Have you used the British Airways website recently?

Debit and credit card details may have been stolen from over 185,000 customers after the British Airways website was hacked yet again.

It is estimated 77,000 had their name, address, email address and detailed payment information taken and 108,000 people lost personal details.

This comes after a previous breach of its website earlier this year affecting 380,000 transactions, where passenger names and home addresses were compromised, as well as financial information, including debit and credit card numbers, expiry dates and CVV codes. In this instance, malicious code designed to ‘skim’ financial data was injected into the British Airways website without being detected.

All websites are based on code, it determines the functionality along with the overall design, but malicious code can be injected instead. It is common for websites to embed multiple pieces of code from other sources or third-party suppliers and hackers can exploit this vulnerability.

Both attacks were carried out by the same perpetrators.

British Airways will be contacting the customers affected by this to inform them if their details have been stolen.

Unfortunately British Airways are not the only company to experience this type of cyber attack and they are on the rise.

Once cyber criminals have personal data it can be used to access bank and credit card accounts to make fraudulent purchases. Stolen data may also be sold using the Dark Web.

Some security experts suggest that it’s likely the data stolen by the British Airways hackers is already available for sale on the dark web.

There will be an investigation by the UK’s National Crime Agency and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You can check if your personal data has been compromised by data breaches by using https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Designed and hand built by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple in 1976, the Apple 1 was a bare circuit board provided without power supply, monitor or keyboard. It could be used for playing games, running the BASIC operating system or developing programs.

As a Hewlett-Packard employee, Wozniak originally offered HP the rights to the Apple -1. It declined.

To fund the project Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500 (£318), while Jobs sold his VW Microbus. 200 units were created in total and 175 sold.

It went on sale in 1976 for $666.66 (around £545) and it was the world’s first low-cost, assembled computer.

With the release of the Apple 2, Jobs and Wozniak wanted to reclaim some of the original boards used in the Apple 1, so they offered trade-in discounts against the new model. The boards which were reclaimed were then destroyed explaining why this product is so rare.

There are approximately 60 Apple 1 computers remaining, with only eight working examples. The Apple Registry has a list of them all.

The auction took place in Boston, Massachusetts, on Tuesday and  the final bid was won by an anonymous businessman who placed his bid online.

The highest price ever paid for an Apple -1 was $905,000 (£575,900) by the Henry Ford museum complex in October 2014.

In May 2015 a box of electronic goods was dropped off at a tech recycling business in Silicon Valley. This box contained a 1976 Apple 1 which was subsequently sold at auction for $200,000. Before chucking out or recycling computers, laptops, mobile phones, software or hardware it’s worth doing a quick Google check to see if they are an older, rarer technology which may fetch you a pound or two.

When you first bought your PC or laptop it was the best model on the market, with the most up-to-date specification; It was super speedy, navigated around the web quickly and had no issues opening multiple tabs at once, now everything seems to have grounded to a halt, searching the web has becoming painstakingly irritating and you’re left wondering – do I need a new PC or an upgrade to the RAM? Try these simple tips first.

Malware and viruses

Do you have a virus or malware on your machine?

When you purchased your PC/laptop did you remember to install anti-virus software? Many laptops or PCs from high street providers come with McAfee, Kaspersky, Norton or other antivirus software packages which offer virus and malware protection. There are also many free lite versions online which can offer basic protection.

Being infected by malware or a virus can happen easily for example by clicking on a link in an email, downloading ‘free’ software from the internet, from file sharing services and even USB sticks. These can go undetected for weeks and can render a PC or laptop unusable or very slow.

Check for malware or viruses using your existing anti-virus software, they have inbuilt scanning programs to detect any threats. If you have no antivirus software installed use Google, Bing or any search engine to find and download  MalwareBytes and/or SuperAntiSpyware from the genuine approved site. Beware of downloading them from other possibly bogus sites. Both of these apps are recommended and effective to highlight any issues or threats and potentially quarantine/remove any viruses or malware which may be lingering.

We offer our clients an award-winning antivirus software solution suitable for organisations of all sizes, applicable to all platforms, with end-to-end encryption solutions also available. Talk to us on 01626 360011 for more information.

Is your PC or laptop up to the job?

What you do on your laptop or PC will determine how fast it performs. Every computer has a specification that makes it suitable for specific activities and some apps are more demanding than others.

For example, installing elaborate games can use a lot of system resource. The more graphic driven the game, the more demand it will have on your computer’s resources.

Image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop can demand a lot from your computer, making it harder to open more apps at the same time and making switching between windows slow & clunky.

Media storage, such as music, videos and photos will all slow your laptop or PC experience depending on its memory capability. Uploading some of your media to a secure cloud based storage may make things faster and you’ll have access to the media on any device.

Did you know the web browser you use can also affect your overall PC/laptop experience? Some are considered faster to work with than others, with quicker loading times. Google offers ‘lite pages’ a feature that lets Chrome reduce data use by up to 90 percent and load pages two times faster. Little tweaks like this can make all the difference.

Regular Maintenance

Getting in to a routine of regular PC maintenance is a good way of preventing your PC or laptop from slowing down in the longer term.

Windows operating systems have tools to enhance your system experience. Search for ‘Defragment and Optimise Drives’ in your start bar search bar (Windows 10) and click on the program, here you can choose which drives you wish to optimise. In older versions of Windows this can also be accessed by clicking on all programs on your start menu and clicking through to accessories or window accessories and system tools.

When was your last Windows update? Have you checked your plugins and basic applications have been updated recently? Many PCs and laptops do this automatically however you can check for updates in PC settings in the Updates and Security tab.

