Every Buffalo basement seems to have one. Maybe yours does.
A furnace older than the current homeowner.
It’s survived twenty winters, each seemingly longer than the last. The technician who did the last inspection said it’s living “on borrowed time” as you nodded begrudgingly, paid for a new igniter, and moved on. You know it needs replacing, but replacing it costs real money.
That works fine, until the unexpected happens. And an unexpected shutdown leaves you with two options: replace the furnace, or move out until you can get the heat back on.
Your business has its own “furnace” too.
Maybe it’s a customer portal, an order system, a custom app built years ago by someone who has since moved on. The business runs on it, so most people are afraid to touch it. And it’s old enough that its makers have stopped updating it.
That’s the quiet lesson inside the recent PHP2Shell vulnerability. PHP 8.1 and earlier no longer receive regular updates. Because the flaws were so severe, the PHP team still released limited fixes for some older versions.
So what do you do when you can’t patch it and can’t replace it yet?
Add protection now. Tighter access, blocking rules, closer monitoring. Not glamorous, but they reduce the risk right away.
Plan the upgrade on your own calendar. Let your roadmap and your budget process guide you to what’s best for your business. No one needs a 1 a.m. scramble that could have been prevented.
A stopgap buys you time. A roadmap decides how you spend it.
Three questions worth asking this week if you’re looking at a “furnace” in your business:
What does this system actually run, and who depends on it?
Can anyone reach it from the internet?
When, realistically, would we replace it, and who owns that date?
That should give you some quality conversations
This week’s newsletter story is written from personal experience. This July, on the hottest week of the year, my home’s air conditioning unit broke beyond repair unexpectedly. 16 years old. We bit the bullet and decided to replace the 21-year-old furnace at the same time, rather than try to makeshift a connection between that and a brand new A/C. There’s an IT metaphor there too…
For a week, talk of a broad vulnerability in a familiar programming language took over the morning business news.
Headlines warned that millions of websites and applications were at risk. Some government sites went offline as a precaution. And attackers had a head start.
PHP2Shell is the latest — but surely not the last — major security event known as Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE).
Looking for a new role in tech? Our Technology Talent Managers are always tuned in to the market, creating opportunities for technology professionals and innovative businesses to connect!
Here's a few roles we're recruiting for this week, and you can always head to our job board (updated daily) to see the latest listings.
Solutions Architect - AI Tools & Developer Experience: Lead the push to bring AI-powered security into the developer toolchain, from vulnerability detection to the pipelines teams ship on. You’ll drive continuous threat exposure management, scan code repositories for vulnerabilities and exposed secrets, build out CI/CD pipelines with GitLab Duo, and help shape AI disaster recovery planning. Experience with AI platforms like Microsoft Foundry, AWS Bedrock, or Google Vertex AI is a great fit. 6-month remote contract-to-hire, $68-78+/hr.
Cloud Migration Engineer - Azure: Lead the move of an online banking platform from on-premise infrastructure to a colocation environment, with zero downtime as the goal. You’ll design Azure-native solutions, deploy containerized apps on AKS, automate with Terraform, and work across Java, React, .NET, and Angular. A great fit for someone with 5+ years in cloud infrastructure and data center migrations. 2-18 month remote contract, $70-75+/hr.
Senior Accountant: Take ownership of consolidated accounting for a global organization, partnering with teams in Orlando, Dubai, Frankfurt, and Kuala Lumpur. You’ll maintain the general ledger, prepare financial statements, and serve as the main contact for external auditors. An active CPA license and a Master’s in Accounting are required. Direct hire role, onsite in Buffalo, $90,000-95,000.