Blog entries RSS FEED PAGE TITLE TAGGED

Another day, another lost laptop

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:42:58 +0100

Today's security scare is courtesy of the Yorkshire Building Society who lost a laptop that contained "a substantial part of the customer database". Here's what they did wrong:

The laptop was not encrypted.The laptop was not kept in a secure location (it was under a manager's desk).Unbelievably the manager had written down the passwords and just to make things easy for themselves kept the password details in the bag with the laptop computer.

The building society has made formal undertakiRead More...

Data loss? That will be a £2m fine.

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:14:23 +0100

The FSA has fined Zurich Insurance £2.275m for a data loss. Not only did they fail to protect their customer data properly, they did not even notice they had lost confidential details of 46,000 customers. The problem was not so much the loss of the data - it was the lack of adequate systems that cost Zurich so dearly.

As a small business you probably aren't running the risk of a £2m fine, but you are running the risk of losing your reputation and your customerRead More...

Data protection with teeth

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:05:00 +0100

Since April this year the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has had real teeth. It now has the power to fine companies up to £500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Common breaches of the Data Protection Act include:

Loss of laptops, disks and data sticks containing client data. Insecure transmission of personal information.

Simple steps that you can take:

Make sure that all company laptops have full disk encryption (remeRead More...

Beware of calls from 'Microsoft'

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:26:39 +0100

"I was sitting at home one evening working on the computer when they phone rang. It was Microsoft warning me that they had a report of a virus infection on my computer. They would like to run a free scan on the computer to check it." So began the lament of a friend who got caught by this scam.

With 20:20 hindsight it's obvious that the call wasn't genuine, but it's not so obvious if you are taken by surprise. This particular episode ended with demands for money to remove the aRead More...

Beware of fake e-mails - part 2

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:02:29 +0100

Today's second security alert concerns fake Twitter e-mails. Several Riverbank clients have received them this week.

Be alert for messages like this:

"Hi, You have 2 unread message from Twitter. Please click on the link below:"

The link looks perfectly genuine but clicking on it will install malware on your computer. As with my previous warning, just be careful with e-mails that don't look quite right. If you do get a message from Twitter remember that you can go to&nbsRead More...

Beware of fake e-mails - part 1

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:51:26 +0100

If you receive an e-mail that doesn't seem quite right, do not open it. Even if it's from someone you know.

Last weekend an employee at one Riverbank client had her Yahoo account hacked. The hacker sent out messages to everyone in her address list. The e-mail led to a fake anti-virus warning. For the unwary who clicked on the link it disabled the computer's anti-virus software and installed malicious software on the computer.

Have you got a private e-mail account? Is theRead More...

Outlook junk mail filter removing good e-mails

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:34:21 +0100

Watch out for good e-mails being filtered out by the Outlook junk mail filter. The Riverbank service desk has seen an increase in the incidence of false positives over the past few weeks. Our thoughts are that this could be due to changes in a recent Office update.

The Outlook junk mail filter is good but it's not the Riverbank recommended anti-spam solution. We firmly believe that you should keep at ams length the rubbish that now makes up 95% of global e-mail. You do this byRead More...

Sophos anti-virus promotion

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:14:00 +0100

Sophos currently has some great special offers if you are due to renew your anti-virus software licence, or are thinking about upgrading from another product.

The following offers are available on a range of products until 31 March:

Take a 2 year licence and pay for just 21 months (i.e. get 3 months free)Take a 3 year licence and pay for just 30 months (i.e. get 6 months free)Take a 5 year licence and pay for just 48 months (i.e. get 12 months free)

If your renewal is Read More...

Email encryption is the next security loophole to plug

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:01:14 +0100

I attended a PGP event this morning to hear the latest news around IT security and encryption (by the way 'PGP' stands for 'Pretty Good Privacy' and it's also a world leader in encryption technnology).

The news is that spending on IT security is increasing even during a recession, because companies recognise the importance of staying secure and the damage any security breach can cause (prison, for example). Many firms have now got all their laptops enRead More...

Sophos security predictions

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:13:07 +0100

The Sophos Security Report for 2010 has some thought-provoking predictions for 2010. One is the impact of cloud computing. As more data is stored on the web so the security threats will migrate to those sites and the individual desktop computer will become less important. Before you commit your data to a web-based system you might want to know how good your supplier's security protection is. If a major data store did suffer a security breach the impact could be eRead More...

Does your office need a TV licence?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:44:55 +0100

Welcome to the slightly weird world of TV licensing. It seems to be the case that if you let employees in your office view live TV via the web you need to have a TV licence. So far so good - your company is watching TV so you need a licence.

But why would your employees be watching live TV when they are at work? Arguably your PR people or marketing department might need to keep an eye on what's happening. But everyone else probably has no need to watch TV. So should you preveRead More...

IT security, part 3 – the threat within

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:45:08 +0100

Bumbling idiots. That’s how one IT manager described his computer users. They are the threat within. They sit next to the sort of internal threat you might imagine – the disgruntled employee who knows enough about IT to try to inflict real damage. Together these two groups of people pose the greatest risk to your IT security.

130 million credit card numbers go missing

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:38:52 +0100

If you were on holiday in August you might have missed the news that a US man has been charged with the theft of 130 million credit card numbers from a variety of US-based companies.

This case highlights the need to take IT security seriously. If you aren't confident about the security of your IT systems ask for a copy of the new Riverbank guide to IT security.

And you will be interested to know that the man charged by police was already in custody - charged with the theRead More...

IT security, part 2 – keeping it secure

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:20:43 +0100

You need to establish a security perimeter around your organisation. Inside this perimeter are your trusted users. Outside is everyone else. This is your IT fortress. Or at least it was. In today’s world of mobile IT you really need a whole set of mini-fortresses rather than one big castle to protect you.

You have security risks with every laptop computer and every e-mail enabled mobile phone. You do need to protect your office network, but you also need to protect every laptop anRead More...

IT Security – Why worry?

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:30:50 +0100

So you’ve got your firewall, you have a password for your computer. Life is good, and IT security is covered. Well, not really. While that might have been good enough a few years ago, it certainly isn’t now.

As we and our computer equipment become more mobile, the security risks are growing. With all the laptops, USB data sticRead More...

9.75 million dollars - the cost of an unsecured wireless network

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:54:49 +0100

The US parent company of retailer TK Maxx has agreed to pay out $9.75m as the settlement for its data security breach. The security breach enabled an international gang to connect to its wireless network and access credit card details being transmitted from its tills.

It's a lot of money to pay for an unsecured wireless network, and the moral is clear. Make sure your wireless network is secure, because the damage to your bank balance and your company reputation could be sRead More...

IronKey – Don’t leave the office without it

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:27:39 +0100

Where are you leaving your data? Could sensitive or confidential information be leaking out of your business through use of insecure USB data sticks? Your potential losses might not be as dramatic as MI6 or the British Council (see the news items below), but they could still have serious implications for your business.

British spy loses secrets in a handbag
A BRITISH agent has thrown the war against drug traffickers into chaos by leaving top secret infRead More...

MoD admits to losing 28 laptops so far this year

malcolm@riverbank.co.uk — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:00:00 +0100

So far this year the MoD has lost 28 laptop computers, plus 20 USB data sticks. There is no word on the key point of whether they were all encrypted.

Make sure all your laptops and USB data sticks are encrypted - the loss of reputation is too costly.

If you want all the details see report to parliament and a press article in IT Pro magazine.