Planet Office Systems

Microsoft are ending support for their Windows 7 Desktop operating system. 

After 14th January 2020 Microsoft will no longer provide security updates and support for Windows 7. It is therefore essential that we start to plan the migration of Windows 7 computers to Windows 10. Your network and productivity is at risk from any unsupported Windows 7 computers after this date. Security vulnerabilities will not be fixed and feature updates will cease. This means you could become victim of a virus or malware that exploits a Windows vulnerability discovered after 14th January 2020. 

 Your Planet account manager will be contacting you to discuss the implications and assist you with a solution.

The Microsoft Office 2007 suite (Word, Excel, Outlook etc…) will reach its end of ‘extended support’ on 10th October 2017.

What does this mean?

After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide technical support for Office 2007 products. This also means an end to security updates and bug fixes, which may put your data at risk.

If your organisation has moved to Office 365, you will also no longer be able to use Outlook 2007 to connect to your email account.

What can you do?

Planet Office Systems always recommend using the latest software for both reliability and security. Microsoft now offer the Office suite with a 365 subscription, which will make sure you always have the very latest Office software for your computer. This can be purchased as an upgrade to your existing Office 365 licence, or separately for those who do not already have their email migrated.

Office 2016 can also be purchased as a single product for one computer. However, unlike a 365 subscription, you will not be entitled to the next version when it is released by Microsoft.

As part of our commitment to our customers we are taking steps to ensure all Office 365 clients have been upgraded to a compatible version of Office before October. This is critical to ensure no disruption to existing services.

If you know you use the Office 2007 suite or are concerned this change may affect you, please contact our team to discuss your options.

Two-factor authentication is a very easy way to enhance the security of your online accounts. Once setup, you will be asked to enter a second piece of information, usually a PIN number, after your password. If you do internet banking you are probably used to this already, but did you know you can activate similar security on some of your other online accounts?

Phishing scams are constantly trying to steal passwords to your online accounts. Enabling two-factor authentication helps ensure that, even with your password, they still cannot access your account.

Here are a few examples to get you going...

Google (Gmail)

Login to your Gmail inbox https://mail.google.com

Click the Google Apps icon in the top right corner (It will look like 9 small squares in a grid)

Click "More" at the bottom and click "My Account" with the blue shield.

Under the "Sign-in and Security" section click "Signing in to Google"

Click "2-step Verification" on the right.

Here you can begin the setup of your mobile phone as your "second step"

In the same screen you can also create a list of "Backup codes" which will allow you to login when you do not have mobile phone reception. It is recommended you print them off and keep a few with you.

This one setup will protect all features of Google such as Drive, Hangouts and Chrome.

Amazon (UK)

Login to the US site https://www.amazon.com using your usual UK details. (Sign in button top right)

Go to "Your Account" from the drop down menu at the top right.

In the "Settings" section, click "Change Account Settings"

Click "Edit" next to "Advanced Security Settings"

Here you can follow the steps to enable Two-Step verification and have the generated PIN numbers sent to your mobile via text message.

Once this has been setup it will ask you for the verification when you next logon to the UK site.

PayPal

Login to your Paypal account https://www.paypal.com

Go to Account Settings using the cog wheel in the top right corner.

Click "Security" in the blue bar at the top

Click "Get Started" to the right of the "Security Key" section. (It may be "Edit" if you already have one setup)

Click "Get security key" to begin setting up your mobile phone number. Again, each PIN will be sent via text message.

Twitter

Login to your Twitter account https://twitter.com/

Click on your profile picture in the top right corner and click "Settings" from the menu.

Click "Security and privacy" on the left and tick the box to "Verify logon requests"

If this option is unavailable, you will need to add your mobile to the account using the "add a phone" link beneath the tick box.

Facebook

Login to your account https://www.facebook.com

Click the down arrow in the top right corner and click "Settings" from the menu.

Click "Security" from the left.

Click "Login Approvals" to expand the options.

Here you can setup your mobile phone to receive the security codes via text messages. You can also configure the "Code Generator" to allow codes to be sent to the Facebook app if you already have this on your mobile.

IFTTT

Login to your account https://ifttt.com

Click your username in the top right corner and click "Preferences"

Click "Enable two-step verification".

Choose either an Authentication app, if you have one, or simply to have the codes sent as text messages. This may not work in the UK so the authentication app would need to be used.

Tumblr

Login to your account https://www.tumblr.com

Click on the human icon in the top right corner and click "Settings" from the menu.

Click the slider next to "Two-factor authentication" to enable it.

Phishing is a method of obtaining sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card information etc.. Phishing emails are a serious concern as they can avoid email filters and look very genuine.

It is believed that a phishing scam was responsible for iCloud photos becoming public. This only takes a, seemingly legitimate, email claiming to be from Apple and a link that takes you to a fake login screen.

