Tech
How to Find Unknown Internet-Facing Assets Before Attackers Exploit Them
Most organizations have more internet-facing assets than they realize. Some are active business systems. Others are old subdomains, forgotten test environments, exposed cloud services, vendor-built pages or applications that no one owns anymore. These assets may seem harmless when they are not in daily use, but attackers often see them differently. To them, every exposed system is a possible way in.
Security teams cannot protect what they cannot see. That is why finding unknown internet-facing assets has become a critical part of reducing cyber risk. Attackers use automated tools to scan the public internet, identify weak systems and match them with known vulnerabilities. If they discover an exposed asset before your team does, the organization is already at a disadvantage.
What Are Unknown Internet-Facing Assets?
An internet-facing asset is any digital asset that can be reached from the public internet. This can include websites, web applications, APIs, VPN portals, email servers, cloud storage buckets, remote access tools, development environments, databases, subdomains and third-party hosted systems.
An asset becomes “unknown” when it is not included in the organization’s approved inventory. It may not have a clear owner. It may not be scanned for vulnerabilities. It may not be patched or monitored. In some cases, security teams may not even know it exists.
This is where many visibility gaps begin. A developer may spin up a temporary test environment. A marketing team may launch a microsite through an agency. A cloud resource may be created for a short-term project and never removed. Over time, these small exceptions add up. For organizations building a CTEM program, unknown assets are often one of the first issues to address because continuous exposure management depends on a complete view of what is actually exposed.
Why Unknown Internet-Facing Assets Create Risk
Unknown assets increase the external attack surface. Each exposed domain, service or application gives attackers another place to look for weaknesses. The risk is not always tied to the size or importance of the system. A forgotten login page or outdated staging site can be enough to create a serious incident.
These assets are also more likely to be neglected. If no one owns a system, no one is responsible for updating it. If it is not in the inventory, it may be missed during vulnerability scans. If it is not monitored, suspicious activity can go unnoticed for longer.
Unknown assets can also expose sensitive information. A public cloud bucket may contain documents, credentials or backups. A development site may reveal source code, internal naming patterns or application logic. An old admin panel may still connect to a live system. Attackers do not need every asset to be vulnerable. They only need one useful opening.
Where Unknown Assets Usually Come From
Unknown internet-facing assets often appear because modern IT environments change quickly. Cloud platforms make it easy to create resources in minutes. DevOps teams deploy new services often. Business units adopt SaaS tools without always involving security. Vendors build and host assets on behalf of the company.
Shadow IT is one common source. Teams may create tools, websites or integrations to move faster, but these assets can fall outside normal security controls.
Cloud sprawl is another. Public IPs, storage buckets, containers and workloads can remain online after a project ends. Development and testing environments also create risk when they are not properly decommissioned.
Mergers and acquisitions add another layer. Acquired companies may bring old domains, legacy applications, cloud accounts and vendor relationships. Unless these assets are reviewed and integrated into the main inventory, they can remain exposed for years.
How Attackers Find These Assets
Attackers do not rely on internal access to discover exposed systems. They use the same public signals that are available to anyone.
They scan IP ranges and open ports. They enumerate DNS records and subdomains. They review certificate transparency logs to find domains linked to an organization. They search public databases, code repositories, breach data and internet search engines. Once they identify an asset, they look for software versions, exposed services, weak authentication and known vulnerabilities.
This process is often automated. That means attackers can find new exposures quickly. A system that appears online today can be discovered, classified and tested for weaknesses soon after. This is why one-time asset discovery is not enough.
How to Find Unknown Internet-Facing Assets First
The first step is to build a complete external asset inventory. This inventory should include domains, subdomains, IP addresses, applications, APIs, cloud resources, certificates and third-party hosted systems. It should also include business context, such as who owns the asset, what it supports and whether it handles sensitive data.
Next, security teams should perform external attack surface discovery. This means looking at the organization from the outside, similar to how an attacker would. Useful methods include domain discovery, subdomain enumeration, IP range mapping, port scanning, service fingerprinting, cloud asset discovery and certificate analysis.
Ownership is just as important as discovery. Every asset should have a business owner and a technical owner. Without ownership, remediation becomes slow and uncertain. When a risky asset appears, the team needs to know who can approve changes, apply fixes or take it offline.
After assets are identified, they should be classified by risk. Factors can include internet exposure, business importance, software version, authentication requirements, data sensitivity and known vulnerabilities. This helps teams focus on the assets that matter most instead of treating every finding the same.
