The report archive
Every problem, written down.
37 real incidents from East Tennessee businesses: the symptom, the fix, and what it would have cost. No hypotheticals, no stock scenarios.
01
Security
Open RDP on the Public Internet: Found During Onboarding Discovery
Day-one discovery for a new client found Remote Desktop exposed to the public internet. Nothing was breached yet; we closed it before someone found it. 02 SoftwareWebView2 Runtime Won't Install? The Admin MSI Fix That Actually Works
A user's app wouldn't launch because WebView2 Runtime silently failed to install. The fix was to grab the MSI directly from Microsoft and install it elevated. 03 SecurityGetting Verification Codes You Didn't Request? How to Tell Spam From Account Compromise
A title company user received back-to-back OTP codes she never asked for. The triage playbook: attacker on a signup form versus actual account compromise. 04 SecurityFinding Your BitLocker Recovery Key After a Windows Update Breaks Boot
A four-month-old HP laptop hit the BitLocker recovery screen after a botched Windows update. The escrowed recovery key had it booting again in minutes. 05 SoftwareQuickBooks Desktop Hangs on Intuit ID Login: The Send Forms Workaround
QuickBooks Desktop couldn't email invoices. The Intuit ID login window hung forever. The fix wasn't a password. 06 SecurityBEC Wire Fraud at a Title Company: How We Stopped a High-Six-Figure Loss
An attacker got into a closer's inbox and sent fraudulent wire instructions to the other side of a real estate deal. We contained it in under three hours. 07 AutomationAutomating CrushFTP Upgrades and In-Place Updates
Shell scripts for major version upgrades and minor updates. Transform a complex manual process into a single, reliable command. 08 SoftwareFront App Keeps Sending Emails to Spam: Why Whitelisting in Front Doesn't Work
Wire confirmations kept landing in Front's Spam folder. Not Spam clears one message; the durable allow list lives in Gmail, where classification happens. 09 InfrastructureAT&T Fiber Keeps Dropping? How We Proved the ISP Was the Problem
An insurance agency's remote desktop kept reconnecting all day. AT&T blamed our equipment. External ping monitors proved them wrong. 10 InfrastructureAutomated Proxmox Host Configuration Backups to SMB Share
Deployed automated monthly backup solution for Proxmox VE host configurations using bash script and cron.monthly. 11 InfrastructureAutomating Wildcard SSL Certificates on Synology NAS with acme.sh
Deployed automated wildcard SSL certificate management for Synology NAS using acme.sh, Let's Encrypt, and Cloudflare DNS validation. 12 InfrastructureLenovo ThinkBook Camera Stuck in DFU Mode After Update
Remote firmware recovery for cameras stuck in bootloader mode. Recovered from 20,000 miles away without proprietary firmware files. 13 AutomationPC Replacement: Zero Data Loss User Profile Migration
CFO's laptop dying, needed everything moved to new machine. 47GB of documents, app settings, and browser data migrated in 90 minutes with USMT. 14 InfrastructureMac Running Slow: Disk Errors Causing Performance Issues
Designer's MacBook Pro crawling during large file operations. Disk Utility showed nothing. Deep scan found filesystem inconsistencies across 3 volumes. 15 AutomationWinget for RMM: Silent Software Deployment at Scale
85 machines needed 15 applications each. Manual install: 64 hours. With winget automation: 3 hours. Plus weekly auto-updates. 16 SoftwarePrint to PDF Not Working in Citrix: Remote Application Printing Fix
A remote Citrix application would not save PDFs on the local machine. Setting PDF24 as the default printer solved it in five minutes. 17 SecurityOneStart Browser Hijacker: Complete Removal from 30 Infected Machines
PUP that hijacks browsers, injects ads, and reinstalls itself via scheduled tasks. Standard uninstall fails. Complete removal automation. 18 SecurityLaptop Stolen at Airport: Emergency Remote Wipe via RMM
Friday 4:47 PM. Sales rep's laptop stolen with customer data. Device online on a different network. We had minutes to act. 19 AutomationMass BIOS & Driver Updates: Dell Fleet Vulnerability Patching
