If you have applied for the bounce back loan in recent months, chances are that you signed the documents digitally using something like DocuSign. These days, paper is very much becoming like my cheque book…somewhat redundant. In fact, writing this made me look at my chequebook (I had to find it first) and the first cheque I wrote was 5 years ago. I still have half of the cheques available in the book. Everything I do with my bank is online.

In fact, I am going through the process of changing banks and everything they have asked me to do has been electronic in some form or other. This is not COVID-19 related, this has been happening anyway. COVID-19 has just fast tracked the process. Such a comprehensive process but no longer carried out in person. Changing banks is another strategic decision I have made. The new bank has pretty much been in contact throughout lockdown. The outgoing bank have not made a single phone call to us highlighting that we made the right decision.

The PayPal thing is yet another sign of the weird, joined-up digital world in which we now live. Again, a dodgy email reminded me that I have not logged into my PayPal account for some time. I just do not use it anymore and I wondered out of curiosity really if there had been any activity on it. I failed at the password hurdle – it has been that long since I logged in that I had forgotten the password. So, after an email or two and a secure password created using my online password manager, I now have a very secure password that I will never forget again. Once logged in however, I was slightly unnerved that PayPal had my up to date credit card details stored as a preferred payment option. This was not just an expired card; this was a card I had reported lost a few months ago in first lockdown so the card company sent me out a new card with new everything on it. How did PayPal get hold of this information? We have always been told that if we have any subscriptions on a card, that we should now update these as they will not be paid. Not it would appear in the case of PayPal however.

Companies House have also jumped on the bandwagon. They have now announced that they are no longer sending out paper reminders. Unless you want reminding, and subscribe to the email service, they are not going to remind you to file anything. The letter even points out that it is the directors’ responsibility to file company’s information on time, so I guess woe betide you if you forget.

I have been wondering why my daughters trampoline club relies on me paying them manually, when they should be collecting the money by direct debit and low and behold, during lockdown, they have implemented a system so that they can control this.

And this is my point, now more than ever, is the time to look at your business processes with a view to automating them. Making strategic decisions about your business to help you streamline processes or automate systems should be high up on your agenda.

This is where we at WebPorch Solution fit in. We are your strategic IT partner. We put our money where our mouths are and invest in our own technology so that our team can be ready to help you invest in yours.

Steve Pickering

So, month 8 in the covid-19 household and it feels a bit like Groundhog Day if I am honest. Home working is most definitely here to stay, leaving us all wondering what the best way is to keep remote employees in the loop of all things company related. When our team are in the office, the level of collaboration is off the scale and when they are at home, the level of productivity goes through the roof. It’s the best of both worlds to be honest, and the challenge is quite simply to find the right balance. As an indication, 75% of the calls into our office are still coming from mobiles, which shows that a high number of you are still also working remotely.

The scramble back in March was to get everyone up and running as quickly as possible. In our IT world, we have seen many acronyms, one of which that has been widely used is BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). The March scramble, however, caused us to create a new acronym in the form of GAD (Grab Any Device). We saw huge demand for laptops; in fact, this trend continues globally as distribution centres have lots of stock of desktops but guess what… laptops, being so popular, are not only holding their price, but also proving still to be hard to come by.

BYOD and GAB have, however, brought new challenges. Connecting these devices to your corporate network from home opens up a whole can of worms, security-wise, but allowing any device takes this to another level.

While we have been adjusting to this brave new world, the individuals that are keen to part you from your money have been busier than ever. We have seen a significant increase in attacks and, more worryingly, they are getting very clever. Fortunately, help is on hand. While the criminals have been at work, so have the clever bods. We are now seeing new technologies coming through, clever technology that works in a different way to traditional antivirus products. These new products can detect abnormal behaviour and help to prevent the attack, even if the software doesn’t have a name for whatever is happening on your network.