What to Check Once Assets Are Found
Finding an unknown asset is only the beginning. The next step is to determine whether it is safe, necessary and properly managed.
Security teams should check for open ports, outdated software, exposed admin panels, weak authentication, missing encryption, default credentials and public storage. They should also review whether the asset is still needed. If it no longer supports a valid business purpose, removing it may be the best option.
If the asset is needed, it should be brought under normal security processes. That means adding it to the inventory, assigning ownership, scanning it regularly, monitoring changes and including it in patch management workflows.
Best Practices for Long-Term Asset Management
External asset discovery should be continuous. Internet-facing environments change too often for annual or quarterly reviews to be enough. New cloud services, domains, certificates and applications can appear at any time.
A strong process should include continuous monitoring, automated alerts and regular reviews of stale assets. Teams should be notified when new internet-facing systems appear, when ports open, when certificates are issued or when serious vulnerabilities are detected.
Third-party assets should also be included. Vendor-hosted portals, agency-built microsites and partner-managed applications can still create risk for the organization. If they use the company’s domain, brand or data, they belong in the external asset inventory.
It is also important to retire what is no longer needed. Old domains, unused applications and abandoned infrastructure create unnecessary exposure. Removing them reduces risk and simplifies security operations.
Tech
5 Best Agencies to Handle Your Magento Upgrade
Magento upgrades can protect revenue when platform versions age. This list focuses on agencies and service providers with public Magento or Adobe Commerce upgrade experience, clear delivery steps, and a fit for stores where uptime and order flow matter.
Our methodology
Agencies were reviewed based on:
- Magento and Adobe Commerce upgrade focus
- Public proof of patch, version, or migration work
- Custom code, extension, theme, and integration review
- Staging, QA, rollback, and launch control
- Security, performance, SEO, and post-launch support
- Fit for complex retail, B2B, or multichannel stores
1. scandiweb
For stores where old extensions, custom modules, and checkout rules make upgrades risky, the team at scandiweb presents Magento upgrade services as a staged process built around staging work, data protection, custom code checks, extension testing, zero downtime planning, and a rollback path before release.
The team has Magento 2.4.9 upgrades, 894+ Adobe certifications, an Adobe Commerce partnership since 2009, 700+ brands collaboration, and a process that keeps production running while the upgraded copy is built and tested.
The fit is strongest for retailers that need more than a version bump. A Magento upgrade can expose old frontend code, slow templates, abandoned modules, broken integrations, or weak deployment habits. This provider also has public service coverage across Hyvä, performance, SEO, support, hosting, and integrations, which helps when an upgrade becomes a wider cleanup project.
Pros:
- Strong Adobe Commerce and Magento focus with high certification depth
- Clear staging, testing, zero downtime, and rollback language
- Useful fit for upgrade work tied to performance, SEO, or support
Cons:
- The service range is broad, so teams should rank priorities before kickoff
2. Rave Digital
Rave Digital offers a dedicated Magento 2 version update and upgrade service. The agency has Magento 2 experts who help stores move to the latest Magento 2 version and frame upgrades around security, features, and platform upkeep.
This is a practical choice for merchants who want a focused version upgrade backed by Magento development and maintenance support. The team is less detailed about exact rollback steps than some others, so buyers should ask how the team handles staging, data sync, checkout testing, and emergency release reversal.
Pros:
- Dedicated Magento 2 upgrade service page
- Clear fit for version updates and maintenance work
- Good option for stores that need a focused upgrade partner
Cons:
- Buyers should ask for a detailed QA and rollback workflow
3. i95Dev
i95Dev is a useful option for Magento stores with ERP, B2B, or integration risk. Its public 2.4.9 upgrade guide notes that Magento 2.4.9 was released on May 12, 2026, and describes major technical changes, including raised system requirements and 666+ fixes. It also warns that support for 2.4.5 and 2.4.6 ends in August 2026.
That kind of upgrade guidance matters when order flow depends on outside systems. Version work can affect APIs, authentication, account creation, inventory sync, and ERP logic. Retailers planning upgrades should also review technical SEO and site performance because code changes, crawl control, and page speed can affect search traffic after release.
