Bondgate I.T. Services Limited

Bondgate I.T. Services Limited We aim to provide a complete, outsourced, IT department experience. Bondgate IT believe that technology should empower people, not confuse.

Established in 1998, Bondgate IT deliver IT solutions to a growing number of SME’s and national organisations. We have a reputation of providing strategy based, ethical solutions whilst aiming to deliver best of breed support. We can provide your business with a complete end to end solution for all your IT and telecoms requirements. Our team of experienced IT professionals are Cisco and Microsoft qualified with over 50 years of combined experience in the IT industry. We aim to help you identify and harness the right technology for your operational needs providing advice and expertise with a straightforward approach to make your business more efficient and your people more effective. We can be your complete IT help desk or just provide some extra support for your IT manager. We have a range of IT and telecoms services that complement and underpin your business today and your strategy going forward. If your business relies on technology then you can rely on us. Speak to our expert team today about building a service that suits your exact needs and budget.

On Sunday 11th October 2026, hackers took control of the software that regulates the temperature of fridges and freezers...
13/10/2026

On Sunday 11th October 2026, hackers took control of the software that regulates the temperature of fridges and freezers in supermarkets across France.

By Monday morning, some units had been held at 50C for six hours. Intermarché threw away all the affected food. Around 400 stores were hit, and two shops in Alsace alone reported losses of €270,000.

The detail that matters most came from the supplier, Danfoss. It said the affected units were older models whose security software could not be updated to protect against a risk it had already identified. Further reporting adds that some units were still supported, but were running firmware that had never been kept current.

That is the whole story of unsupported technology in two sentences. Equipment that can't be patched at all, sitting alongside equipment that could have been patched but wasn't.

A server, a database, a controller in a plant room. It keeps doing its job day after day, right up to the point someone else decides to use it.

Windows Server 2016 reaches that point on 12 January 2027. Three months from now.

Our latest newsletter covers what changes on the day and a practical plan for the time left. If you're not sure what's still running in your estate that can no longer be patched, that is the first thing to find out.

Start with a free conversation.

Most cyber awareness training fails for a simple reason. Nobody remembers it.It's an hour-long module once a year, click...
05/10/2026

Most cyber awareness training fails for a simple reason. Nobody remembers it.

It's an hour-long module once a year, clicked through between meetings and forgotten by Friday. Then on Tuesday morning someone in accounts gets an email from a "supplier" with new bank details.

The 2026 Cyber Security Breaches Survey found that 93% of UK businesses hit by cyber crime had experienced phishing. 69% of those affected by phishing rated it the most disruptive attack they faced. The threat doesn't need a long course to beat it. It needs habits people actually keep.

So for Cyber Security Awareness Month, we're resharing the shortest end-user cyber security training of all time.

Ten habits. Thirty seconds. No login, no quiz, no certificate to chase.

👉 Unique passwords on every account
👉 MFA switched on everywhere it's offered
👉 Spotting and reporting phishing
👉 Checking who a caller is before giving anything away
👉 Locking your screen (Windows key + L)
👉 Treating unknown USB sticks and downloads as a risk

Forward it to the whole team. Put it in every new starter pack. Pin it next to the kettle.

If you're the person who gets asked "are we actually secure?" and you'd like a straight answer, book a free 30-minute conversation with us. We'll tell you where you stand and what to fix first. No sales pitch.

24/09/2026

"If AI is not given appropriate guardrails, it can certainly reach beyond where we'd like it to be reaching."

That's Garry Brown in the video below. This week it stopped being a hypothetical.

Australia's Prime Minister has confirmed that an OpenAI agent got into a government portal holding Medicare statistics back in June. It was running an internal evaluation, looking up answers to questions about Australia, and it accessed public and non-public files along the way. Two state government sites were also affected.

Nobody told it to break in. It was trying to finish a task and kept going past the point anyone intended.

Then the part that should make any leadership team wince. OpenAI told the Australian government on 10 September, around three months later, via a generic disclosures inbox.

Australia has since signed a 21-nation call for controls on frontier AI models. So yes, regulation looks closer than it did a month ago.

Garry's wider point is worth sitting with, though. The expertise lives inside the AI companies, and they move faster than legislators can follow. Rules will come, and they will arrive behind the technology.

Which leaves the practical questions with you rather than Westminster:

What can the AI tools in your business actually reach?
Who approved that access?
If one of them did something you didn't intend, how long before you'd know, and who would you have to tell?

Copilot, browser agents and staff using personal AI accounts have landed in most organisations faster than the policies around them. AI with accountability starts with being able to answer those three questions before an insurer, auditor or customer asks them for you.

If you'd like to work through them for your own setup, start with a free conversation. Link in the comments.

Windows Server 2016 loses Microsoft support on 12 January 2027. From that date there are no more security patches, no bu...
11/09/2026

Windows Server 2016 loses Microsoft support on 12 January 2027. From that date there are no more security patches, no bug fixes and no technical support, so every vulnerability found afterwards stays open.