This is next level stuff, and all companies will eventually be using this. If, like us, you have staff working from home accessing the corporate network on whatever device they could grab then this level of security is not only necessary, but critical. And the good news is, it doesn’t stop there. The boffins that create the firewalls have also been hard at work. At home, your firewall will be built into your router. BT, SKY etc all have this functionality. If you do not have a suitable firewall on your corporate network though, this is no longer good enough. Apart from the fact that they were never designed to have the throughput that all the remote workers are throwing at them, they are also just not secure enough. This is where the next level security in firewalls kicks in.

We live in a world now where technology is advancing at such a pace that it is harder than ever to keep up. That’s where we fit in…

Our layered security solution stack is designed to address the diverse security needs that are today, more than ever, an essential element of your business.

For more information about our layered security stack, click here

Steve Pickering

Here is one of those classic “it makes sense but doesn’t work moments”.

If I wanted to design the best home security system, then sensibly, I should go to the Police (who deal with all burglaries), and ask them to design me a product that protects my house against every theft they have ever seen. Then all I need to do, is wait for the police to tell me about any new crimes they have dealt with and I’d have update my device to protect against them as well; flawless you might think!

If that system worked, then after all these years of policing, there would be virtually no crime. Well guess what, there is more crime then ever… so clearly this is not a good strategy to follow.

Computer Antivirus and protection against cybercrime has gone the same way. You buy some software from ESET, Norton, AVG or any number of others, and the software knows about all historical viruses that have been caught. You wait for the provider to learn about a new virus, then update your software so it can protect against specific attacks.

This is a signature-based antivirus and you can see the similarity with the police example, you will also have seen that cybercrime is at an all-time high.

This leads us to think What if antivirus software had the ability to think for itself? Or what if it could learn and understand what you typically do on your computer, and just simply question anything out the ordinary?

Well, SonicWall have done such a thing. By using Capture Client the software will learn what typical activity is for your machine and if it sense something out of the ordinary, it will alert you.

To put this into perspective it’s a bit like a pet at home: most of the time its happy and content, but occasionally it senses something out the ordinary. It could be a different sound in the house, or a strange smell and you’ll soon be alerted when somethings up.

SonicWall Capture Client is designed to do exactly that. Your software no longer has to be told to learn a new virus, it teaches itself what’s normal and recognises when something out of the ordinary occurs.

What would this look like in a real life example?

Let’s look at the number of recent ransomware attacks that have hit so many firms. They encrypts all of their data, then ask for a large ransom to unencrypt the files. SonicWall Capture Client might spot a task that is trying to do this, pause that task and then simply ask “Are you sure you want to change all your files?

This clever way of thinking means you could leave your laptop in a cupboard, switched off for 12 months while you go and explore the world. You could then can come back a year later, switch it on and have better protection from cybercrime than most other antivirus products that are based on signature-based threat protection.

From a technical, logical, and strategic perspective, it should be a simple decision to switch from signature-based antivirus to intelligence-based antivirus.

We’re all hearing about the growth in cyber attacks and how its not an “if” but a “when” situation and there’s words banded around all over the place which leads many to ask what is a ransomware attack?

A ransomware attack usually involves cyber criminals gaining access to your data and encrypting it, so that it is blocked until a ransom is paid. Even without paying a ransom, which you should never do, when you look at this at a business level, it can cost millions. Imagine having no access to your work documents and data, being unable to access your systems and software and having no way of regaining access. Businesses rely on their IT infrastructure to function, and it’s gone up in a puff of smoke. Not only that, but the damage to company reputation is irreversible.

Statistics show that this is the fastest growing crime on the planet. You may have seen the recent news articles around Garmin – “Garmin cyber-attack” – there are several public examples, but this is very recent. But how does this happen?

How has cybercrime evolved?

Let me rewind a few years back, to the days when anti-virus programs first came onto the scene. Email was in its early years, therefore not used very often, and computer viruses were transmitted by floppy disks. The threat was still as real as it is today, but at least you stood a chance of catching it. The physical action of putting a floppy disk into a computer, prompted to scan for viruses. Today however, we face a very different threat; like all markets, this one has evolved. Cyber criminals can now take control of your files, photographs, and any other data that’s important to you. They encrypt it, then deny you access until you’ve paid a ransom of their choosing.