Pros:
- Strong fit for ERP-connected and B2B Magento stores
- Public 2.4.9 guidance is detailed and current
- Good option when upgrade planning touches integrations
Cons:
- Buyers may need to confirm the exact service scope beyond advisory content
4. BSS Commerce
BSS Commerce offers Magento 2 upgrade services with a clear focus on security, speed, zero data loss, and no downtime. It provides code adjustments, extension and integration updates, technical audits, dependency management, theme checks, and QC testing before go-live.
This agency fits merchants with extension-heavy stores or B2B requirements. The team states 13+ years of Magento and eCommerce experience, 100K+ global customers, and 570+ successful projects from global brands. Those numbers point to broad Magento exposure, though buyers should still ask which upgrade projects match their own store size and complexity.
Pros:
- Detailed workflow around audit, backup, staging, core updates, and testing
- Good fit for extension and B2B feature review
- Public claims include experience, customer, and project figures
Cons:
- The site uses broad service claims, so ask for matching case examples
5. Mageplaza
Mageplaza offers a Magento 2 upgrade service with a transparent starting price of $699. It describes requirement checks, staging setup, core, database, and extension updates, QA, deployment to live, and one month of post-upgrade support.
This option may suit small or mid-size Magento Open Source stores that need a controlled version update with clear pricing. Enterprise retailers with heavy custom code, unusual checkout logic, or many integrations should confirm what falls outside the base service before ordering.
Pros:
- Clear upgrade steps and visible starting prices
- Includes staging, QA, deployment, and post-upgrade support
- Good fit for simpler version upgrades
Cons:
- Customization and compatibility work may cost extra
How to choose
The best upgrade partner depends on risk. A simple fix demands a different crew than a multi-version upgrade with ERP sync, custom checkout, legacy extensions, and live revenue pressure. Inquire with each vendor regarding the potential for failure, the method of testing, the individual responsible for rollback, and the duration of monitoring following the launch.
By 2026, the global eCommerce market is expected to generate $3.88 trillion in revenue, with an annual growth rate of 6.84% through 2030, as per Statista. As online revenue keeps rising, stores need safer release habits and current platform versions. Choose the team that can prove the upgrade plan before release.
Tech
How Agencies Can Scale WordPress Support Without Expanding Their Internal Team
Managing a digital agency means you’re often at the mercy of the client versus your internal bandwidth. Your client roster grows and, therefore, the WordPress support tickets, plugin updates, security patches, and emergency fixes that need to be resolved night and day.
Here’s the deal: agencies are usually reluctant to keep hiring more and more developers just because a few more accounts come in. The recruitment procedure is slow, expensive, and does not usually scale according to customer demand. A lot of smart agencies are making a quiet shift to outsourcing maintenance work, and not necessarily expanding their teams.
Why In-House WordPress Support Becomes Difficult to Scale
Nearly all emerging agencies encounter a common obstacle. Your client leadership teams and project managers were onboarded to create your new websites and move your business forward. Not to spend your afternoons fixing broken plugins and updating PHP versions. But the maintenance task keeps piling up. They eat away at billable hours and distract your best people from revenue-generating activity.
The calculations are not in your favour either. In the United States, a full-time WordPress support specialist costs between 60,000 and 90,000 dollars a year, excluding benefits, training, and management overhead. It’s simply unrealistic for an agency managing 30 or 50 client websites to have hired specialists to just keep things going.
There is also a matter of coverage. The website may crash at any time. Buyers expect returns on weekends. It’s impossible to staff a single in-house employee to support your needs 24/7 without burning out or interfering with hiring more people. This has the opposite of the intended impact on your agency’s capacity to take on new business.
What Are White-Label WordPress Maintenance Services?
A white label WordPress maintenance service is an outsourced support team that works behind the scenes under your agency’s name. Your clients are unaware that a third party is in charge of the technical setup. Everything we produce retains your brand identity, your tone, and your logo in all communications and reports.
These services typically include updating WordPress core, plugins, and themes, scanning for malware, backup management, and monitoring uptime. As well as optimising speed and fixing on-demand issues. Certain services, like white label WordPress maintenance services, provide dedicated account managers, custom development hours, and emergency response coverage as part of their services.
The largest change is psychological and not operational. Rather than seeing WordPress support as a cost centre that takes your money and resources, you view it as a productized service that works in the background while your agency focuses on creativity and strategy.
