USB drives – 4 steps to reducing the business risk

USB drives are the tried and trusted faithful companion in professional life. They were around long before cloud-based file storage, sync and share platforms, they don’t rely on WiFi connections, and they are just an easy way of getting data from A-to-B. What’s not to love?

There’s a ‘but’…

It shouldn’t be news by now, but they come with substantial risks of a data leak. Here’s the risks by numbers:

  • USB drives have been lost in 49% of companies
  • Employees save sensitive data on USBs in 24% of companies
  • 91% of USB drives used for this data are unencrypted

That’s not a good situation at any time, lest of all in the age of data privacy and regulations such as GDPR – we discuss more in our blog here.

How can I shore up my company’s data?

There’s 4 simple steps you can take to ensuring no sensitive data (or any data for that matter) with company financial information, customer details or sales pipeline, confidential employee data, product roadmaps and so on are secure.

  1. Create awareness of the problem among your users (share the infographic below)
  2. Educate and train your users
  3. Set and implement policies
  4. Use hardware-based encrypted USB drives, and/or an appropriate enterprise-grade cloud file sync and share platform

Click on the image below to see the full infographic

How we can help

Complete IT Systems and Kingston Technology have the solutions, experience, accreditations and skills to provide your business with the security solutions you need. For more information call us on 01274 396 213 or contact us and we can call you back.

Is it really your boss? Here’s the top Spear Phishing attack methods

We all read the news – impersonation-based cyber attacks are increasingly more common, sophisticated and targeted.

But what are the most common, and successful approaches that cyber criminals use to attack business like yours in the UK every day? Here are some of the most common impersonation attempts you should be on particular alert for, and make your users aware of.

Is it really your boss?

It’s never the best career move to ignore your boss, so who wouldn’t respond to a request from them? Many times, attackers don’t use complex tools or technology to try and trick you or your employee to wire money, send personal information, give up account credentials, etc. They simply research both you and your employees/manager by checking out social media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, or your company’s “About” section. From there, they craft the perfect email (or strings of emails) that legitimately appear to be sent from a trusted source. These messages typically do not contain malicious links or attachments, making them very difficult to detect with traditional email security solutions.

Impersonating popular business apps you use every day

Almost every business uses some sort of web-based application to help manage day-to-day workloads and tasks. Attackers are well aware of this and target trusted web services like Gmail or DocuSign as a way to lure unsuspecting victims. These attacks often try to get you to give up account credentials or click on malicious links. For example, you may receive an email informing you that you have unread messages, to reset your password, or to review or sign a document. From there, you’re taken to a fake website portal and accidentally give up your login information. These crooks will then use this to commit fraud or to launch a more targeted attack within your organisation.

Impersonating your Office 365 account

Most businesses use Microsoft’s popular cloud productivity service; however, familiarity can sometimes be a bad thing. There’s an inherent trust from users when they see an email directly from Office 365, and attackers are capitalising on this trust. They craft emails that ask you to log into a seemingly “valid” web portal. From there, they can gain access to your account and proceed to send malicious emails to your co-workers. What do these particular emails usually contain? You guessed it—a message asking for more sensitive company information or money. Even though Microsoft Office 365 is still a relatively new tool, attackers recognise that it houses a rather large and growing user base, so they plan on taking full advantage.

Secure your business

While we’ve all seen the headlines of data breaches such as British Airlines and Marriott, don’t be lulled into thinking that small and medium sized business aren’t also at risk.

Email is the leading source of modern cyber-threats which makes selecting the right enterprise email security is critical to your business success – this is vital even if you’re using Microsoft Office 365 as we discuss here.

Don’t miss what Forrester Research is saying about enterprise email security – Barracuda has been named a leader in the recent Forrester Wave Enterprise Email Security report.

 

 

Request your copy of the complimentary report now to read more!

How can I find out more?

As Barracuda Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

 

It’s eye-openingly easy for USB drives to jeopardise business data – what’s the solution?

