Email attachments are too dangerous! Email filters, Antivirus, UTM (Unified Threat Management) appliances etc, all attempt to mitigate that risk, but they won’t catch the very latest attacks. Allowing everyone on the internet to send you attachments is like leaving your door unlocked and only tackling the bad guys when they’re halfway up the stairs!

Email attachments were invented in the early days of the internet when the internet was a far safer place, and they haven’t been improved since. It’s time to replace them with something better.

Most cloud storage products (Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox etc) have two features that replace the role of emailed attachments with something far safer.

• When you want to send someone a file, “Share” the file/folder with them.
• When you want a file from someone, send a “File Request”. The recipient will receive a link they can use to upload the files to you.

There are other advantages too

• Guaranteed encryption in transit
• Set a time limit for access, e.g. 30 days
• Made a mistake? Revoke access at any time
• Track when files are accessed

Once your colleagues and business contacts have become familiar with the new way of working you can block email attachments outright, allowing file sharing only via your approved platforms (eg Office 365, G suite, Citrix Sharefile, or the specific platform relevant to your industry)

We have successfully implemented this for several of our customers with compliance requirements in the fields of Finance, Accounting etc.

Contact us to manage the whole process for you, training, implementation, and blocking.

You may think that because you have a password on your laptop, your data is safe.

If you leave your laptop on the bus or it's stolen from your car, any data on it can be accessed. Not only could this be damaging to your business, but it also has serious GDPR consequences.

The only way to make a laptop or PC secure is encryption.Encryption scrambles your data to make it unreadable. Unless you have the key to unscramble it, the data is unusable

Modern operating systems have encryption features built in. Not only can this be used to protect your laptop or PC it can also encrypt USB sticks and servers. Not only is this good security practice but it also gives you the peace of mind that if something unfortunate should happen, any data will be unreadable.

If you would like to talk about how we can help your business keep your data secure  - please get in touch.

Oh, you think you're so safe with your little green padlocks, huh?

Think again. PhishLabs have recently published research where they have found a staggering 24% of phishing sites use HTTPS, an otherwise well known protocol that used to establish trust and privacy of using a site.

Over the years, we have seen a massive push towards encryption of everyday services. Browsers now display a warning for sites that aren't encrypted and half the web now uses standard encryption for their websites. So why fight the competition when you can just join them?

How many times have you visited a website and trusted inputting your sensitive financial data just because your browser says its safe? It's time for that behaviour to change!

How to stay safe online

Create complex passwords.Yes, I know, you've heard it all before. But the reason you've heard this before because it is the forefront of security, and arguably the most important part. Having a strong password (e.g. complex, numbers, capitals, special characters) can save you from a world of trouble.

Be overly cautious.If its too good to be true, it probably is. Don't enter or give any information to anyone unless you can authenticate who they are. And, for whatever reason, don't click random links on the internet.

Look into active web protection.In a day and age of increasing number of cyber attacks, we also fortunately have an increasing number of methods to protect ourselves. Look into installing some form of active web protection that blocks possible malicious websites e.g. McAfee