Get used to it. This is the new normal
It seems to be impossible to read – or watch – the News these days without coming across some major new cyber-security warning urging you to take action now to protect your computer, or your data, or your money, or your identity, or something else, from imminent threat of theft, or worse. Now the problem is – the more you see these articles the more you just ignore them! This is because the threat is often described in technical language and it’s not clear what you are actually being asked to do or, you didn’t do... Read more...
About three-quarters of our callouts are software issues
If I look at the causes of IT failure which result in a callout to Si29 Computer Services for help, less than 15 % of all our callouts are caused by failing hardware, while about 20% are down to Internet connectivity or other networking issues and then, a staggering 70% or more of all problems we get are caused by some kind of software failure. Of all these software-related problems, nearly half of them are caused by unintended downloading of rogue software (malware) or some form of virus / trojan infection. Now, while we all know that... Read more...
Are your passwords strong enough?
It has been estimated that there were over 10 million victims of some kind of cyber fraud in the UK last year. Added together they may have lost between £600m and £800m. These are seriously large numbers and some authorities believe the problem is continuing to get worse. So, you should worry about this. You are not up against some 14-year-old kid in his bedroom in Russia trawling the Internet for unlucky punters to hack. No, this is organised crime and the syndicates involved are incredibly large and powerful. They are using millions of... Read more...
Windows Goes Out with a Pop-Up
It seems I may have as many as 10 old XP PCs to replace with something newer over the next few weeks. Some of these upgrades have definitely been spurred on by the annoying popup now coming up on XP screens informing the XP user – that’s it, we’re finished – outta here – you’re on your own, now – or whatever it is, it actually says. This seems to be working better than any previous warnings Microsoft’s users ever had. Though I don’t remember Windows 95 or 98 going out with a ‘popup’ ad for the next release. And, as is often the... Read more...
Heartbleed – Don’t Panic!
If you have read the press or listened to the news any time since Tuesday, you have probably heard of a new Internet security vulnerability called HeartBleed which the IT security industry has got all hot and bothered about. Well here is my personal (grossly simplified) take on it. This whole problem is all about secure connections to ‘so-called’ secure servers via a security protocol known as OpenSSL. So, firstly you should be aware that it is the server that may be running OpenSSL, not your desktop. There is nothing to ‘patch’ on the... Read more...
40% of our callouts involve data loss
Nearly 40% of all the callouts we receive involve potential or actual data loss. It may be a virus, or accidentally downloaded malware of some kind, or some kind of file corruption or physical hard drive failure. You never know what’s round the corner. But one thing’s for certain, if you use a computer for long enough it is only a matter of time before you will lose something that matters to you. It might just be a Word document you’ve accidentally over-written or a single folder of recently taken photographs you’ve just deleted from your... Read more...