Who is the Weakest Link?

Sophos attacked our network, here’s what we learned:

Sophos Phish Threat simulates a real-time virtual phishing attack against your company, this is a brilliant new tool from Sophos that allows you to better understand and secure your network, giving you valuable information pointing out exactly where and how your network might be best exploited by future hacking attempts via phishing e-mails.

Scott Harrington the Technical Director at HardSoft ran this check internally so we could find out first-hand just how effective our IT network and end users are at defending against an attack. read more

If you have Macs your current network solution is likely to include a Mac mini, or even an XServe, configured with additional Server Apps from the App Store to enable functions such as file sharing and permissions etc.

You may have Macs but your next server needs to be Windows 2016 Server

The big issue with this is that since the old OSX server upgrade to the new version of MacOS High Sierra came into effect and server functionality has been severely reduced as Apple pull back support for Servers and push towards Cloud only Servers.

Apple have also removed FTP and iOS File sharing from the Server App, which means that it is no longer a network manager, and has become more like the office junior/filing assistant. When you combine this with the fact that the Mac Mini tech is now getting fairly old, with it not having been updated since late 2014, plus that it’s missing important items such as Thunderbolt 3, and it becomes clear that the functionality has reduced to the point of being almost useless. Which, let’s face it, is not a great deal of use to most businesses! read more

When it comes to IT clichés, we’re divided into two camps: those that give the possibly barbed replies and those who receive them – probably because we asked for something totally stupid. That’s not to say that all responses supplied by tech support et al are snarky, nor are all the queries levied in their direction lazy, but it has to be said, there are a handful of answers which have earned almost legendary status, not purely because they are such dreadful clichés, but because they actually work. Here are our top five: read more

What email server software is running your business?? Thinking of making the jump to Microsoft Office 365? Is it the right choice for you though?

Historically Microsoft Exchange Server  was the only option for your email. With the emergence of Office 365 in 2011 you can now opt to keep all of your data in the cloud on Microsoft’s dedicated servers. You do not need to install and maintain an on site email server but it comes as a subscription. Although Microsoft still offer Exchange, they are no longer promoting it in the SME space, preferring for people to take out their subscription based services. There are pro’s and con’s to both methods, ultimately it is your decision… here is some information to help you to make that decision. read more