How can IT deal with obvious risks of lost USB drives to business data and reputation? One way is the nuclear option of completely forbidding USB drive usage and all of its convenience. But doing so risks limiting user productivity, and in doing so perhaps forcing users into other ways of sharing files in efforts to get their job done (perhaps over personal email, or internet-based free file sharing platforms).

What’s the worst that can happen with a lost USB drive?

A lot actually – check out some of the eye-opening USB stats in our short video!

With several models and capacities to choose from, there’s one solution that’s ideal for your company’s needs, whether you’re looking for mobile data security or have to comply with data-at-rest directives, laws, standards or global regulations such as GDPR. That solution is encrypted USB drives.

In stats, 20% of organisations currently deploy encrypted USBs, but at least 33% have experienced a USB-related threat or breach in the past year.

What are the main benefits of encrypted USB?

  • Antivirus protection
  • Complex password protection
  • Ability to be managed remotely
  • Tamper-evident technology
  • Wide capacity range

How we can help

Complete IT Systems and Kingston Technology have the solutions, experience, accreditations and skills to provide your business with the security solutions you need. For more information call us on 01274 396 213 or contact us and we can call you back.

Teachers want to teach – here’s 6 ways IT can help them do that

Teachers want to teach. It’s more than just a job, it’s their vocation. But it’s clear that the growing burden of administrative and clerical tasks is weighing heavily on many of them. Class sizes are getting bigger, which means tasks like preparing lesson plans, marking, data management and general admin are taking up more of teachers’ time, affecting their morale and wellbeing, as well as staff recruitment and retention.

Teachers feel that the weight of admin they face is distracting them from delivering the quality of education they would like, and many believe it is an increasingly unsustainable situation.

In this guest blog with Brother Printers, we look at the ways in which technology can be deployed in schools to help teachers teach.

How serious is the problem?

Research from the Department for Education found teachers work an average of 54.4 hours a week , while a survey by the National Education Union found 80% of teachers have seriously considered resigning because of their workload.

This is an issue that is now being addressed at the highest levels of government.

An opportunity to improve outcomes

Education secretary Damian Hinds says that reducing teacher’s workloads is a priority and he wants schools, colleges and universities to use technology to reduce the burden of ‘non-teaching’ tasks, particularly around planning and data management.

This gives IT managers the opportunity to create more efficient ways of working for teachers and support staff.

A good start is to explore systems to communicate with and engage pupils and parents, which can successfully reduce the many admin hours spent drafting countless reports and letters – which are reliant upon being delivered by pupils to their parents or carer.

There are numerous options, including ClarionCall, Edulink one, Groupcall Xpressions, SIMS InTouch, Schoolcomms and Tasc Insight, which have varying features and are all designed to support more effective and efficient communication within school communities.

Communicating with the community

Essentially, these platforms provide a platform that schools can use to securely store documents, and share them using texts, emails or push notifications.

You pay an annual or monthly subscription to license the software and the platform can either be hosted in the cloud or within the school’s infrastructure.

They often require parents to download a free smartphone app where they can either choose to accept push notifications about any new information that has been uploaded, or opt to receive text messages or emails instead.

Documents such as end-of-term reports, assessments, exam timetables and details of after school clubs can be uploaded to the platform, where they can be accessed by parents, who can then confirm they have received and read documents and send feedback.

They also include letter templates that can be quickly customised to share information about events like school trips or parents’ evenings, and parents can use the app to confirm their attendance and book a specific time slot.

Simplifying processes

Support staff can use the platform to send out reminders about overdue library books, for example, and more sophisticated systems can even process payments.

They can be used by parents to take payments for things like after-school clubs and school trips, and even book and pay for tickets for school plays.

It’s easy to see how such systems can simplify a diverse range of labour and time-intensive administrative processes, while also increasing engagement with parents and pupils.

Another big benefit is that school staff can access these systems outside school, wherever they have an internet connection, supporting more flexible ways of working.

Supporting collaboration

Another particularly time-consuming burden for teachers is lesson planning.

The Department of Education has recently issued new guidance that teachers no longer need to spend time filling out templates for every individual lesson plan.

This had previously seen teachers preparing SMART presentations for use on interactive whiteboards, then writing up lesson plans that contain the same information to be checked by senior members of staff and Ofsted inspectors.