Why Agencies Prefer This Model Over Hiring Additional Staff
Once you begin doing the math, the benefits quickly pile up. To begin with, you eliminate the fixed limit of salaries and substitute a predictable per-site or per-hour fee that scales with your customer base. Second, you will make use of a team that already possesses deep WordPress expertise, resulting in fewer mistakes and faster turnaround time.
You can also broaden your service offerings without increasing staffing. A lot of agencies use a white label WordPress maintenance service to launch monthly care plans for their customers. This results in a recurring income stream without any effort from their own staff. This is one of the easiest ways to create a profitable revenue stream for an agency that has been stuck in project-based billing.
How to Set Up an Effective Workflow
After you choose a partner, make one point of contact between your agency and the help teams. It helps prevent misunderstandings and keeps things clear. You should create a shared system to log tickets, whether Slack, WhatsApp, email, Jira, etc. Send over any brand assets, templates, or tone-of-voice guidelines early on, so your client-facing deliverables are on-brand.
It’s also good to start small. Offer the service to a handful of clients, refine the workflow, and scale. It doesn’t take long for most agencies to realise that they can take on two or even three times more clients without making a single internal hire.
Conclusion
Expanding your agency doesn’t necessarily have to include the team. When you partner with a trustworthy white label support provider, your internal team can concentrate on their strengths while you provide high-class maintenance solutions to every customer that you have. In the coming years, the agencies that will grow fastest will be those that learn to outsource the repetitive work, while doubling down on strategy, creativity, and client relationships. When you outsource WordPress support, you’re not cutting corners. It’s just a clever strategy for building a sustainable agency.
Tech
Why Outsourcing IT Beats Hiring a Full In-House Team (At Least for the Budget)
Picture this: a growing business finally lands a big client, the team’s buzzing, and then the server decides to throw a tantrum on a Friday afternoon. Who fixes it? If there’s no IT person around, things get awkward fast. But hiring a whole in-house team just to cover those “what if” moments? That’s where the maths starts looking a bit shaky.
Plenty of business owners wrestle with this exact question. And the answer, more often than not, points towards outsourcing.
The Real Cost of an In-House Team
Here’s the thing about hiring full-time IT staff. The salary is only the start of it.
There’s superannuation, paid leave, sick days, training, the fancy software they need, and the desk they sit at. By the time it’s all added up, a single IT hire can cost a small fortune. Now multiply that across a team, because one person can’t realistically cover networking, cybersecurity, cloud setups, and the printer that nobody can ever get to work.
The truth is, most businesses don’t need that depth of expertise sitting around all day. They need it when something breaks or when they’re planning something new. Paying premium salaries for skills that get used occasionally feels a little like buying a forklift to move one box a week.
Outsourcing Spreads the Load (And the Cost)
When a business brings in an outside provider, they’re essentially sharing a whole team across multiple clients. That means the cost gets split, but the expertise doesn’t shrink.
Suddenly there’s access to specialists in security, cloud migration, backups, the lot. All for a predictable monthly fee rather than a pile of separate salaries.
Ever noticed how surprise expenses are the ones that hurt most? Outsourced IT tends to flatten that out. You know what you’re paying each month, which makes budgeting a whole lot less stressful.
This is why companies like Cloud Context, recognised as Sydney’s leading managed IT services, have become such a popular choice for businesses that want enterprise-level support without the enterprise-level overhead.
Around-the-Clock Cover Without the Overtime
An in-house person clocks off eventually. They take holidays. They get the flu. And when they do, who’s watching the systems?
Outsourced teams usually run on rotating coverage, so there’s almost always someone keeping an eye on things. That midnight server hiccup gets caught before anyone even sits down for their morning coffee.
For a single hire to match that? You’d need to roster multiple people and pay overtime rates that’d make the accountant wince.
Scaling Up (or Down) Without the Drama
Business growth is unpredictable. Sometimes it booms, sometimes it cools off for a quarter. Hiring and firing in-house staff to match those swings is expensive, slow, and frankly a bit miserable for everyone involved.
With an outsourced setup, scaling is mostly a conversation. Need more support next month because of a big project? Sorted. Things quieten down? Adjust the plan. No redundancy payouts, no awkward goodbyes.
Staying Current Without the Headache
Technology shifts constantly, and keeping an in-house team trained on every new tool and threat is a job in itself. Honestly, who has the time?
Managed providers make it their business to stay sharp. It’s literally what they do all day. So clients get the benefit of fresh knowledge without footing the bill for endless courses and certifications.
