IT Security

Staying safe

Keep protected in 2024

Last updated 3 January 2024

Nowadays, one of the few things outpacing inflation considerably, is cyber crime.

Gone are the days when health services, telecom giants and Facebook were their main hunting ground, now it’s all of us. Most people would be shocked to see how easily free keylogger apps capture your passwords and credit card details. We always encourage our client to regularly update their passwords and keep them complex, but this is utterly useless if your system has been breached and someone is getting a printout of every keystroke you make.

Phishing emails are getting far more believable and it is getting much easier for vulnerable staff to get caught out. We are now seeing personalised one that would have caught out 90% of people five years ago. The amount of details people give away on social media, means the days of smelling a rat and asking yourself why my card or bank are asking me to log in for security when they don’t address me by name, are well over.

Never have a user account called administrator, admin, info, accounts, user, testuser etc. These should all be renamed to something more creative like admin752 as generic usernames make life easy for hackers. Nowadays most people know they should use complex passwords but hackers understand human nature and know most people will choose a capital letter followed by six to ten lower case, a couple of random numbers and a symbol. The word being used is probably real word and these can be found through brute force attacks.

That poor exiled Nigerian prince must now be in his eighties, but we understand his grandson became his nation’s first astronaut and, what a family, he’s got himself lost in space and needs £3million to cadge a lift off the Russians to get home.

Nowadays the cyber criminals earn 50% more than the entire illegal drug industry. A report in 2022 stated that 52% of UK businesses have reported breaches or attacks in the last 12 months.

If you use the cloud to store your data ensure your provider uses End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) where YOU encrypt your data and NOT your provider, where your files are visible to the provider and, therefore, hackers. Microsoft, Google Drive and Dropbox offer NO E2EE, AWS, Mega, Sync and pCloud DO.

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Protecting all our clients is our paramount tasks and we do this in the following three ways.

Staff

.We constantly update your staff with any new tricks hackers may have come up with and ask them to change their passwords regularly, plus throw a little misinformation into their social media mix to ensure the hackers give up on them quickly.

MFA (multi-factor authentication has been become mandatory with all financial entities. This means getting a pin on your mobile as well as using your password. This is a little more tedious but nowadays banks, credit cards, Paypal, all insist on MFA every time you log on.

Plus how many hackers are going to hang around – they will just go for an easier target that are always available.

Hardware/software

We will ensure all your systems are completely up to date and fully secure using the latest ethical hacking testing software like Kali Linux, NMap, Metasploit, SQLMap and Nessus.

Hardware and software firewalls act as the shield to protect your network from anything naughty trying to find a way in and Windows 11 improved on the many security features that came before.

Antivirus and antimalware companies are fighting a million plus hackers from around the World and we ensure the one you are using is up to the job.

Cyber Security

Some people think “I’m using the latest firewall, my antivirus and antimalware, and Windows updates are all up to date, that’s us sorted.” WRONG!! Cyber security encompasses so much more than just this. Cyber security isn’t just about the IT networks for the military, governments and huge financial institutions. Consider for a moment how much sensitive data is kept on your network about your company, your staff, your clients and the law says you must protect this data securely.

Whichever type of support you have take out with us, our priority is to protect your data and keep your business running as smoothly as is it is possible for your complete peace of mind.

Are you looking to upgrade your
systems or network, or for the very
best IT support in London or Surrey?
Call ABC Computer Solution now on
020 8335 0680

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