Lesson planning can now be completed solely using SMART presentations, which can then be stored on a central server so they can be amended and re-used.

It also means that a series of lessons can be saved and easily revisited with classes to recap on learning.

This opens the door to increased collaboration between teachers using platforms like Microsoft Planner and Sharepoint.

Teachers can upload lesson plans to share with colleagues, creating a library of lessons, materials and resources that can be shared, amended and reused as required.

IT and education, working together

Schools are also using project management apps like Microsoft Teams and Trello for information sharing and discussion.

They support collaboration by providing a place for posting questions and comments about ongoing issues, removing the need to trawl through lengthy email threads.

For example, it can be used to share exam grading criteria with a particular department, and teachers can then respond if they have any questions about marking, with the responses visible for all to see.

Again, these kind of apps can be securely accessed remotely by teachers who may be working at home after school hours or during school holidays.

Supporting this kind of flexible working is crucial for maintaining teachers’ workflow and removing potential obstructions to efficiency.

This can also be an issue with printing classroom materials like tests, reference texts and worksheets, which are a fundamental part of most lessons, but having a small number of printers housed in a central hub can create backlogs that tie up teachers unnecessarily.

In a school or academy with hundreds of pupils, if even one machine is out of action for just a short time it can create even more inconvenience.

Instead, a far more efficient and controllable solution for teachers is to have printers in classrooms.

Convenience and cost saving

Schools commonly use print management systems like PaperCut or PrintSmart, which means teachers can remotely send print jobs to their printer at a time and location that is convenient for them.

Then they can simply tap their work pass on their dedicated printer when they get to the classroom to release the job.

It means no queues, less potential for logjams and that teachers can be more spontaneous and creative in their teaching, as they can print materials during a lesson, without having to collect materials from another location.

Brother can help you overcome everyday printing frustrations and help your school become more productive and efficient. Find out how you can rein in runaway print spend with cost control measures such as automatic two-sided printing and real-time budgeting tools, and understand how you can stop sensitive information getting into the wrong hands with password-protected printing and scanning.

Watch to see how Brother’s professional laser printers can help reduce printing costs:

Overall, it’s clear that modern technology in schools presents numerous opportunities for IT managers to help teachers save time, improve their work-life balance and boost their job satisfaction.

Ultimately, we’re all working for the benefit of the pupils, so if it means better outcomes for them, then it’s a job well done.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how to order and claim your cashback.

Complete IT Systems and Brother

See how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business here.

 

How cyber criminals use email to attack businesses

Email account takeover and lateral phishing represent a growing threat to enterprise UK businesses. In this blog we look at recent findings into Spear Phishing and how it can be used to take over business email systems and access critical data.

How do cyber criminals exploit businesses?

Attackers follow four primary strategies to choose target recipients of lateral phishing attacks. In about one-third of email account takeover attacks, cybercriminals use additional deceptive behaviour to make their lateral phishing emails stealthier or more convincing.

A recent report from Barracuda takes an in-depth look at how compromised email accounts are being used to launch targeted lateral phishing attacks that are designed to evade many existing email protection systems, and which advanced detection techniques, security awareness training, and other strategies and solutions businesses are using to prevent attacks.

A closer look at evolving threats

Barracuda’s research uncovered fresh insights into how these popular attacks are evolving and the tactics used by cybercriminals to try to make them successful. The main findings are as follows:

  • 1 in 7 businesses experienced lateral phishing attacks in a seven-month period, based on a random sample of enterprise organisations.
  • More than 60 percent of organisations that were attacked experienced multiple incidents.
  • About 11 percent of attacks managed to successfully compromise additional employee accounts.
  • 42 percent of the lateral phishing incidents weren’t reported to the organisation’s IT or security team.
  • More than 55 percent of the lateral phishing attacks targeted recipients with some personal or work relationship to the hijacked email account.
  • 37 percent of lateral phishing attacks used tailored content that was enterprise-oriented or highly specific to the victim’s organisation.