Set against a migration that takes three to six months, that number is smaller than it looks. Take out the fortnight most organisations lose to the Christmas shutdown and it is smaller again.

None of which is a reason to panic. It is a reason to know where you stand. If you can answer three questions confidently, you are probably fine:

How many Server 2016 instances do we have? What depends on each of them? Have our software vendors confirmed what they support on a modern server?

If any of those is a shrug, that is your September sorted.

Plan and readiness check in the comments.

Minute 0. An email attachment gets opened. Nothing looks wrong yet.Minute 15. The first message reaches IT: "my files lo...
09/09/2026

Minute 0. An email attachment gets opened. Nothing looks wrong yet.

Minute 15. The first message reaches IT: "my files look weird." Encryption has already been running for ten minutes.

Minute 20. Someone has to answer: where are the backups, and are they on the same network that's just been hit.

Minute 60. The conversation is either "the restore has started" or "should we pay them."

The difference between those two outcomes isn't luck. It's whether a plan existed before the clock started.

We've broken down the full first hour of a ransomware attack, minute by minute, in the carousel below.

How prepared is your business right now? Our 5-minute continuity check will tell you. Link in the comments.

Four months. That is what is left before Windows Server 2016 loses Microsoft support on 12 January 2027.A migration done...
07/09/2026

Four months. That is what is left before Windows Server 2016 loses Microsoft support on 12 January 2027.

A migration done properly takes three to six months. So rather than repeat the risks, here is the plan, month by month.

🗓️ September. Find out what you are dealing with. Every instance, every dependency, and written confirmation from your software vendors about what they support on Server 2022 or 2025.

🗓️ October. Commit and procure. Hardware lead times are the thing most likely to catch you out, so this is the latest sensible point to order.

🗓️ November. Build, migrate and test. Test with the people who actually use the system, because that is where you find the integration nobody documented.

🗓️ December. Cut over and close out. Decommission the old server, update your compliance evidence, and finish before the Christmas shutdown.

Note that the plan finishes in December, not January. Contingency is what separates a controlled project from a stressful one.

If four months is not realistic for your estate, that is worth establishing in September rather than discovering in November. There are sensible options, including sequencing by risk and using Extended Security Updates as a dated bridge.

7pm Friday. Millions of phones went off at once.Reaction order, in most offices and living rooms:Jump"Is that real?"Actu...
17/08/2026

7pm Friday. Millions of phones went off at once.
Reaction order, in most offices and living rooms:

Jump
"Is that real?"
Actually read it

Step two is the one worth talking about, because it is the same instinct we spend all year trying to build in staff training.

The alert was easy to check. Everyone got it at the same time. It asked for nothing. gov.uk/alerts confirmed it in seconds.

The messages that cost businesses money have none of those qualities. They arrive at one person, they ask for something, and they land at a moment when nobody is around to sense check them.

A prediction you can hold us to: fake heatwave texts, wildfire donation appeals and "emergency payment" messages will appear over the next fortnight. They always do after a national event.

Same three questions, whatever the message:

Was I expecting this?
Is it asking me to do something?
Can I verify it another way?

If you are near the fires, follow the official guidance and stay safe.

Where does your Server 2016 migration stand?🟢 You have started, or you have a plan.🟡 You know it needs doing but have no...
14/08/2026

Where does your Server 2016 migration stand?

🟢 You have started, or you have a plan.

🟡 You know it needs doing but have not acted.

🟠 It is on the list for Q4.

🔴 This is the first you have heard of it.

Windows Server 2016 loses Microsoft support on 12 January 2027. After that there are no more security updates, which causes problems with cyber insurance and compliance. A safe migration takes three to six months to do properly.

That is why orange is worth a second look. Q4 leaves you weeks for a job that needs months.
If you are anywhere other than green, we will give you a straight answer on where you stand in fifteen minutes.
01325 369 950 or [email protected]

30/07/2026

One person can now check thousands of businesses for weaknesses at once, write the software to exploit what they find, and work out which of those businesses is worth the most.

That used to take an organised team.

Our MD Garry Brown spoke to The Sun about what AI is doing to the volume of cyber attacks, and why it matters more to a 60 person firm in the North East than most people assume.

For years, smaller organisations were passed over less because they were well defended and more because they took too much effort to attack. AI removes most of that effort.

The good news is that nothing about it changes what protects you. Patching, tested backups, multi factor authentication on everything, controlled admin access, and somebody actually reading the alerts.

The shortest cyber security training of all time. 👇Ten simple habits that keep your business safer, on one page you can ...
22/07/2026

The shortest cyber security training of all time. 👇

Ten simple habits that keep your business safer, on one page you can read in thirty seconds and share with your whole team.

No course to sit through. No login. Just the basics that stop most attacks: strong passwords, multi factor authentication, spotting phishing emails, and knowing when a phone call or a USB stick is a risk.

Phishing is still the most common attack on UK businesses, and it reaches people, not machines. A team that knows the tells is a team that is much harder to catch out.

Address

Newham House, Dudley Road
Darlington
DL14GG

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Monday 8am - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 6pm
Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 6pm

Telephone

+441325369950

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