An IT Support Blog from London

Don’t fall victim…

One of the most serious risks originating from the Internet to businesses and domestic users is the threat of phishing. Phishing is a form of fraud where a cybercriminal attempts to trick the recipient of a message into revealing information such as login credentials or account information by masquerading as a reputable entity or person, typically in an email, but it can be attempted through other communication channels.

A victim receives a message that appears to have been sent by a known contact or organisation. An attachment or links in the message may install malware on the recipient’s device or send them to a malicious website designed to trick them into divulging personal and financial information, such as passwords, account IDs or credit card details.

You then find your personal or business bank account has been raided or your credit cards used to purchase luxury goods. Here are 10 ways to prevent users in your business from being tricked by phishing emails.

Benefits of BYOD difficult to ignore

Traditionally, businesses discouraged and even prevented employee-owned devices being used in the workplace for accessing company data and services. This was especially true of larger businesses or those with compliance requirements to meet.

Safe Harbour renegotiation by the end of January

Following the EU ruling that rendered the Safe Harbour agreement invalid last October 2015, in November Sataya Nadella (the current wearer of Bill Gates’ big Microsoft CEO shoes), announced investment in UK data centres as part of a $2bn European cloud infrastructure development plan.

Accredited to provide leading back up and DR solutions

HTL Support is proud to announce that we are now accredited Silver ProPartners for Veeam backup and hosted disaster recovery (DR) solutions.

Project Loon is all about balloons

It sounds like a sci-fi send up cooked up by Spike Milligan or some equally whacky member of the lunatic fringe; however, it’s a fact Google Project Loon has started to be deployed.  “And what precisely is Project Loon when it’s at home,” some may ask…

Guidance for firms outsourcing to the ‘cloud’

When it comes to regulation, until now, the document ‘Considerations for firms thinking of using third-party technology (off-the-shelf) banking solutions’ issued in July 2014 had been the chief source of leadership from the FCA on such matters.

Safe Harbour flounders on judicial rocks

The Safe Harbour agreement, which lets American companies use a single standard for consumer privacy and data storage in both the US and Europe, has been ruled invalid. The agreement, which would have provided clarity and certainty over complex sovereignty issues of data stored in the cloud, seems to have floundered as a result of the whistleblowing activities of Edward Snowden.

Update: For more information about the progress, please visit https://lunarmissionone.com/. 

World Space Week 4 -10 October 2015

World Space Week was first introduced by United Nations declaration in 1999 and has grown into the largest public space event on Earth. More than 1,400 events in 80 countries celebrated space exploration in 2014.

Microsoft refuses US government access to data stored in Ireland

Despite a court order in 2014 ruling in favour of the US government, Microsoft is refusing to hand over emails stored at a data centre in Ireland alleged to contain details of narcotics sales. The US government position supported by the court is it could force the company to hand over data it controlled and stored abroad because it is a US-based business.

What is the career ambition of an IT manager?

Unless they are a square peg in a round hole, which means they should get out of it and do something different, it’s a good bet IT managers have their career sights set on moving up in the world. For an IT professional this might ultimately mean the role of CIO (Chief Information Officer) or CTO (Chief Technology Officer).