Dr. Friday Radio Show – January 3, 2026

While taxes are usually the star of the show, Dr. Friday takes a detour “off the grid” this week to discuss a critical component of business health: cybersecurity. Joined by Matt Folker and Dennis Buzard from Innovative Solutions Through Technology (ISTT), Dr. Friday explores why small and medium-sized businesses are often the most vulnerable to hackers. From “sniff tests” for emails to the dangers of leftover COVID-era remote access, this episode is a must-listen for any business owner looking to protect their data, their employees, and their legacy.

Key Summary Points

• The Goal is Risk Elimination: ISTT’s primary objective isn’t just fixing computers; it’s identifying hidden risks in a network and eliminating them before the “bad guys” find them.
• The 30-Minute Assessment: Dennis explains their entry-level scan, which takes about 30–45 minutes. If their simulation software can run on your system, it means a hacker’s malware can too.
• Good “Cyber Hygiene”: Matt shares simple but effective tips, such as the “toothbrush rule” (never share your password) and the “sniff test” (if an email looks off, it probably is).
• Ransomware is a Business: Modern hackers aren’t just locking your data; they are stealing it to sell. Matt shares a cautionary tale of a business owner whose retirement plan was ruined after a breach forced him to pay for identity protection for every employee from the last seven years.
• Hidden Entry Points: Your computer isn’t the only way in. Hackers often use “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices like office thermostats, printers, and security cameras to bridge into a company’s main server.
• The “Good Guy” Support: Beyond security, ISTT discusses the importance of professional IT support to prevent “jerry-rigged” solutions that accidentally open security holes during emergencies like payroll processing.

Episode FAQ

What is ISTT? ISTT stands for Innovative Solutions Through Technology. They are a Kentucky and Tennessee-based IT and cybersecurity firm that provides technical assessments, end-user training, and managed IT support.

What happens during the free evaluation? Dennis Buzard visits your office for 30–45 minutes to run a sample scan on a few workstations. About a week later, they provide a 25–30 page detailed report (in layman’s terms) explaining where your security holes are.

I’m a small business with only a few computers. Do I really need this? Yes. Dr. Friday notes that many small businesses rely on outdated setups from decades ago or “big box store” Wi-Fi solutions that aren’t secure. Hackers often target smaller firms because they lack the robust IT departments of major corporations.

Does ISTT use offshore support? No. All ISTT employees are based locally in Kentucky and Tennessee, though they serve clients across the majority of the United States.

