My goodness how times flies when you are having fun and we are definitely having fun! Not a day goes by that we don’t find out about a new piece of equipment or a change in technology! So if you are having trouble keeping up with it all be assured – We understand!!
So what I am trying to do these days with my newsletter is to give you some useful information on the new technology and sift through the flood of changes to summarise what is important.
I do hope it helps, so here goes…
Cyber security for home and business – this is a real issue and we all need to make some improvements to our security. Why – because the criminal use of the Internet is escalating and the hacking, ransom ware and data theft is getting really nasty and so very, very sneaky. Last year most small businesses on the Sunshine Coast had a crypto lock ransom demand or know someone who did. The trick emails are looking more and more genuine.
Here are 5 simple things you can do to improve your security for home or office
1. Install a good virus scanner such as Bitdefender and security software such as Malwarebytes (protects against malware, ransomware, malicious websites) and install them on each computer, tablet and smart phone and keep them updated (Better still get a reputable IT company to assist with this)
2. Read the blogs on the latest types of attacks and trick emails, and inform your team and family members what to look out for (don’t wait for the 6pm news)
3. Have good strong passwords and change them regularly. You can use an online system like LastPass so it saves them for you. But I prefer the simple method of write them down in a little black book – it is the easiest way – and no Russian or Chinese hacker is ever going to break in to your home or office to find them.
4. Back up, Back up, Back up, Back up your data! 1 local, 1 cloud, 1 off site (mini hard drive in your pocket, etc) How often? – decide based on how much data you are willing to lose – if you can live with losing the last week then weekly, if not, then back up daily.
5. For businesses – print out a hard copy of your data base; Names, addresses, phone numbers, emails – today! Then set it up to print out monthly – just the changes and additions. Paper cannot be encrypted!! (but make sure you use recycled or sustainable paper)
I hope that helps save some of you from that dreadful sinking feeling I had when my screen went blue and then the crypto lock message appeared. Thanks Oliver from Fresh Technology for our multiple backups – it quite literally saved our business.
For medium and corporate businesses I can recommend Mullins IT and All Computer Services.
Until next time, Keep smiling,
Phil and the Sunshine Antenna Service team