Jonathan, Author at IT Support Services in Huddersfield, Yorkshire

Service Notice: Increase in Spam Emails 12-04-2017

Jonathan — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 12:03:28 +0000

We would like to make clients aware of a substantial increase in volume of spam emails in circulation at present. These are emails purporting to be from Large Service organisations such as BT, DHL, Quickbooks/Intuit, Dropbox etc, further information in the PDF notice provided here

We are actively working with our anti spam partners to mitigate this threat.

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Security Advisory: Rise of VoIP and Non VoIP Telephone Scams

Jonathan — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 12:07:09 +0000

Please be aware we’ve been informed by telephony vendors of a new style telephone based scam making the rounds. This scam isn’t restrictive to VoIP services but can be imposed on standard BT lines as well.

There are two types of this scam, One with a single scammer the second involving two offending individuals:

The First
The scammer asking to be called back on 070 numbers – sometimes via email as they are interested in taking your products and services.
Known target customer types include, but are not restricted to:
• Hotels
• Car Dealerships and Garages
• Vehicle Hire
• Telecommunication Suppliers
• Letting and Estate Agents

During the calls, the suspected scammer will either keep the call going for as long as possible.

The Second
The same method as above but the scammer incorporates asking for colleagues to be ‘conferenced’ into the call.
When the conference method is used and the victim hangs up the call, their telephone system effectively leaves the called parties connected who then leave their line open. This can result in very long calls and charges.

Although 070 numbers do have legitimate usage, we encourage you to communicate this notice to your staff in the interests of awareness and ask to be vigilant.

Our advice is:

1. Be aware of the cost to call different numbers. 070 numbers are Personal Numbers and NOT qualified as mobile number

2. If you have setup a conference call by bringing people in to the conference, ensure
all parties have disconnected before hanging up yourself.

3. If you should find yourself a victim of a suspected scam, please report this to Action Fraud

We ask all clients to please be vigilant when taking calls and asked to communicate with third parties.
Kind Regards,
Probado Support Team

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What is Ransomware?

Jonathan — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 18:47:21 +0000

Probado believe that keeping users informed of potential security issues before they arise is the first line of defence against any kind of cyber threat. With that in mind we’d like to inform the community of the substantial increase in Ransomware in 2015.

Ransomware is a term used to identify a type of virus attack that either holds your computer system or data to ransom. Once on a machine, these viruses silently work in the background encrypting your valuable data without your knowledge. Then, when you next come to access them you find that they look somewhat different and are unable to be opened. Also you may see a notice stating that your files have been “protected” and a payment is needed to unlock them. The two most common threats recognised for 2015 at present are listed below, named Cryptowall and Cryptolocker:

What are the Symptoms?

As well as the images above, the first signs of infection can be seen below. As the users files become encrypted you may see new/additional files appear in locations you use frequently on your computer. When you try to open files commonly accessed files you may encounter messages such as “The file is corrupted” or “unable to open file” indicating files cannot be accessed.

How would I get infected?

Typically these kinds of attacks come in through via email or attached to some downloaded software. The more common types of subject lines via email include: Invoices, Orders, resumes, Fax Jobs or delivery of goods (but we have seen other variants also).

What to do if you find yourself a victim?

If you find yourself infected and seeing any of the symptoms shown. Shutdown your PC as soon as possible and contact your IT provider. They should have the knowledge to remove the infection and implement remediation procedures. Its important to recognise that if you pay this ransom, there is absolutely no guarantees your files will be unlocked (In actual fact there have been reports online of users paying the ransom, their files being unlocked, and less than a week later being hit again).

How can I stay protected?

Anti-spam – If your IT provider offers anti-spam solutions, these will help catch most types of spam and virus emails before hitting your inbox, substantially reducing the risk.

Back-ups – We can’t stress enough how important it is to keep backups up to date. With these types of attacks, once your files have been encrypted there is no way to decrypt them (the technology required to do so resides on the cyber criminals servers and can’t be reproduced).

Be Vigilant – If the sender is unknown to you and it contains an attachment. Consult your IT provider. They’re there to help. It takes 2 seconds to check an email but can take a whole day to perform data recovery. All of which is down time for you.

If you would like more information on staying protected. Please feel free to contact Probado on 01484 905103.

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