“Email threats, including account takeover and lateral phishing, continue to evolve, and cybercriminals continue to find new ways to execute attacks, avoid detection, and trick users,” said Mike Flouton, vice president of email security at Barracuda. “Staying ahead of these types of attacks requires an understanding of the latest tactics being used by cybercriminals and the critical precautions available to help defend your business.”

Find out more

Barracuda’s latest report, titled Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends Vol. 2Email Account Takeover: Defending Against Lateral Phishing, reveals new details about these growing and evolving threats, including the latest tactics used by cybercriminals and the critical precautions to help defend your business.

The report shows you:

  • How compromised email accounts are being used to launch targeted lateral-phishing attacks that are designed to evade many existing email protection systems and fool internal and external recipients
  • Why attacks are becoming more sophisticated, stealthy and successful and how to stop them as they become harder to detect
  • Which advanced detection techniques, security awareness training and other strategies and solutions businesses are using to prevent attacks

Secure your business

While we’ve all seen the headlines of data breaches such as British Airlines and Marriott, don’t be lulled into thinking that small and medium sized business aren’t also at risk.

Email is the leading source of modern cyber-threats which makes selecting the right enterprise email security is critical to your business success – this is vital even if you’re using Microsoft Office 365 as we discuss here.

Don’t miss what Forrester Research is saying about enterprise email security – Barracuda has been named a leader in the recent Forrester Wave Enterprise Email Security report.

 

 

Request your copy of the complimentary report now to read more!

4 steps to reducing business printing costs

Cost management is a vital component of any technology solution. So Complete IT Systems and Brother have some simple solutions designed to minimise the financial impact on organisations.

1: Save on toner

Reduce toner consumption when printing, copying and receiving faxes.

Save money by reducing the frequency of replacement consumables purchases, while also having a positive impact on the environment. And better still, using Brother’s “Toner Save Mode” does not affect the print speed or memory usage of the device.

2: Condense pages

Make an organisational commitment to using less paper by condensing multiple pages into a single sheet of paper.

N-in-1 printing reduces paper usage compared to standard printing helping companies to reduce their environmental impact and work towards their green credentials.

3: Reduce the number of pages users can print

Save money by controlling the number of pages each user can print.

Brother’s “Secure Function Lock” enables administrators to set daily, weekly or even monthly print allowances for each user. Once the limit has been reached, the Brother device will stop printing until the user’s allowance is increased or reset. Compatible devices also support NFC card authentication.

4: Implement NFC authentication

Retrieve printing documents in the confidence that they have not been read, copied or taken by anyone else.

The secure print function ensures documents are not printed until they are released by the machine’s control panel by using an NFC card.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how to order and claim your cashback.

Complete IT Systems and Brother

See how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business here.

 

Neutralising the USB threat to your business

As Heathrow Airport found out last year, lost or stolen USB drives can expose your organisation to substantial risks such as damage of reputation, loss of customers, or fines.

You can neutralise them by using Encrypted USB drives. Check out our infographic to understand some other quick actions you can take to secure your business from the potential damage that just one unencrypted USB drive can do.

 

 

How can encrypted USB help your business?

Kingston Technology’s encrypted USB drives provide the security needed to protect your confidential business data at all times; protect your organisation’s sensitive and business critical data by standardising on an encrypted Kingston DataTraveler or IronKey Flash drives.

With several models and capacities to choose from to suit all types and sizes of organisation, there’s always one that’s ideal for your company’s needs. Whether mobile data security is a priority, or you have to demonstrate compliance with data-at-rest directives, laws, standards or global regulations such as GDPR, Kingston’s encrypted USB drives are built for all scenarios. Check out this short video of the DTVP30 range to find out more.

 

How we can help

Complete IT Systems and Kingston Technology have the solutions, experience, accreditations and skills to provide your business with the security solutions you need. For more information call us on 01274 396 213 or contact us and we can call you back.

What do eBay, Uber, LinkedIn and Superdrug all have in common? 🔒 🚩

Spoiler warning – they have all experienced cyber attacks in recent years.

British Airways and Marriott International are the latest organisations to have made unwanted headlines this week with a total of almost £300 million in fines handed out to the pair by the ICO.