So, What’s the Takeaway?
Outsourcing isn’t about cutting corners. It’s about being smart with where the money goes.
A growing business gets broader expertise, steadier costs, better coverage, and the freedom to focus on the actual work instead of fighting fires. For most small and mid-sized companies, that combination is pretty hard to beat.
And when that Friday afternoon server tantrum rolls around? Someone else picks up the phone.
Tech
SmartyMe App on my home screen: Why it earned its spot
My home screen has maybe eight icons on it. Everything else lives in folders, out of sight. The apps that make it to the front row are the ones I open without thinking, usually before I’ve finished my first cup of coffee. SmartyMe didn’t land there on day one. But once it did, it never got moved back. Before I even downloaded it, I read more than one SmartyMe app review to make sure it was worth the storage space, and I’m glad I did.
How Mobile learning changed what I do on my phone
For a long time, my phone had one job during downtime: scroll. News, social media, a bit of Reddit, repeat. I wasn’t getting anything from it, but the habit stuck because nothing better had taken its place.
Mobile learning flipped that. Not dramatically, not overnight, but gradually the short lessons started filling the same time slots. Ten minutes waiting for a call. Fifteen minutes before a meeting. It turns out the phone is actually a decent learning tool if you give it content worth your attention.
What surprised me most was how easy it was to swap one habit for another. I didn’t clear my schedule or set alarms. The lessons just fit where the scrolling used to be, and the swap felt natural rather than forced. That’s a design win more apps should aim for.
Why audio lessons made it a daily thing
The single feature that kept me coming back consistently is the audio format. 🎧
I work at a desk most of the day, so by evening the last thing I want is more screen time. Reading something educational after 7 PM rarely happens, no matter how good my intentions are. Audio is different. You can listen while your eyes are doing something else entirely.
Here’s how audio lessons fit into time I already had:
- 🚶 Morning walk: 15 to 20 minutes, one full lesson, no phone in hand
- 🍳 Cooking dinner: background audio that’s actually worth listening to
- 🚗 Short commute: better than music when I want to actually absorb something
- 🌙 Wind-down time: low-effort way to end the day with something useful
The content doesn’t require you to rewind constantly either. Lessons are structured so the key points come through clearly even if you miss a sentence or two. That’s harder to design than it sounds, and it shows in how the format holds up across different listening conditions.
How it fits into my daily routine
Consistency with any app comes down to one thing: whether it slots into your existing life or demands you rearrange around it. SmartyMe doesn’t ask for much.
My most reliable moment is morning coffee. The lesson plays while the coffee brews and I’m still sitting at the table. It takes maybe ten minutes, and the day starts with something that felt like a small win. That anchor point has been stable for months now.
The daily routine looks roughly like this:
- Morning: one short lesson over coffee, usually before checking messages
- Midday: occasionally a second pass if a topic feels worth revisiting
- Evening walk: audio lesson if the weather is good and I’m stepping out anyway
What makes this work is that none of these slots required creating new time. They replaced gaps that already existed. The app doesn’t push hard reminders or guilt-trip you with streaks. It’s just there when you open it, ready to go.
That low-friction approach is underrated. Apps that nag tend to get uninstalled. Apps that wait patiently tend to stick around.
What made it stay on the home screen
Let’s be honest: most apps get demoted to a folder within two weeks. Games stop feeling fresh. News apps get exhausting. Utility apps you use once and forget. The home screen is competitive real estate, and most things don’t hold their spot.
SmartyMe has held its spot for several reasons, none of which are dramatic:
- 📲 I open it more often than most apps that live in folders
- ✅ Each session ends with a clear sense of having done something, not just consumed something
- 🔄 The content refreshes, so there’s always a reason to come back
- 🧠 It’s genuinely useful in a way that games and social apps stop being after a few days
There’s also something worth noting about how it handles the experience of using it. It doesn’t try to be addictive in the way social media platforms are. There’s no infinite feed pulling you deeper. You finish a lesson, you close the app, and that’s fine. That’s actually the point.
If you’re on the fence about whether it’s worth a spot on your screen, the practical answer is to try it for one week. Pick one consistent moment in your day, morning coffee, a commute, an evening walk, and run a lesson through it. By day five, you’ll know whether it fits your life or not. Most people find that it does.
The home screen is a small thing, but it’s also a statement about what you actually use. SmartyMe earned its place there, and it keeps earning it every time I open it.
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