An IT Support Blog from London

Privacy Shield a more formal compliance framework

Disagreement over the Safe Harbour, which let American companies use a single standard for consumer privacy and data storage in both the US and Europe, appears to have finally ended. Safe Harbour was rejected by the EU following leaks by Edward Snowden which discredited it because US Government security agencies were revealed to have flouted the rules.

Safe Harbour let US companies self-certify they protected data about EU citizens appropriately; however, the US National Security Agency practiced widespread surveillance through accessing data which was supposedly protected by Safe Harbour.

The need for vital skills and expertise

One of the key HR concepts in business is to avoid person dependence. Many businesses have experienced difficulties resulting from the inability to access vital skills and expertise, from specific individuals, relied on to deliver services to clients and customers.

Voice and data convergence for higher quality communications

Hosted telephony solutions offer the ability to eliminate a major inefficiency for many businesses – BT telephone and ISDN lines. Often these simply duplicate the connectivity that can be provided equally well via business-class broadband connections.

The budget that is released by decommissioning telephone lines or ISDNs can be used to upgrade and introduce greater resilience to business broadband while delivering an overall lower cost for data and voice connectivity.

Cloud booming but some variability in quality

The cloud and managed services space have mushroomed in recent years. Some of the main reasons the cloud has boomed include:

• Businesses have rushed to exploit its advantages
• VARs and resellers have jumped on the cloud bandwagon
• Knowledge proliferation around implementing cloud solutions
• Lower barriers to entry as tech costs have fallen
• Subcontracting of infrastructure to third-party data centres

Don’t fall victim…

One of the most serious risks originating from the Internet to businesses and domestic users is the threat of phishing. Phishing is a form of fraud where a cybercriminal attempts to trick the recipient of a message into revealing information such as login credentials or account information by masquerading as a reputable entity or person, typically in an email, but it can be attempted through other communication channels.

A victim receives a message that appears to have been sent by a known contact or organisation. An attachment or links in the message may install malware on the recipient’s device or send them to a malicious website designed to trick them into divulging personal and financial information, such as passwords, account IDs or credit card details.

You then find your personal or business bank account has been raided or your credit cards used to purchase luxury goods. Here are 10 ways to prevent users in your business from being tricked by phishing emails.

Benefits of BYOD difficult to ignore

Traditionally, businesses discouraged and even prevented employee-owned devices being used in the workplace for accessing company data and services. This was especially true of larger businesses or those with compliance requirements to meet.

Safe Harbour renegotiation by the end of January

Following the EU ruling that rendered the Safe Harbour agreement invalid last October 2015, in November Sataya Nadella (the current wearer of Bill Gates’ big Microsoft CEO shoes), announced investment in UK data centres as part of a $2bn European cloud infrastructure development plan.

Accredited to provide leading back up and DR solutions

HTL Support is proud to announce that we are now accredited Silver ProPartners for Veeam backup and hosted disaster recovery (DR) solutions.

Project Loon is all about balloons

It sounds like a sci-fi send up cooked up by Spike Milligan or some equally whacky member of the lunatic fringe; however, it’s a fact Google Project Loon has started to be deployed.  “And what precisely is Project Loon when it’s at home,” some may ask…

Guidance for firms outsourcing to the ‘cloud’

When it comes to regulation, until now, the document ‘Considerations for firms thinking of using third-party technology (off-the-shelf) banking solutions’ issued in July 2014 had been the chief source of leadership from the FCA on such matters.