Fortinet has removed SSL VPN tunnel mode from FortiOS 7.6.3, and an unplanned upgrade can leave remote staff without a connection. Jacques van der Merwe explains why Si Futures is migrating clients to IPsec VPN roughly a year ahead, how running both side by side protects users, and what to check before you upgrade.
Password managers make strong, unique passwords practical, but their default autofill matching can expose other clients’ logins when you share your screen. Robin Martin explains the single 1Password setting that fixes it, which logins to change first, and why this small habit protects your clients’ privacy as much as your own.
No managed IT environment, unmanaged workstations, no security oversight
• Business impact: growing security risk, no centralised admin, no estate visibility
→ Full migration to a managed environment with zero downtime; day-to-day issues now near zero
Financial services firm needed lower connectivity costs without losing resilience
• Business impact: rigid off-net circuit meant weeks-long changes and no safety margin for a business trading daily
→ Migrated to a Si Futures-owned on-net circuit with automated BGP failover, tested live at 4 seconds — lower cost, same reliability.
Si Futures Senior Engineer Rudie de Vries explains how a single engineer’s manual account activity investigation process was turned into a self-service Microsoft 365 activity monitoring tool — cutting a security incident timeline task from hours to minutes for the whole team.
A quiet email account compromise can run for weeks before anyone notices. This piece walks through the practical, ordered steps that limit damage and stop attackers finding a second way back in.
SQL Server 2016 at end of support in a regulated SA financial services environment
• Business impact: audit exposure, absent security patches, 1.5TB storage accumulation
→ Upgraded to current SQL version; performance validated; downstream compatibility resolved in 15 minutes; automated weekly storage cleanup established
Microsoft 365 audit logs retain 180 days of activity — but the compliance portal wasn’t built for serious investigations. Rudie de Vries explains the retention ceiling, bulk extraction via PowerShell, and what happens when the clock runs out mid-investigation.
Microsoft is retiring Exchange Web Services in October 2026 — a backend change that will silently break backup tools, archiving solutions, and integrations still relying on EWS. Find out if your Microsoft 365 backup is at risk and what to do before the deadline.
