited time
Breaking these habits requires structural change, not personal discipline.
SMBs succeed at eliminating harmful tech habits when the environment is redesigned so the secure, efficient choice becomes automatic. As an MSP, Securafy enforces this through:
Centralized patching and automated updates
Organization-wide password management
Structured access controls
Replacement of legacy workarounds
Migration from fragile spreadsheets to supported systems
This removes reliance on individual decisions and ensures consistency even as the business grows.
If your business is ready to eliminate these habits and adopt practices that strengthen security and efficiency, the first step is gaining objective visibility into what is currently happening in your environment.
A focused, 15-minute conversation to identify:
Which high-risk habits exist in your workflows
What impact they have on security and productivity
The fastest path to replacing them with sustainable solutions
No jargon. No judgment. Just clarity — and a roadmap for meaningful improvement.
Make this the year your technology becomes an asset instead of a liability.
Schedule your 15-minute discovery call and start eliminating the habits that quietly undermine your business.