The ransomware crew with a marketing department
The second most active ransomware crew on earth runs like a franchise, complete with a marketing hire. Plus the week the companies you pay changed the deal: Windows 10 lost its patches, Office got pricier for AI, and QuickBooks Desktop starts its exit.
Ransomware is a business now. The second most active crew on earth runs like a fast-food franchise: the people who break into networks keep ninety percent of the take, and the boss lists 'head of B2B marketing' as his day job. That's the headline this week. The rest of the issue is the companies you already pay changing the deal on you. Windows 10 lost its free security patches, home Office got pricier to cover an AI you didn't ask for, and QuickBooks Desktop began its slow exit. Each one steers you toward a costlier default, and each one has a cheaper or safer way through. Then a lighter one to close, because an entire industry just rearranged its calendar to dodge a single video game. Here's the week.
Ransomware has been franchised
Here's the part that matters for you. The franchise model means more crews hitting more targets, and they go for whoever is easiest. Not the big company with a security team. The small office still running last year's updates. The post walks through how the operation works, and why the dull defenses, tested backups, prompt updates, a second step on your logins, are the ones that keep you off the list.
News
Microsoft stopped patching Windows 10. Now what?
Your Windows 10 PC still turns on and runs fine. That's the trap. Microsoft just stopped sending it free security updates, so any new hole that gets found stays open on your machine. The post lays out six plain-English ways to handle it, with the actual costs, from the free route to a new PC.
News
The cheaper Microsoft 365 plan Microsoft hides behind the cancel button
Microsoft raised the price on its home Office plans to pay for Copilot, the AI assistant now baked into Word and Excel. There's a version without it, still at the old price. You only see it if you start to cancel. The post walks the path to find it before your renewal hits.
News
QuickBooks Desktop is going away.
Intuit is retiring QuickBooks Desktop one version at a time. If your office still runs the buy-it-once version, you're on a clock now. I priced out the three options, the online subscription, a competitor, and staying put while you can, so you can pick on your terms instead of getting herded onto the monthly plan.
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An entire industry is getting out of GTA's way
Pull up the video game calendar for November and the week of the 19th is nearly empty. A row of publishers with billion-dollar slates looked at the launch date for Grand Theft Auto VI and decided to go stand somewhere else. I've been playing since the top-down original in 1997, so I know what fan hype looks like. An entire industry flinching is the bigger story.
Blog
If you only read one: the cheaper Microsoft 365 plan. If you pay for Office at home, a few clicks at renewal time keep you on the old price and off an AI upsell you never asked for. Ten minutes, and it pays you back every year it renews.
Scary Headline of the Week
"Criminals are using Google's own AI to flood your phone with scam texts."
True, and it sounds like a fresh nightmare. Last week Google sued a China-based crew that used Gemini to mass-produce fake websites and the "you owe a toll" and "your package is held" texts that have been piling up in everyone's messages. The AI let them spin up convincing knockoffs of USPS, E-ZPass, and others by the thousand, faster than any person could type them.
This particular scam shouldn't change any of your habits. The scam is the same it was a year ago. A stranger wants you to tap a link and enter your card number. They've cooked up some urgency to rush you past the part of your brain that would have caught it. AI made the bait cheaper to make and a little cleaner to look at. It handed the text no new power over you. A link is still a link, and you still do not tap it.
So when a text says you owe a toll or missed a delivery, do not tap. If you think it might be real, open the actual app or type the real address in yourself. Then report the text as junk and delete it.
It is still just phishing, pointed at your text messages instead of your inbox, and the tells are the same. We walked through them here: How to spot a phishing email.
Verdict: scary press release, same old scam.
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Back next Tuesday. Hit reply anytime and I'll see it.
Joel
