NetSafe I.T.

27/02/2023

Does your small business website include a ‘Meet the team’ page?

All businesses want to be as easy to do business with as they can, and many do make the key people in their business accessible and visible on the business website.

A ‘Meet the team’ page is common, with names, professional head-shot pictures, role titles and responsibilities and includes direct contact details including an email address and a telephone number(s), and in some cases personal interests - walking, cycling, music, sumo wrestling...

With all those juicy details to help an attacker to impersonate one of your team with confidence, far more accuracy (and convincingly) the attack is far more likely to succeed and with serious and costly consequences for your business.

Read more, including steps to take, on our website: https://www.netsafeit.co.uk/blog/cyber-attack-fertiliser-meet-the-team

20/02/2023

Have you made common business WiFi mistakes in your business?

- Your ISP ‘free’ or home WiFi router isn’t up to the job
- You have never changed the guest's WiFi password
- You don’t separate guests and staff WiFi
- Guests can see some or all of your business network devices: printers, file servers, video doorbells, intruder alarm…
- Guests can be attacked by other WiFi users, or by each other
- Multiple WiFi access points interfere with each other
- Outside radio interference
- Insufficient Internet bandwidth

Netsafe IT can help your small business with advice, designing and implementing good IT security practices and installing affordable and quality WiFi networks. Please feel free to contact us for no-nonsense help.

13/02/2023

Scammers know what you’re thinking…

UK personal tax returns are due! If you miss the deadline, you will get a fine. You may be well organized, submit well in advance and get a message to check your return. Are you sure the message is genuine? There is plenty of information to help you, but you need to spend some time reading it.

How do you spot a scam message?
Scammers try to gain your trust and pressure you to act without thinking. If you’re suspicious – stop, break the process and consider the language used. Scams feature one or more of these tell-tale signs:

- Authority
- Urgency
- Emotion
- Scarcity
- Current Events

If you have any doubts check the authenticity of the message by contacting the organization directly – but DON’T use the contact details within the suspect message!

06/02/2023

Absolute Essentials series part 4 - Email threat protection
The majority of cyber-attacks start with an email - containing something bad. That could be a lie (to get the recipient to do something), a web link (to somewhere bad) or an email attachment containing something bad (malware), or all or any of the above.

These are known as phishing emails and they are something you MUST defend yourself against. What can you do? There are two main defences:

1. Cyber-awareness training for your staff. Train them to spot a phish and report it - flag it in their email program and/or call your IT helpdesk. Almost as important is to train people to report when they fall for a phish accidentally so your IT provider can quickly investigate and block off the possible consequences.
2. Email threats protection (within your email service) - automatically check for various threats - bad web link in emails + impersonation protection + sender authenticity checks. There are several options, including Darktrace, Barracuda Microsoft 365 Defender and Mimecast.

Ideally - you really should do both options - train your staff and add automated email threat protection.

If you are a small business (or individual) in the Yorkshire region you can call us for direct no-nonsense IT help.

31/01/2023

Absolute Essentials series part 3 - Backups!

In the online world you are exposed to attacks and risks - deliberate attacks by criminals for their financial gain, attacks by activists with a political agenda and (not forgetting) accidents do happen and you lose your small business important data – any of these can affect your small business and threaten its well-being when data is lost, damaged, ransomed or stolen.

What should you do? Make sure you identify data which is important and therefore needs to be backed up. Keep the backup separated from your computer(s), which may be in a cloud storage service, and make it a regular everyday task to copy the data. At intervals test the backups by choosing something at random and attempt to restore that from a point in the past, and consider how long it takes.

If you are a small business in the Yorkshire region you can contact Netsafe for direct no-nonsense IT help with any of the topics in this post or for your IT Services in general.

Read more on our website:

Cyber awareness training, business process hardening, secure technology, preparing for Cyber Essentials and work through NCSC's 10 steps to cyber security

26/01/2023

Absolute Essentials series part 2 - Malware Protection

Malware protection is the second VITAL thing you should have. We do not recommend most free virus protection and at scale (within a business) those are impossible to keep track of.

In a small business you can make do with Microsoft Windows' built-in 'Virus & threat protection' but you MUST check it is being updated and train everyone on what to do when Defender is triggered. Commercial anti-malware services are much stronger solutions, such as (paid for) Microsoft 365 Defender or Sophos Intercept-X Advanced, or a managed service from Netsafe IT.

If you are a small business in the Yorkshire region you can call us for direct no-nonsense IT help.

24/01/2023

Absolute Essentials series - part 1 - Passwords
One of the most vital things you should do to stay safe online is to use good passwords and don’t reuse them. All modern web browsers include a password manager – use it! If you prefer to use a password service provider we can recommend BitWarden.

Read more on staying secure online using good passwords on the UK government National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) here: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/top-tips-for-staying-secure-online/password-managers

If you are a small business in the Yorkshire region call us for direct no-nonsense IT help.

23/01/2023

Hello, World! Netsafe IT is a new IT services business, based near York, UK. We are excited to be able to help small businesses in the Yorkshire area with IT concerns and projects. Consider if you're ready and prepared to defend your business against rampant cyber threats? Contact us - we can help!