Did you know web browsers such as Google and Bing use a browser cache to improve performance of frequently accessed web pages. When you visit a web page, the requested files are stored in your computing storage in the browser’s cache. These can build up and prevent your laptop or PC using it’s RAM effectively. You can clear your Cache by opening up the web browser you use i.e. Google, going in to settings in the top right hand corner (three dots) clicking on Settings, Advanced and scroll down to Clear browsing data, here you can clear your cookies, cache and browsing history.

In 2019 we are demanding more from our technology, gone are the days of slow dial-up internet and waiting for pages to load, we want our PC or laptop experience to be instantaneous and fluid, especially when we use it for business.

Talk to us to discuss how we can improve your business IT, with super-slick hardware and quick IT support.

Get ready for GDPR

With major advances in IT occurring rapidly and consistently for many years there have been changes also to the ways in which individuals and organizations communicate and share information.

It is for this reason that the EU have deemed it necessary to review all of the legal codes in EU states and yes that means us irrespective of Brexit.

Many core concepts existing under the current EU data protection regime (Data Protection Directiveor DPD introduced in 1995) will remain broadly similar, however many will change and these have to be in place by May 2018 and these changes present new compliance challenges for businesses.

This is where we can help. View the GDPR_white_paper here or call us to book a review of your policies so you can be compliant come the big day in May.

View our Privacy Notice here

Meeting expectation when it comes to UX is an incredibly important and fundamental part of your web armour. UX is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the web site in this instance. If you don’t get this right then your visitor numbers will dwindle and the chances of success are undermined.

One simple aspect of getting this right is the speed of your site and the load time of pages. Although there are several factors that can affect this performance, the first and most important consideration is the specification of the hosting server and the hosting environment. In order to address this we have invested heaviliy in speccing out and commissioning a new web server that really rocks. Not only is the server superfast but the Internet backbone it sits on is also lightening fast thanks to recent deployment of new fibre equipment.

Good web hosting is important to all organisations. If you run an e-commerce store then this becomes even more important and pretty much mission critical to your business. If the store goes down or is slow to load pages then sure as day turns to night your sales will suffer aswell as your brand image.  So what other factors determine the UX ? theres a great list here if items that are often thought of a critical – but maybe not ? UX MYTHS

For some of us they’re coming in think and fast and can cause real problems. Picking on a format that are frequently exchanged, Word documents have become the carrier of a strain of very destructive viruses that can be time consuming and therefore costly to fix.

Microsfot Word files contain small programs called “macros” which are shortcuts that are customisable and can automate tasks such as formatting text or applying bullet lists. However, this macro programming language can also be used to write viruses that activate  when you open the Word file.

By using tempting filenames or message conent the hackers are quite good at encouraging users to open the attachment thus deploying the virus. A good example is “Credit Note XYZ” or similar that suggests by clicking you may receive some reward.

So how can you avoid problems ?

The best advice is to only open email attachments from a trusted source i.e. folk you know. Even then be weary as it is possible that their machine has become infected and is sending out the virus.

Make sure that your Eset Anti Virus is up to date and switched on and scanning email attachements for viruses.

Working with a certified recycling partner we are now able to take away your old equipment from as little as £2 per item.

Our recycling partner operates a fully licensed WEEE processing site based in Devon and can dispose of all types of electrical waste, and provide all relevant legal paperwork. They are fully registered as a licensed processing site and as waste carriers with the Environment Agency.

This means that when we supply you with new equipoment we can also dispose of your retired kit in a responsible way and at a reasonable cost. Including:

Please call us if you have electrical items that you want to dispose of and we can provide you with a quote and schedule a visit to collect.

With tailored solutions from as little as £25 per user per month, Myriad offers a very flexible package allowing you to select exactly what you want and manage things on a monthly basis. Otherwise known as virtual desktops, our hosted solutions allow access to your ‘office’ from anywhere in the world 24/7 using any type of enabled device – assuming that you have an internet connection !

It’s not simply hosted desktops that we can provide but hosted applications and servers, hosted exchange, Sharepoint and more all backed up by our unbeatable support service. Security seems to be one of the main reasons for clients moving their business to the cloud. To address this we use UK based Data Centres which comply with all the relevant security standards to give you peace of mind.

Spam filtering software Devon with Spampython

With Spam filtering becoming an increasingly tough nut to crack we have completed our assessment of the various Spam filtering services available. There are many such services so the decision to run with so chosing SpamPython was not an easy one. We now offer this service at domain level, meaning that all email sent to your email addresses will be filtered for a fixed cost* irrespective of how many email addresses you have and how many emails you receive (*up to 100,000 per month on the standard tariff).

Calendar does not exist.

All anti Spam software uses filters to decipher what email is legitimate and what is not. SpamPython adds approximately 15,000 filters daily and currently has approximately 5 million filters in place making it the most thorough service available. In addition it monitors sender behaviour in real-time so it is able to spot servers that are emitting spam and act fast to prevent it from reaching your mailboxes.

Getting filtering levels right is very important. If you set levels too low then you continue to get spam email. If you set them too high then there is a good chance that you will miss some legitimate email. When you deploy SpamPython you have no such worries and you will only receive genuine email saving you bundles of wasted time and money.

Other benefits of SpamPython include reduced congestion of your valuable bandwidth. Instead of your broadband being cluttered downloading bogus email and attachments it will be freed up allowing web pages to load and legitimate email to download quicker. PLUS no more wasted time deleting junk from your inbox !

With easy access to your quarantine area you can keep an eye on things and be confident that you are not missing out on any important email. The simple preview facility allows you to safely view erroneous email by masking links and images to eliminate the risk of any infection.

With prices from £14 per month plus VAT can you afford not to give it a try ? Why not call us today so we can discuss your SpamPython requirements.