Transcript

Dr. Friday 00:00 All right, we are here with the Doctor Friday show. The Doctor is in the house, and we have some guests in the studio. Matt, could you say your name, please? Matt Folker 00:08 Uh yeah, my name is Matt Folker. Dr. Friday 00:10 And what’s your job title? Matt Folker 00:11 Uh well I’m got a little bit of everything, but um pretty much I’m the chief information officer for a company called ISTT, which is also a mouthful. It stands for Innovative Solutions Through Technology. Yes, I run out of breath every time I say it. That’s why we say it ISTT. But uh thanks for having me on today. Dr. Friday 00:28 Thanks for joining me, and I’m so sorry. Everyone that knows me knows I am Horrible with names. Dennis is also here. Dennis, you want to tell him a little bit about who you are? Dennis Buzard 00:37 Yeah, Dennis Buzard. I’m the senior sales manager with ISTT, uh helping folks uh stay safe and not let any cyber issues hit them. Dr. Friday 00:44 All right. And that’s what the show’s about today, guys. We’re gonna get into a little bit off the normal path. Taxes are fine and exciting and for me totally fun. But I think sometimes we need to, you know, let our brain rest and go and think about something else. And I um being an enrolled agent, we have to keep things kind of cyber safe And so I called these guys and Dennis came to my office and did this really cool evaluation. And so Matt, I guess we’ll just let you tell a little bit about what is the first step. How does IST keep the bad guys out? Matt Folker 01:22 So uh really it boils down to uh our objective is to eliminate risk. Okay, we we want to go into a facility and we do some technical assessments. We have some cool technology that helps us with this, but overall uh our objective is to find risk uh and eliminate it. Dr. Friday 01:40 And I guess the next question following that would be, how do you do that? Matt Folker 01:44 So um like when when Dennis went to your office, he had a little USB drive that I’d loaded up for him. Um and basically it does Kinda just an entry level scan, kinda looking to see if at least you’ve got your front door is is shut and locked, which, you know, most of the time the doors are wide open. Uh but that’s okay. That’s part of the business. That’s why we’re here. Um but uh our our objective is to find things that have been overlooked and sometimes it’s things that have been set up incorrectly when it was first set up fifteen, twenty years ago and was just kind of forgotten about. Um but then we we evaluate, you know, what users have access to what, those kinds of things. Um and really the the skinny of it is if it’s really easy for, you know, one of your employees to come in and access some things that they shouldn’t shouldn’t have access to. uh then that means the bad guys can too. Uh and so if you have a really simple password, for example, um then It’s gonna be really easy for those bad guys to to get that password, or if you don’t have two FA, uh, which we can we can go into a little bit of that a little bit later. But But yeah, basically we are looking for risk uh and we are trying to eliminate that and we and we eliminate it uh via technology. Dr. Friday 03:00 Right. And I think that’s the any business owner or maybe you work for a firm where you work under the, you know, the the office staff and you know that maybe nothing’s been updated for a while, nothing’s been taken care of for a while. And you’re like, cause I mean my office Uh you know, Matt hit her on the head. We’ve kinda just continued with what was set up decades possibly ago. Pretty sad. I mean we’ve updated the softwares we’ve updated and we think if we’ve got McAfee or Norton that it says it’s security software, hello, um, that we’re actually doing what we need to do. But we know now Thank you, Dennis. Um that we were not actually necessarily doing everything that we should. So so now let’s say you go in and you find the flaws. What would be the next step Um for someone, you know, not talking financial so much as, you know, what would you be doing to help them secure their borders? Matt Folker 03:55 So basically uh once we we’ll compile a report, okay, and uh a lot of it is kind of technical, nerdy jargon. Uh and that’s why I keep Dennis really close. So Uh ’cause he he’ll he’ll keep he’ll keep me close and uh he he’s a much better communicator than I am, as you can tell. Uh that that said, um we we run this report um and then we review it with the the business owner or the decision maker of Hey, here’s all of the holes that we found and just lay the data out. Here it is. Here’s what we found. If you want to hire us to help you close some of those gaps. Great. If not, here’s the data. Here’s the report. Our objective is to make the community a safer place, whether you use us or not. Dr. Friday 04:39 And I I have to say that was a huge selling vehicle for me because I was thinking, Okay, I have Norton, I have the he’s gonna come in, he’s gonna say, Okay, there’s these little things, passwords. I know mine aren’t the most high tech, maybe Now knowing they’re even less high tech. But anyways, um, you know, I didn’t I didn’t think about it too much because I was figuring we we have these different things, but After seeing the report, it’s kind of guys like when you get in a love letter from the IRS and it says, we’re changing your tax return and you have no idea why. And they send you this whole booklet of stuff. This guy came into my office and he had to have twenty-five, thirty pages of all kinds of jargon. And Matt is correct. I’m feel myself a fairly intelligent individual, but with looking at that, I’m like, Dennis, break it down. Get it down to the layman terms because there’s a lot of information. It wasn’t necessarily something that an everyday person But the hackers would understand this information. And that’s what was scary for me. Matt Folker 05:36 So here’s a here’s a good example of I I’m gonna put myself in your shoes. Dr. Friday 05:40 Okay. Matt Folker 05:40 Um I have three three boys uh ages eleven, nine, and five. And my two oldest, uh, in in twenty seventeen, the hospital that they were born in had a huge breach. And uh two of my kids, they had their social security numbers stolen. And so in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen when I went to file my taxes, uh, and y I I wasn’t late, but you know, I filed it in end of March somewhere in there. Um my taxes got rejected because someone had already filed taxes against my children. Yes. Okay. So you know, but so one kid was four, the other kid was two, uh and they had already had their identity stolen. Okay.