Posted in: Uncategorized
How to stay safe from phone scams January 24, 2012 by Navigate IT & Telecoms
In recent weeks, we have seen a rise in the number of IT related phone scams. There seem to be two main types occurring at the moment. In the first, you might receive a phone call at home from someone asking you to install software onto your computer. The cold caller will then use this software to use your machine for malicious purposes. Alternatively they may try to make you believe you have a virus on your machine, and then encourage you to purchase their anti-virus software to remove it.
The other type is that the caller may try to get you to reveal security information such as usernames or passwords. Don’t tell them anything! If you follow their instructions, in the worst case scenario, you could end up giving them passwords or credit card details which could be used fraudulently. Even giving a small snippet of information – something as simple as confirming your name and address – should be avoided, as this is the first step in what is known as “social engineering”.
In social engineering, scammers start with a small piece of information, such as a name, phone number or email address, and use it build trust. For example, they could phone a user a second time pretending to be from another company and say: “Hello Mr Jones, I am calling from your service provider, I have your email address down as xxx, can you confirm your password?” In this way, they can build up information about a person and go on to use it to commit fraud.
Following these simple steps could help protect against scams:
- Always ask for the caller’s name and the name and address of the company
- Never confirm your name and address
- Never give out passwords or user names
- Do not allow the caller to take remote control of your computer
- Contact trading standards or police if you are concerned
The conclusion is – if you are not absolutely sure who is calling, don’t give any information over the phone….
Posted in: Uncategorized
Seasons Greetings December 21, 2011 by Navigate IT & Telecoms
It’s hard to believe another year has flown by! And what a year it’s been for us.
Despite talk of another economic downturn, the IT and telecoms sector seems to be weathering the storm and we’ve seen customers make some very wise decisions about improving on the systems they already have in place. We’ve been helping clients to make sure that they can rely on those systems into the future and to ensure their networks are built to last.
But 2011 has also seen growth for us, with several new high-profile clients including Isle of Wight Radio and the Beacon, among others.
And we’ve also helped provide solutions to a major national company to allow them to continue their operations on the Isle of Wight. But it’s our belief that we secured that contract because of our whole company ethos being built around looking after customers on the Isle of Wight, who are the lifeblood of Navigate.
And with new work has come the need for a bigger team and a recruitment drive – we currently have the strongest team of engineers in terms of skillset that we’ve ever had. We’ve also recently taken on a Customer Services Assistant and we have positions coming up in the New Year, both in the engineering teams and in sales. Having a large team is really important to us here at Navigate, because there’s never one solution to a problem and we always like to put our joint knowledge and skills to best use by asking everyone in the team to get involved.
Finally, we couldn’t sign off without wishing all our customers a very Happy Christmas and New Year. If you need help or advice during the holidays, we’ll have an engineer on call through the festive period. The details are below.
Thanks for your support this year, and keep looking out for exciting new developments in the New Year.
A very Happy Christmas and New Year to all our valued customers,
Paul, Caroline and the team.
Navigate IT & Telecoms Christmas Opening Hours
Monday 26th December – Bank Holiday, On Call Engineers are available for emergencies
Tuesday 27th December – Bank Holiday, On Call Engineers are available for emergencies
Wednesday 28th December – Office closed, On Call Engineers are available
Thursday 29th December – Office closed, On Call Engineers are available
Friday 30th December – Office closed, On Call Engineers are available
Monday 2nd January – Bank Holiday, On Call Engineers are available for emergencies
Tuesday 3rd January – Normal office hours
If you need IT or Telephones assistance during the Christmas break, please log a job in the normal way, by calling our main 01983 525500 telephone number, emailing info@navigateit.co.uk or logging a job via the customer portal
Wishing all of our customers a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy & Prosperous 2012!
Getting ready for Summer! June 22, 2011 by carolinew
At Navigate IT & Telecoms we are currently busy getting ready for two of the most high profile events on the Isle of Wight’s Summer calendar!
The first major event of the sailing season is coming up this weekend – the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race – and we are pleased to be sponsoring the Media Centre in Cowes Yacht Haven. This is part of a three year sponsorship deal we have won to service the Media Centre, which provides broadband and telephony services for journalists during the Cowes Sailing Season.
We are also working as a partner for the Natwest Island Games, providing broadband and telephony services for the seven media centres across the Isle of Wight during the week-long event, during which competitors from over 25 islands around the world compete in 16 events.
