Horton IT Daily

Your backup needs a dress rehearsal.

Saturday, September 26, 2026 · Horton IT Enterprises LLC · 4-minute read

A completed backup is a promising start. A successful restore is stronger evidence. Today: newly cataloged exploited vulnerabilities, a federal software opportunity closing Monday, free learning, and a recovery drill you can practice safely.

Threat watch: three new reasons to check your inventory

CISA’s official Known Exploited Vulnerabilities data, released September 25, lists these additions:

Microsoft SharePoint — CVE-2026-65660: code injection that can let an authorized attacker execute code over a network.
MikroTik RouterOS — CVE-2026-67279: a workflow flaw that can be chained with CVE-2026-86060 for unauthenticated exploitation.
WordPress Core — CVE-2026-87902: file inclusion that can lead to remote code execution.

All three entries were added September 25 and show a September 28 catalog due date. That date is a CISA entry deadline, not a blanket deadline for every business. Assess applicability, exposure, and vendor guidance promptly. CISA marks ransomware-campaign use as unknown for all three.

Action: Match products and versions against your inventory, assign an owner, and follow each vendor’s remediation and any applicable forensic-triage instructions. These notices do not establish that your systems are compromised.

Sources: CISA official KEV data, Microsoft advisory, MikroTik advisory, WordPress advisory.

The two-minute lesson: recovery has two clocks

Recovery point objective (RPO) asks how much recent data loss the business can tolerate. Recovery time objective (RTO) asks how long the service can remain unavailable. A daily backup alone does not prove either target is met.

Try a small, authorized restore into an isolated test location:

Choose a non-sensitive sample file and note its backup timestamp.
Restore it without overwriting production data.
Open it, check its contents, and record elapsed time.
Record who owns the procedure and what failed.

This file-level drill checks one part of recovery. It does not validate a full application recovery, dependencies, or business continuity. Expand testing with the service owner.

Learn this weekend. Plan next week.

Free and available now: Cisco Networking Academy lists Networking Basics as a 22-hour beginner course among its free, self-paced online offerings. It is a useful foundation for understanding connectivity before diagnosing security problems. Explore the official course catalog.

Upcoming session to watch: Cisco lists Industrial security deep dive: from visibility to protection using Cyber Vision for October 1, 2026. The reviewed page verifies the date and topic, but not a fee or start time; it is not represented here as a verified free live event. Check the event and registration details.

No upcoming live IT training event with both a verified date and explicit free admission was confirmed in this review.

Opportunity watch: Monday deadline

U.S. Department of Commerce — Cloud-Based GRC / Cyber Risk Compliance Automation Platform (FISMA High SaaS)

Notice: GG000000-26-00063
Status: Active solicitation; latest notice dated September 22.
Offers due: September 28, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT, as displayed in the latest SAM.gov notice.
Scope: Commercial cloud software for GRC automation, FISMA documentation, AI-assisted control drafting, and continuous-monitoring reporting. This is a platform acquisition rather than RMF assessment labor.
Classification: NAICS 513210; PSC DJ10.

Open the latest official SAM.gov notice and attachments. Review amendments, eligibility, submission instructions, and the official deadline before deciding to bid. Listing is not an endorsement or a determination of company eligibility.

Virginia eVA: The eVA homepage was reachable, but its linked Virginia Business Opportunities listing could not be retrieved. No current Virginia IT solicitation or deadline is asserted in this edition. Search eVA’s official opportunities.

On this day: the process behind the chip

September 26, 1924: Jean Hoerni was born in Switzerland. The Computer History Museum credits his 1959 planar process as a key step toward placing complex circuits on a single chip. Today’s editorial takeaway: a reliable process can matter as much as an individual invention. Read the museum’s history entry.

IT Life: the restore rehearsal

Three-panel comic: an administrator says The backup finished! A colleague asks Can we restore it? The administrator becomes a theatre director and says Time for a dress rehearsal, while a smiling backup drive stands on stage.

Original comic, illustrated with AI. Transcript: “The backup finished!” “Can we restore it?” “Time for a dress rehearsal.”

The sysadmin horoscope

Entertainment only · All signs welcome. Your cosmic forecast favors a quiet test environment and an unexpectedly useful runbook. Lucky number: two — one recovery target, one measured result. Mercury cannot restore that file for you.

Turn a green dashboard into confidence.

Bring one recovery question to your next team huddle: “When did we last prove this works?” Visit Horton IT Enterprises LLC or browse the newsletter archive.

Published by Horton IT Enterprises LLC. Public sources checked September 26, 2026. Availability and deadlines can change; source limitations are stated above.