Back in the day if you had a virus, your computer might run slower than it did the day before. Today, you’ll know quite clearly if you’ve had a ransomware attack. You will be locked out of your computer and there will be a message on your screens telling you to pay a “fine” or the crime gets worse.

An example of what you might have to pay is £10,000 (in bitcoin, the online currency). If you fail to pay in three days, the figure doubles. Fail to pay within a week and your data is gone. Deleted.

So, how does this happen? How does ransomware get on your device in the first place?

“More than half of infections occur when someone clicks on a dodgy link in an email”

That’s not surprising, given that one in every 3,722 emails in the UK is a phishing scam. And 55% of UK email being spam in general.

What can we do to prevent ransomware attacks?

A very modern problem requires a very modern, multifaceted approach.

First, we need to ensure the backups are good.

Putting in place a great backup solution means that should the worst happen; we can restore the backups to have you back up and running in no time at all. Of course, how fast depends on the backup solution in place; there are all kinds of options for every budget. Our preferred solution would be a Datto Business Continuity Device, which takes snapshots of your physical and virtual server infrastructure at pre-specified intervals throughout the day. These snapshots are verified locally, then copied to Datto’s cloud. Complete recovery from a disaster can typically be completed in under 1 hour.

This way, if you’re ever held to ransom, you can get back up and running without having to pay a cyber criminal to allow you to regain access to your data.

Secondly, we need to re-think the antivirus solution.

Traditionally, antivirus programs have been signature based. This means that your antivirus program is only, as up to date, as the last back up. This is usually every few days, but this is no longer good enough. Modern antivirus programs use next generation Artificial Intelligence (AI), to detect anomalies in your computer. They not only have the benefit of updated signatures every few days, but they also work on the basis they understand how a virus behaves and can spot this activity before it becomes a threat.

For this level of protection, our preferred solution is SonicWall Capture Client. Capture Client uses advanced threat protection techniques, such as machine learning, network sandbox integration, and system rollback to provide the highest level of protection for endpoints and server workloads.

Finally, educate your staff.

We already know that more than half of attacks are caused by someone clicking on a dodgy email link. Educate your staff so that they are more aware and increasingly likely to spot a phishing email when they see one.

But what happens if, despite taking all the precautions, you are still caught out by ransomware? What do you do?

First and foremost, don’t panic and don’t pay the ransom! Do not hesitate to pick up the phone to speak to our consultants about our security and continuity solutions. If you’ve followed our advice and invested in the protection required, getting you back up and running will be fairly straight forward.

If you don’t already have the above precautions in place, give us a call. The solutions we provide can help you stay protected from ransomware and other forms of malware that pose a very real threat that could do serious damage to your business.

Once upon a time mischief making, in the world of IT, was much more about college students writing computer code i.e. a virus, to cause as much chaos as possible within an organisation, or looking for kudos from their peers by hacking a household name and getting through supposed impenetrable security. Financial gain for the hacker was rarely the motivation.

Now we live in a world where it’s all about the financial gains. Ransomware, data encryption, bank fraud, password harvesting, the list is extensive and make this one of the most lucrative revenue streams in the underworld. As an example, the WannaCry ransomware attack left the NHS with a £73m bill and the Independent newspaper reported in April 2019 that nearly half the businesses in the UK have fallen victim to cyberattacks or security breaches in the last year with an average financial impact of £3,100 for UK businesses alone.

Current Antivirus and SPAM filters are often less than 40% effective against this type of attack. Here’s a an example of how a firm can easily be ‘caught out’. An email is sent, on first name terms, to a solicitor, stating they had been personally recommended and would they be able to help with an impending divorce. Nothing suspicious so far, the solicitor responds advising they would be delighted to help and ask for more details, so they can quote for the work. At this point there is a relationship already forming between the scammer and the solicitor. The scammer replies back to the email suggesting they have included a link to their “Dropbox” account with all the relevant details required. The email suggests they have used Dropbox to ensure confidentiality and no personal data is being sent via email. You should now be able to see where this is going but there is a trust starting to build and a potential new client on the horizon. The die is cast and in the eagerness to secure the new client, the link is clicked. It should come as no great surprise that the link does not take the solicitor to a file as described but instead takes them to a location where some malware was waiting to be downloaded onto their systems, encrypting their data and then requiring a fee to decrypt that data.