The Island Games kick off on the 25th June – the same day as the Round the Island Race and we are pleased and proud to be supporting both, and wish all those taking part the very best of luck!
Posted in: Uncategorized
Password Security, the weakest point of a network? February 24, 2011 by Paul Wood
Businesses and IT companies spend large portions of time and money protecting their network and data with anti-virus software, firewalls, encryptions and permissions. In many cases users then leave the door wide open by using weak and insecure passwords for their logon and email accounts.
It is akin to fitting the most secure, highest quality lock to your front door and then leaving the key outside the door for all to use.
Many people set their password to things they can easily remember, usually something personal to them that will stick in their mind – a pet’s name, a child or relatives name or a favourite place. These are usually in a basic format that is a simple word, “pickles” or “steven” or even in some cases “password”.
To anyone wishing to gain unauthorised access to systems, this is like taking candy from a baby. Social engineers can access this information in minutes from a simple phone call and the internet is awash with scripts easily downloadable that will “brute force” passwords based on dictionary words, and they can do this from a hidden location on the internet in hours if not minutes.
So what can you do to help protect against this? It’s simple, make your passwords as secure as you can for everything you can. Securing your password may make it a little harder to remember but it is worth the little effort it takes to protect yourself and your company.
Before we can really recommend that you use a secure password, we really should go over what exactly a “secure” password is. But even before we do that we must preface this with the following statement: a password is only secure as the person hiding it. If you tell others your password, it is no longer secure. Also, there is no such thing as a completely secure password. Any password can be cracked given enough time and resources. The real question is, do you want to make it easy for the person trying to get your password or make them work for it?
So with that in mind, a secure password contains the following:
• A combination of UPPER & lower case letters
• At least 1 number
• A special character like, !, %, ^, &, *, >, ~,`, or a #.
• Also, it is somewhere between 8-14 characters in length
If you already have passwords you feel are secure or you have memorable words you think you can turn into secure passwords, there are tools out there to test how strong they are. Here are a couple to help you assess.
• Microsoft Password Checker: I will probably take some flack for this, but it doesn’t ask for a user name and it’s done with javascript so it is all client side. Just type in the password and it will tell you it’s strength.
• Javascript Password Strength Meter: This one is pretty nifty because it gives it a score and also a “points” breakdown about why your password is strong or weak. Again all client side so no worries about it going anywhere.
The final thing once you have set your complex password and tested its strength is this DO NOT WRITE IT DOWN OR TELL ANYONE!
Having a secure password that is difficult to crack is pointless if you then write it down and stick it on your monitor or tell everyone in the office “in case they need it”.
How well do you really know your cleaner, or the engineer that came in to look at the boiler, or any one of the many people who walk by your desk or office windows daily? Protecting yourself forces you to be a little paranoid but that in turn protects your customer, staff, business and the wider internet.
At Navigate we offer a free audit to assess the strength of your password and security and advice on how you can improve security and help protect your vital data and assets.
Posted in: IT
Greener computing February 3, 2011 by matthewb
The ICT industry has a sizeable carbon footprint – on a par with the aviation industry at 2-3% of global carbon emissions. To put that into context, a Google search in which you spend three minutes to find the result you want creates 7 grams of CO2. As millions of Google searches and phone calls occur in the UK every day these numbers soon add up!
So it is no surprise that the Cabinet Office report (Greening Government ICT, 2009) contains recommendations applicable to all IT systems to make private businesses more ‘green’. A company with green credentials is favoured under this tender.
You can expect that as government and EU policy changes over the next business cycle, initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions and to reduce the environmental footprint of UK businesses will continue. A ‘green’ business is becoming an increasingly important factor as customers seek suppliers.
We have set out a few simple recommendations which can help you take the first steps towards becoming green. These can save you both money and add to your green credentials:
- Video Conferencing: Can reduce the costs and time wasted whilst travelling to meetings and has the environmental benefit of reducing transport related CO2 emissions.
- Power Management: Basically don’t leave your equipment on standby and turn off your plugs! Implementing this on I.T. equipment reduces power consumption leading directly to lower electricity bills. Again this has the obvious benefit of reducing CO2 emissions.
