There’s a good reason why businesses rely on email providers such as MailChimp to send high volume broadcasts and this became obvious to one worker last month who inadvertently crashed the entire NHS mail system.

It’s that time of year when a deluge of new malware attacks try to lure you in with infected email attachments in messages which purport to be from legitimate companies – the types of companies you would expect to be emailing you at this time of year. Amazon appears to be the worst culprit right now – or rather emails containing intriguing subject lines such as ‘Your Amazon Order Details’. Of course, it’s not really Amazon sending these bogus messages. Instead they originate from cyber criminals hoping you will open the attached file and thereby unleash havoc on your own PC. What a lazy (but effective) way to propagate malicious code! Naturally, the malware you might inadvertently install by opening an infected file threatens to compromise the performance of your machine or, worse still, the security of your personal data. Besides fake order updates from Amazon, other variations are also doing the rounds – ‘important notifications’ from HMRC containing PDF attachments and, of course, the traditional bogus documentation from all the major banks: Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Lloyds to name but a few. What can you do to protect yourself? So if your inbox is full of messages that you were not expecting on subjects you do not recognise, what can you do to avoid falling foul of the hackers? Here is some simple advice that may prevent you compromising your security. Know your sender – our simple message to you is this – do not open email attachments from unknown senders. Beware malicious files – invoices and delivery notes from Amazon and other suppliers are designed to tempt you to click. However, most online retailers do not send file attachments with their order updates and Amazon for one have made a statement to this effect in the past month. Be careful what you download! There is no such thing as a free lunch and ‘freeware’ as well as P2P programs are amongst the biggest culprits. These software applications are frequently bundled with copious amounts of bundled spyware. Phishing and ID theft. Be especially wary of hyperlinks contained in messages that appear to originate from your bank, building society, telecoms provider, PayPal account etc. A useful tip is to hover your mouse over any such link to reveal whether the URL actually does originates from the website in question. Update your antivirus – your antivirus software should be set to update at regular intervals and manual checks are advisable too. If you have any questions regarding your own internet security software, please contact us to discuss this matter as a matter of urgency.

When it comes to cyber security, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond MP has recommended fighting fire with fire (or maybe firewalls with firewalls).

Widespread distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks were recently responsible for bringing down a large proportion of the internet, including Twitter, Spotify and the PlayStation network, but how was it carried out? Let’s take a look at what DDoS attacks are and the risk they pose.

In the past IT service was a matter of infrastructure: networks, devices, servers and so on. The internet was slow, the applications were often clumsy and sometimes unusable, and these systems were not interconnected. That was the first wave of IT. The good news is the free market has driven solutions to those challenges - and we’re all glad it did.

Just Because You’re Not a Big Target, Doesn’t Mean You’re Safe Not too long ago, the New York Times’ website experienced a well-publicized attack, which raises the question – how can this happen to such a world-renowned corporation? If this can happen to the New York Times, what does this bode for the security of a small company’s website? What’s to stop someone from sending visitors of your site to an adult site or something equally offensive?

Stay Secure My Friend... More Hackers Targeting SMBs Many SMBs don’t realize it, but the path to some grand cybercrime score of a lifetime may go right through their backdoor. SMBs are commonly vendors, suppliers, or service providers who work with much larger enterprises. Unfortunately, they may be unaware that this makes them a prime target for hackers. Worse yet, this may be costing them new business.

Partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) is one new approach being used by many companies like yours. Experienced MSPs have access to newer tools that reduce costs by automating many routine in-house labor intensive processes. Break-fix is labor intensive, and labor is one of the most expensive operating costs within your IT infrastructure. The new innovative tools that can be provided by MSPs generate real productivity increases and mitigate the risk of network failure, downtime and data loss from human error.

Did you know that 50% of small business owners think their businesses are too small to be targeted by the thieves of the virtual world? Contrary to popular belief, 72% of hacker attacks often happen to smaller firms - firms with less than 100 employees! So how prepared is your SMB? Here’s a checklist to help you find out how vulnerable you are to these attacks.