Blog | Heliocentrix | IT Support, Web Design and Development, Tonbridge, Kent

15May

A WAKE-UP CALL

Last week we saw if not the biggest then one of the biggest cyber-attacks ever. It may not be the quantity of machines affected which is impressive but instead the level of disruption that was caused on a single day. The facts as they stand now are that 200,000 machines over 150 countries were infected by ransomware. Ransomware is the type of malware which encrypts your files, essentially locking you out of them until you pay the ransom. At that point you have two options; first to pay the ransom, although there are no guarantees, the second being to delete all the affected files then rebuild from backups. Based on the types of malware that you can read about and ...

11May

Mileage Claims come to 365

It really isn't often that I take time to talk about an App that I have found useful but this one truly does make life easier. As business owners, we know that expense claims can be difficult, but it is much more tax effective to get money out of a business through legitimate expense claims than to just pay people more. The trouble is, that unless you are very disciplined collecting mileage and keeping accurate records, it can be time consuming and a pain. Particularly when you are dealing with the smaller trips. This is why I am particularly pleased to have found MileIQ. MileIQ sits on your phone (iPhone or Android) and waits until the phones sensors detect that ...

06Apr

Invoice Scams

In the last few days we have seen the rise of more invoice scams. Spear Phishing attacks against accounts teams, pretending to be from the MD requesting money transfers and emails pretending to be from suppliers, containing invoices which are actually Trojans. Spear Phishing Spear Phishing attacks happen where an attacker uses public information to attack a specific individual. In this instance, the attacker gained the name of the MD and faked an email address from him then asked a seemingly innocent question to build confidence. The conversation is below: Attacker: What is our cut off time and transfer limit for a same day payment? Regards [Name of MD] Sent from my iPhone Accounts: I am not sure. I need ...

01Feb

HP Battery Safety Recall

Important Update Safety Announcement 2017 Following on from the HP Notebook Computer Battery Safety Recall and Replacement Program of June 2016, there have been additional batteries which have been affected by the issue. HP urges customers to recheck all potentially affected products. We are strongly advising anyone with an HP Laptop to check and see if your product is affected by this issue: - http://www.hp.com/go/batteryprogram2016 Download this pdf for further information.

12May

Mapping in Excel 2016

I WAS RECENTLY ASKED BY A CLIENT HOW WE CAN MAP THE COMPANIES THEY WORK WITH AND IN THE PAST THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT YOU HAD TO BUY AS A SEPARATE PRODUCT, E.G. MAP POINT THOUGH THIS WAS DISCONTINUED IN 2014. However, I had read something about Excel now having the feature and decided to look into it. I found that Excel does indeed have many different mapping options and what I want to show here is how you quickly map postcode information. Firstly setup your Excel list, in this case I have made some fictitious data and some random postcodes. Postcode Number of visits Name Category TN7 4AA 16 Site 1 Key Client TN23 9QB 8 Site 2 Normal ...

24Mar

Seminar Summary

LAST WEEK WE HOSTED OUR FIRST EVER INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY SEMINAR AT THE ROYAL WELLS HOTEL . WE WERE THRILLED AT HOW POPULAR IT PROVED WITH OUR SAFETY SAVVY CLIENTS, BUT IF YOU WERE UNABLE TO MAKE IT, OR NEED A LITTLE REMINDER OF WHAT WE COVERED ON THE DAY, WE’VE PUT TOGETHER A SUMMARY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS. A Growing Threat We kicked off by looking at how real the threat to our data and information was, and how seriously we should take it. The answers were very, and very. We saw how in just three years the cost of a single security breach has risen from £15-30,000 to £75-310,000. When you take into account (literally), the ...

10Mar

Double up on your protection, authentically

WITH OUR RECENT FOCUS ON RANSOMWARE AND THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CLOUD BASED SYSTEMS AND LONG TERM BACKUP IN COUNTERING SUCH THREATS, WE’LL NOW LOOK AT WAYS OF ENHANCING THEIR SECURITY AS A FURTHER MEASURE. IN PARTICULAR WE’LL BE FOCUSING ON DUAL-AUTHENTICATION, ALSO KNOWN AS MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION. When it comes to cyber security and authentication of data, we tend to talk about factors – elements that can be built in to your protection. Typically, there are three such factors that we rely on: Something that you know Something that you have Something that you are The first is probably the one we’re all most familiar with. Your username and password is a prime example of something that you know. So in ...

03Mar

Weary of Ransomware

A FEW WEEKS AGO, RANSOMWARE HIT THE HEADLINES AFTER LINCOLNSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL'S SYSTEMS WERE SHUT DOWN IN THE WAKE OF A SUCCESSFUL MALWARE ATTACK. Delivered as the usual Trojan, in this case via email, the authority was asked to pay a ransom of $500 in the digital currency bitcoin for the key. The cyber criminals responsible also threatened to keep increasing the bounty if their initial deadline wasn't met. In the end, the council stoically shut down all of its systems for the better part of a week, relying on their body of staff to field calls and rely on “pen and paper,” to maintain service. 458 servers and 70 terabytes of data were then routinely checked and cleaned. Although ...

19Feb

Nine Steps to Better Password Security

PASSWORDS HAVE BECOME AN EVERYDAY SECURITY MEASURE THAT MANY OF US FIND A LITTLE IRKSOME. AND IF HISTORY HAS PROVEN ANYTHING, IT’S THAT PASSWORDS ARE EASY TO FORGET. It’s also easy to ignore keeping them up to date or how important they actually are when it comes to our digital security. So we've put together nine steps that will help you establish an effective routine that will help keep you stay protected and keep those seeking your passwords guessing! Remove all post-it notes and notebooks containing passwords from your desk Neville Longbottom from the Harry Potter series had such trouble remembering the passwords that would give him access to the Gryffindor common room that he took to writing them down. ...

08Feb

Malware: Now Where?

ALMOST EVERY ASPECT OF OUR PERSONAL AND WORKING LIVES NOW COMES WITH THE ADDED ENHANCEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY. Our reliance on it for ease of interaction with our environment has created a dazzling stage for innovation. The last decade has seen exponential growth in personal and other data, harvested on a proliferation of devices. As sight, sound and touch technologies introduce new dimensions for us to explore, they also provide new vectors from where our vulnerabilities can be preyed upon. In essence, our world is now portable and mobile, and therefore so is the security threat. Clearly, as the number of ways we stay connected grows, so too does the size of our digital world that needs protecting. Today there are ...