Critical BIOS vulnerability affecting 127 Dell machines. Manual updates would take weeks. Dell Command Update via RMM: 2 weeks, zero site visits. 20 AutomationFixing Windows Time Sync: Clock Wrong, Can't Log In
Law firm paralegal locked out Monday morning. Clock showing March 2019. Kerberos won't authenticate with 5+ minute time drift. 21 AutomationFixing Windows Update Stuck in Reboot Loop: Nuclear Reset
HR laptop cycling 'Undoing changes' for 6 hours. 24H2 update failing at 47%. Benefits deadline in 3 hours. Standard fixes failed. 22 SecurityLocked Out of Client PC: Emergency Local Admin via RMM
IT director quit and changed every admin password on the way out. Domain locked, DSRM locked, 85 users dead in the water. RMM saved the day. 23 AutomationServer at 99% Disk: Recovering 47GB Windows Couldn't Clean
Application server at 0.7% free space. Standard Disk Cleanup found 400MB. We found 47GB hiding in WinSxS and SoftwareDistribution. 24 AutomationAfter-Hours Patching Failed: Machines Asleep During Maintenance
Scheduled overnight patches couldn't run - 60% of workstations were powered off or sleeping. Enabled Wake-on-LAN across Dell, HP, and Lenovo fleet. 25 AutomationServer Going to Sleep: Critical Operations Interrupted
Digital signage kiosk kept going dark during business hours. Windows power settings were reverting after every reboot. Fixed with enforced always-on profile. 26 AutomationBitLocker Encryption at Scale: Compliance in 72 Hours
Cyber insurance required full-disk encryption on 127 endpoints. Manual BitLocker is 15 minutes a machine; we automated it zero-touch with escrowed keys. 27 SecuritySecurity Audit: Passwords Found in Spreadsheets and Documents
Compliance audit required proving no plaintext passwords on endpoints. Scan found 23 files with 'password' in the name containing actual credentials. 28 AutomationFixing Windows Corruption After Malware: DISM and SFC Repair
Malware removed but laptop still broken. Settings won't open, search returns nothing, Explorer crashing. 847 corrupted components. 29 AutomationComputer Running Slow? Finding What's Using Your Disk Space
'My computer is slow' ticket. 2GB free on 256GB drive. We found 90GB of recoverable space in 43 seconds without interrupting the user. 30 AutomationApp Can't Connect: Firewall Blocking Production Software
New accounting software couldn't reach its license server. Quick firewall toggle isolated the issue in 30 seconds instead of hours of port hunting. 31 AutomationISP Blaming User Equipment: Automated Speedtest Evidence
The ISP said 'your equipment is the problem.' Automated speedtests across 47 endpoints proved throttling and got the circuit fixed. 32 AutomationShared PC Out of Disk: Stale User Profiles Eating Storage
Training room PC down to 2GB free. Windows Disk Cleanup found nothing. 47 old user profiles from past employees consuming 180GB. 33 AutomationLost Wi-Fi Passwords: Bulk Recovery from Existing Devices
Office move, IT person quit, no documentation. 23 SSIDs saved on machines but nobody knew the passwords. Extracted all credentials in 12 minutes. 34 AutomationPatch Compliance Failing: 90+ Day Uptime, Missing Updates
Audit flagged 49% of endpoints missing critical patches. Updates were installed - just waiting for reboots that never came. 35 AutomationInsurance Audit Hardware Inventory: 312 Assets in 47 Minutes
Cyber insurance required a complete hardware inventory: serials, specs, encryption status. Manual audit quote: 2 weeks. Automation delivered it same day. 36 AutomationPrint Spooler Stuck: Clearing Hundreds of Jammed Print Jobs
Accounting firm, April 14th. Every printer offline, 847 jobs stuck. They'd tried everything for 2 days. We fixed it in 90 seconds. 37 AutomationFixing KB5034441 Error 0x80070643: WinRE Partition Resize
312 machines failing the same update after Patch Tuesday. Microsoft's fix was 15 manual steps per machine. We automated it.
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