- Implementing Hardware Virtualisation: Hardware virtualisation is one of the next big things in I.T. It simply means that instead of having multiple computer systems, one for each job (e.g. Finance Server, Email Server etc), they are all consolidated on one system but separated from each other by a virtual ‘sandbox’ for them to operate in. This reduces business costs as less equipment needs to be purchased, less power and cooling is needed, and future flexibility is increased as new ‘virtual’ services can be added at very little cost. The environmental benefits are reduced CO2 emissions and reduced use of raw materials
- Purchasing from ‘green’ suppliers: Your businesses environmental profile can be raised by ensuring your supply chain is environmentally sustainable by purchasing from suppliers with environmental policies or green products
Navigate I.T. & Telecoms are happy to take any enquiries you may have regarding the purchase and implementation of greener systems for your business. Call now to find out how we can provide your business with carbon neutral telephone lines and call charges.
Why not take the first step towards becoming green now by using our recycling service for any unwanted IT equipment. For more information please click here
Posted in: IT
Latest AVG Promotion January 17, 2011 by Josh Dinsdale
Navigate IT &Telecoms can exclusively reveal AVG’s latest promotion. It’s geared towards charitable, academic and public sector organisations and offers a massive discount to new AVG Users.
As an AVG partner, Navigate IT & Telecoms are able to offer advice on all of AVG’s Antivirus product range and have experts on hand to assist you in choosing the best product to suit your company’s needs.
If you are looking at making the change to AVG, or would like more information, contact us now be email on info@navigateit.co.uk or call us on 01983 525500
Posted in: IT
Get Safe Online December 14, 2010 by Josh Dinsdale
We are all aware of the Fake Anti-Virus programs which actually install real malware software on to user’s computers. Over the past couple of years it has become one of the most widely used methods for criminal Internet gangs to delivery their ‘nasties’.
But now a study carried out by the Campaign group ‘Get Safe Online’ has reported on a new phenomenon, Internet gangs cold calling unsuspecting Internet users and convincing them to actually buy the fake anti-malware products over the phone. The software itself is usually used to dig out the personal information of its victims and pass this back to the scammers. This information is then sold in via the black market and used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.
Navigate recommend relying on your good old common sense:
• Always buy your anti-malware product from a reputable dealer and try to stick to one of the bigger name products.
• Update to the latest version of your Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc), these should all include some sort of popup blocking software. If you are ever confronted with any sort of popup, never click in it, always click on the x in the top left of the popup window to close it safely, if in doubt contact your IT support company.
• If anyone ever cold-calls you to try to sell you anti-malware protection (or just about anything else), just say no!
Posted in: IT
You have a virus… Click here to remove it November 17, 2010 by Paul Wood
We have probably all seen this sort of message pop up when we are browsing the internet, usually when you click on a website that you thought was something else. Most, if not all of us, are aware and nervous of virus infections. We install and update our anti-virus software, we don’t open e-mail attachments from people we don’t know and yet when confronted with a web page that looks slick and informs us we are infected, we are happy to click on the big button marked SCAN.
What we are in fact doing in most cases is opening the door to nasty little blighters and inviting them into our computer for what in some cases is an extended stay. While they are there they are welcome to stop us performing our day-to-day work, or worse, leech all our precious data and send it to an unscrupulous shady character for him/her to do evil things with.
There are many variants of this around and they all prey on our fear of virus infection to perform the exact task we fear. As IT professionals we see it all the time. People are not really to blame for it, most of the time you are trying to be helpful and to protect yourself but when I was sat the other day clearing one of the said nasty infections, I pondered on the thought process behind clicking that button.
We have become so scared by all the terrible stories of hackers infecting machines and stealing money, or data, or launching nuclear attacks (I kid you not, a “hacker” was, not too many years ago, imprisoned and banned from using a phone in any way for the term of his sentence because the prosecutors convinced the judge he could “whistle down the phone line and set off nuclear missiles), that we will quite literally believe a box saying anything.
The advice here is really quite simple. If a box does pop up in the middle of your screen and tell you your computer has a virus, make sure its from the anti-virus software you have installed (we are all sensible and have anti-virus software don’t we!!) If you are unsure, close the window immediately. If it wont close shut down your machine and restart, then start your installed anti-virus software and run a full scan on your machine; its time consuming sometimes but better that than the bill you will undoubtedly incur trying to rid yourself of infection. If you don’t have anti-virus software GET SOME! There are many products available both for free and paid for, but whatever you do, do not simply blindly click the flashy button in the belief you are doing good.
This attack is akin to fitting your house with a burglar alarm and then leaving the front door open and asking a stranger in for a cuppa while you pop out for a bit, you just wouldn’t do it! In short, protecting yourself is very important!
