What is a firewall and why do you need one?

Firewalls are a protective barrier between your computer, phone or tablet and the other computers that are connected to you. As soon as you are connected to the internet, the whole world can see you and this can make your computer vulnerable to cyber threats. When data is exchanged between computers it goes into cyberspace. Firewalls monitor this data to decide whether it is safe, and therefore firewalls are essential!

If your computer is left unprotected, it can quickly be attacked with popup messages and viruses among other things, all in a matter of minutes. Having a firewall installed can prevent some of these attacks from taking place. In some instances, hackers can install a trojan (malware which is misleading to the user) onto your PC which will give them the power to control it.

How Cloud Computing can help your business

Cloud computing is everywhere and has definitely become part of our daily lives. Whether you are watching films, listening to music, editing documents or checking your email, you are already using it. Cloud computing is about storing data on the internet rather than hard drives, meaning you can store unlimited amounts of data over the internet which was impossible before.

How can your business benefit?
There are many reasons why many businesses across the world are using Cloud computing. Here a just a few:

9 Reasons why your computer may be slow

It can be extremely frustrating when your computer is slow as it can reduce your productivity and make you job harder. There are many reasons why your computer may be slow, some of which are simple and easy to avoid.

1.    Your hard drive may be failing
This can happen over time as a hard drive is constantly moving and, as with anything that consists of moving parts, they can eventually wear down.

How to fix: Run a hard drive check.

Kwik Fit hack highlights dangers of malware for businesses

Recently we wrote an article detailing predictions from some of the world’s top experts including McAfee and the World Economic Forum forecasting greater levels of hacking and phishing in 2019. Well it appears that we have the first major casualty of 2019 with a major hack of UK firm Kwik Fit’s computer network.

The popular car service specialist has over 600 garages across the United Kingdom and Ireland and provides tyres, exhausts, batteries and breaks as well as MOT testing and car servicing. However, the chain experienced a recent malware attack which caused huge delays to customers’ car repairs as garages were unable to process orders.

Global cyber-attack would cost businesses billions

A new report has produced findings in which it claims that a coordinated global cyber attack could cause economic damage of between £65-96 billion.

In the hypothetical scenario developed for Lloyds of London and Aon, findings showed that a malicious campaign similar to those of real-life ransomware (such as WannaCry and Not Petya) could spread around the world incredibly quickly and cause devastating damage in its wake.

The scenario involved an infected email which once opened forwards itself to all contacts. It estimated that within 24 hours, data on 30 million devices worldwide could be encrypted and business owners faced with the prospect of paying a ransom or losing their data.

The impact on those businesses through reduced operation, productivity, consumption, ransomware payments and disruption to the supply chain was estimated to be in the tens of billions with businesses most heavily impacted in Europe and North America.

Has your email been stolen in massive data leak?

Dubbed a ‘mega-leak’, more than 2.2 billion stolen emails and passwords have surfaced online in a leak that is growing bigger by the day.

First reported on January 17, 2019 by researcher Troy Hunt, the leak included an astonishing number of email addresses and password combinations. However, upon further investigation the list of breached data was even bigger than first suspected, with 2.2 billion user’s worth of data included.

The data is apparently an amalgamation of leaked email addresses and passwords from other various leaks in recent years (Yahoo, LinkedIn, Dropbox, etc.) bundled together in an easily downloadable package for illicit purposes.

It has been reported by tech website Wired that the leak is being shared among hacker circles on forums and through torrents providing what is essentially a ‘phone book’ of email address credentials. This effectively allows any would-be hacker to attempt to gain access to websites using those credentials in the hopes that the password remains unchanged.

Levels of hacking and phishing predicted to increase in 2019

2018 brought with it many major cyber-crime attacks over the year.

A number of global businesses and industries fell victim to data breaches including the likes of Facebook, Under Armour, MyHeritage and the Marriott Hotel Group – even the French President, Emmanuel Macron, had his emails hacked!

Together with increasing levels of ransomware and malware attacks, cyber security is rightly at the top of many business agendas in 2019. Here are what some of the world’s top experts are predicting for the year ahead.

McAfee

Leading software experts McAfee have warned that businesses may well find themselves ‘under siege’ from threats like malware, ransomware and over attacks in the coming months. They predict that criminals will turn to social media, cloud technologies and mobile phones as key windows for attacks and ‘upscale’ their efforts to bypass security controls.