It prompted us to think back to some of the other big security breaches that have occurred in recent years, and to again question how prepared the majority of businesses really are for cyber attacks.

This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but it’s some of the big names that either affected UK firms or UK consumers (or both).

Superdrug
20,000 customer details breached, and hackers attempted to blackmail the pharmacy chain.

Equifax
Personal data from 145 million people stolen from the credit reference company.

Yahoo 
Every single one of Yahoo’s 3 billion accounts worldwide was hacked in 2013 (and details emerged in 2017).

WannaCry
The famous global ransomware attack affected more than 150 countries and 300,000 devices, targeting companies running outdated Windows software.

Uber

In 2016 hackers stole the data of 57 million Uber customers, and the company paid them $100,000 to cover it up. The breach wasn’t made public until the following year.

LinkedIn
Over 160 million accounts were compromised, and the leak was found to have been occurring for 4 years up to 2016.

eBay
145 million members’ personal details stolen in 2014. eBay’s response caused almost as much concern as the hack itself.

You can read more of the hacks in this excellent article from the BCS.

Secure your business

While these are all household names and therefore make the headlines, don’t be lulled into thinking that small and medium sized business aren’t also at risk.

Email is the leading source of modern cyber-threats which makes selecting the right enterprise email security is critical to your business success – this is vital even if you’re using Microsoft Office 365 as we discuss here.

Don’t miss what Forrester Research is saying about enterprise email security – Barracuda has been named a leader in the recent Forrester Wave Enterprise Email Security report.

 

 

Request your copy of the complimentary report now to read more!

How can I find out more?

As Barracuda Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

Complete IT Systems join exclusive club!

Complete IT Systems is proud to announce that we have been named in Bradford’s Top 50 SMEs 2019!

The annual awards are judged by BHP Clough & Company Chartered Accountants in conjunction with the Telegraph and Argus, and aim to put the spotlight on the vital role small and medium sized firms play both in the local area and nationally.

Included in the ranking of the awards are each firm’s profits, turnover and contribution to local employment.

Writing in the Telegraph & Argus, Nigel Bullas, managing partner of BHP’s Bradford office, said: “Strong, resilient, innovative and entrepreneurial’ – small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region have once again shown the way with a year of outstanding performance.”

Paul Spence, Managing Director at Complete IT Systems had this to say about the award. “It’s a great honour to be selected into the top 50 SMEs in the region, and I think it reflects the work we do in our daily business but in the contribution we try to make to the community as a whole. We’re a big part of Bradford’s business scene, having sponsored Bradford City FC, been crowned the Fastest growing Midsize Business in Yorkshire and played a local role in Chamber of Commerce activities. We also love to support school initiatives and the ‘One in a Million’ childrens’ charity”.

“On a national level we are also proud to have been recognised by the London Stock Exchange Group as one of the 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain. This recognised Complete IT Systems’ role in generating net new employment and in making a dynamic contribution to the overall positive influence of SMEs on the country’s economy”.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our customers, staff and vendors for their part in our recognition, and we’re very much looking forward to an even brighter future.”

Find out more

You can read more about the awards on the Telegraph and Argus website via this link.

Give us a call any time on 01274 396 213 if you’d like an informal chat about your IT requirements and what we could offer to your business.

 

We’re Lenovo Platinum!

Lenovo’s broad and innovation-rich solution range gives your business a real head start in this age of remote and mobile working.

Complete IT Systems have once again been named as Lenovo Platinum PC Partners, and we are your ideal partners for choosing your company’s PC solutions.

To celebrate our achievement, we’ve looked at Lenovo’s 25 years of award winning technology with Lenovo ThinkPad.

As you are well aware, the modern workforce can be increasingly demanding on their IT equipment! And when your sales team and company leaders are presenting to potential clients or working while they travel, it’s important that their kit looks the part and can be adapted to the requirements.

As Lenovo Platinum Solution Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the Lenovo range and how it could be effectively deployed in your business. To find out more give us a call on 01274 396 213 or email  and we’ll get back to you promptly.