There are hundreds of ways to interact, gain trust and deliver a crippling piece of malicious software to internet connected PC’s regardless of antivirus and firewalls just by leveraging people’s natural tendencies.

So, what can you do about it?

Firstly, it’s all about education. UK firms need to make their staff aware of the multitude of email scams (Phishing) targeted emails scams (Spear Phishing) voice scams (Vishing) and mobile text scams (SMSishing) and others so that levels of vigilance is far greater than they are currently. We often work with clients to create an artificial threat and actually test how susceptible your staff are to these kind of threats and attacks. The results are sometimes frightening for the business owners and leaders!

Secondly there are technologies available which can reduce the risk, providing extra layers of security.

Finally, no protection is 100% fool proof and the human factor inevitably plays its part in mishaps occurring. That’s why companies are increasingly turning to solutions which allow them to take much better care of their data and recover quickly the event of worst case scenarios.

Talk to us about how we can help you reduce the risk of falling victim to this increasingly serious threat.

1. Create strong password policies
   Whilst an old chestnut, with regular coverage across all media, the reliance on weak password policies is still a significant issue in lots of organisations. Having a strong password policy, auto enforced by the IT system, requiring mixed characters, special characters, and forced changes on a regular basis is a crucial foundation of any security policy.
2. Back up your data on a regular frequency
   Organisations are increasingly so reliant on their IT systems and the integrity of their data, that they could not allow any data loss at all. You need to ensure that your backup strategy supports your actual business need. If the cost and implications of a day of lost data is unacceptable, explore solutions which provide more regular and more frequent backups even real time if appropriate.
3. Install effective antivirus software and ensure it is kept updated
   Having an AV solution that performs as it needs to, protecting you from many threats is not an optional investment, it is obligatory. A virus infection can cause horrendous business disruption and prevention is always better than cure. You need to ensure not only are the virus signature files constantly updated but the core software application is also updated on a regular basis too. The optimum combination for protection is always typically, a combination of latest software and latest signature files.
4. Make sure your people know what they should and shouldn’t do
   Whilst technology solutions can provide excellent defences against threats, they can be rendered ineffective if users don’t follow best practice. Training your users to ensure that they are aware of cyber-threats and don’t for instance click a malicious link or download fraudulent software is important. Employees should understand the dangers of visiting harmful websites, leaving their devices unattended and oversharing personal information on social media. You should have robust policies in place and all staff should confirm they have read and understood these policies.
5. Install content filtering
   There are a wide array of content filtering tools available (e.g. email, web, network based). The best blend of filtering to deploy will be dependent on the type of organisation and the degree of protection, but if installed, you enhance the protection against, for instance, inappropriate web sites being accessed or inappropriate email content being received
6. Use multi-factor authentication
   Multi-factor authentication adds a layer of security that allows companies to protect against compromised credentials. Through this method, users must confirm their identity by providing extra information (eg a phone number, unique security code) when attempting to access corporate applications, networks and servers.
7. Patch systems regularly and keep them updated
   A common way cyber-criminals gain entry into your system is by exploiting software vulnerabilities. To prevent this, it’s critical that you update applications, operating systems, security software and firmware on a regular basis.
8. Create an incident response plan
   Having a plan on how to respond in the event of a cyber breach could save a lot of aggravation down the track and should form part of wider planning for IT related business disruption. Having a structured approach to notifying partners and importantly clients quickly and efficiently should limit both financial and reputational damages.

So there you have it, our top tips on keeping your system secure. We offer all of the above services through our security & continuity solutions. If you’d like to talk to a member of our team regarding keeping your system secure, don’t hesitate to get in touch by filling out the form below.