As these emails do not need to contain a malicious attachment, we have seen several cases recently where they have avoided detection and arrived in inboxes.

Here are some tips to help protect your data,

1. Seriously consider the email that has arrived. No one should send an unsolicited email asking for any personal information. If an email arrives from someone you know, do not reply directly to it. Contact the sender via another channel as their email account could have been compromised.  If this has happened, chances are the replies will go to someone else too. 2. Do not click their links. If you receive an email with a message along the lines… ‘Someone has tried to access your account, click here to change your password’, please do not use the links provided. Instead, open a web browser and access their site as you normally would and change the password from there. This ensures you are on the correct site. 3. Keep your personal information personal. No one should ever need to ask for your password to an online account, especially if they made contact with you. If they are genuine, they will have access to reset your password to perform any troubleshooting they need to. 4. Keep important passwords unique. For example, it is always advisable to have a unique password on your email account. If anyone were to gain access to your email, this could give them access to your other online accounts using the ‘forgot my password’ link. 5. Use two-factor authentication where possible. This means you have two bits of information to enter before you can access the account. Usually this would be the password and a numerical code, which gets sent to your mobile phone at the time. Google also lets you download an offline copy of codes for use when you have no phone reception.

In the past 24 hours we have seen a large number of spam emails claiming to include an attached copy of someone's passport. These emails are fake and instead contain a virus in their attachments.

The majority of these messages have been detected and blocked by anti-spam scanners. In case any do make it through, please ensure they are deleted without attempting to open the attachment. They may also need to be deleted from the “Deleted Items” folder to ensure they are off your system.

If the attachment has been opened, please shut down your PC and contact the IT Helpdesk.

Please be weary of suspicious looking emails that appear in your account. We have seen an increasing number of cases in recent days whereby malware is spread via .zip attachments.

Unfortunately the creators of such malware are using cleaver tricks to not only avoid spam and anti-virus detection, but also trick users into opening them on the target computer. They can pretend to be overdue invoices, résumés, undelivered parcels, bank account issues, among others.

One of the most damaging examples of this will go through every document you have (including those stored on the server) and destroy them. The only way to get these files back is restoring from a previous backup of the system, if you have one. The worst part is, nothing will display on your screen until it is too late. It would just appear like clicking the attachment has done nothing.

We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A quick notice to all our customers, please be aware our helpdesk will be closed all day:

25th December

26th December

1st January

Any emails received during this period will be picked up by our staff on the next working day.

The end of life date for Windows XP has now past, If you are still using Windows XP PCs we would highly recommend replacing them with new Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 PCs.

Security Windows XP is no longer receiving security updates from Microsoft , as a result it is considered vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This is especially important if it is used for sensitive information such as Accounts , Personnel or Client information.

Repairs It is unlikely that spares will be readily available for your XP PC should there be a physical problem with it. You are better to migrate at your leisure than rushed in an emergency.

Hardware Modern computer hardware is mechanically faster, more power efficient and more compact.

Windows Features Newer versions of windows offer:

Instant search - Unlike its XP cousin the new version doesn't slow your PC down

More Secure - Rebuilt from the ground up to give programs gated access to the rest of your computer

Reliability -  Hardware or software bugs rarely cause system wide problems

Much faster start up times

There is a trade off between security and convenience. Finding the right balance can be tricky however it is important that you keep your computer network as safe as possible.

Windows security has come a long way over the decades however the most important factor is you the user. It is extremely rare for any malicious programs to be able to run on a modern version of Windows without the user's consent. If you are frustrated by security you should consider the following:

Why don't I have Administrator rights? Unless you are using software which was designed for Windows XP once everything is set up you shouldn't need Administrator rights on your computer. Standard user permissions only allow changes to be made to your user profile rather than the whole system. Problems are contained and so can be dealt with more easily without a risk of them spreading.

Why does my computer ask me if i want to run everything? The dark screen prompting if you want to run a program when you try to open it is User Account Control (UAC). Even if you have Administrator rights on your computer programs do not run as an Administrator unless you consent to them doing so by clicking the Yes/Continue button. UAC gives you direct control over potentially system wide changes. If you aren't expecting a program to run you should NEVER click yes/continue to a UAC prompt 

Why do my documents open up in Protected View? Microsoft office, PDFs and other documents can run Macros and other code when you run them. By default documents open up with this code disable until you consent to letting it run.

What are all of these Java updates? Java is a software platform which many small web based programs use. Historically Java has been quite vulnerable to security exploits, after these vulnerabilities are discovered Java is updated to remove the problem. As a result these are done quite regularly. Java has recently had some major security updates however we would still recommend that it isn't installed, unless absolutely necessary.

Microsoft will no longer be supporting Windows XP as of the 8th of April

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/end-support-help

We are currently updating our Support Desk which we hope to have live early next year.

This will allow you to:

Open tickets directly via email

Open and check tickets by logging in to the website

Receive ticket updates via email