Microsoft Launch Windows Phone 7 Series October 29, 2010 by Josh Dinsdale
So Microsoft Windows Phone 7 has finally been released to well, not exactly a massive fanfare, but here at Navigate we try to be as inclusive of technology products as we can, because what might be a great fit for one business might not fit so well for another, I’m expecting this to apply to Windows Phone 7 as well…
Lets do something no one else seems to have done yet, which is look at WP7 from a business perspective, as at Navigate our primary motivator is how well this phone will work for our clients.
The majority of businesses (the ones we deal with at least) use Microsoft Exchange in one incarnation or another so Exchange Direct-Push on a phone is a primary driver when deciding which phone to purchase. In the not so distant past, the only option was to buy a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device and I’ve personally had no choice but to recommend this to clients as it was at that point the only device that did Direct-Push properly (a decision I’ve wholeheartedly regretted in many instances!). Fortunately Microsoft licensed the technology to nearly all of the other big players in the phone business some years ago, which means that business users can get the Direct-Push experience without the poor user experience and unreliability that was Windows Mobile 5/6.
So back to the matter at hand, Windows Phone 7 does indeed support Exchange Direct push out of the box! This might sound unsurprising, but early rumours indicated that this vital component might not actually make it into the first generation WP7 devices, as Microsoft are initially pushing the devices to home rather than business users.
The mobile outlook client returns but looks much more polished and user friendly. Emails are categorised and you can very easily flick between the different categories (all messages, unread, flagged, urgent etc). The Outlook tile shows you at-a-glance how many new emails you have, as well as calendar appointments and tasks.
Now to be completely honest, I’m not entirely convinced about the usefulness of being able to edit office documents on a phone. Its handy to be able to open a document up and quickly glance through something, but the screen size is really too small to edit documents in any sort of efficient way. But who cares what I think? Windows Phone 7 comes with Office Mobile and to be totally honest the document editing features and especially the One Note functionality do look really good.
Now to one of those issues that gets people very irate, physical keyboards. Some people swear that they can type perfectly on a multi-touch screen, but we all know the reason Blackberry devices are so popular is because they have a physical keyboard. Microsoft have allowed their OEM partners to build in physical keyboards if they so desire and I think this is a very good thing.
It’s too early yet to tell how stable the Windows Phone 7 platform is, it’s only been out a few days and I think it will realistically take a few months before we can make a judgment on that. However in the same way Apple have locked the iPhone down, Microsoft have locked Windows Phone 7 down I a similar fashion. This brings us to the old usability versus flexibility argument. Everyone knows that the iPhone is the most useable phone device on the market, when you tell it to do something it does it, there’s minimal delay, as opposed to Windows Mobile 5/6 and even some Android Devices. The flipside to this is that, to achieve that amount of speed and reliability on a device, you cant just let any old tom, dick or harry write a programme and run it on the device. This is the flexibility part of my previous statement, its much easier to develop your own applications for Windows Mobile 5/6 and Android than it is for the iPhone. Apple vet every single app o their app store which make it much more difficult for companies to build and deploy their own applications for it.
I think Microsoft have done the only thing they can do in this respect, I mean, they had to do something to improve the stability of these new phones over the older Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices!
There are many things still that aren’t right on these device’s that should have been working at launch, such as the insane decisions to remove cut and paste functionality for some bizarre reason, but these devices do look promising. I think these first generation WP7 phones are probably worth a miss, but hopefully if Microsoft can iron out the bugs over the next 6 months or so, the Wp7 devices release next year could be worth a go.
Posted in: IT
AVG Release new 2011 Product Portfolio! October 24, 2010 by Josh Dinsdale
AVG, the makers of the world’s most widely used free Anti-Virus product have announced the availability of their new product Portfolio.
AVG 2011 is the culmination of feedback from AVG’s community of more than 110 million users and is designed to be as easy to use and lightweight as ever.
AVG have stuck with their line of offering two major products for businesses, Anti-Virus 2011 Business edition and Internet Security Business Edition. Both products feature AVG’s renowned Resident Shield, Firewall, Scanning Engine and Link Scanner technologies; as well as new features such as ‘Smart Scanning’, ‘Social Network Protection’ and ‘Cloud Anti-Virus’. Internet Security Business Edition also includes AVG’s Identity protection module and Anti-Spam modules for both workstations and Servers.
Best of all, if you have a current AVG Subscription you are entitled to a free upgrade to AVG 2011, but please remember, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only free for home users and not for Business or Educational environments.
