News

Until now, Microsoft Access was only included in the Office 365 ProPlus, E3 and E5 plans. Microsoft today announced that they are including Microsoft Access in the Office 365 Business and Business Premium plans so that small and mid-size businesses can get access to this great database management solution.

Microsoft Access will be automatically installed for Office 365 Business and Business Premium customers as part of their next regular Office client update, rolling out between December 1, 2016 and January 30, 2017. Customers who have updates set to the Deferred Channel will receive this update in June 2017.

Follow this link to see all the improvements in Office 365.

A couple of weeks ago we had a customer's desktop PC in for a service and it presented us with a timely reminder just how quickly dust builds up in a computer system. This is compounded if the system is in a dusty environment and runs continuously.

The particles in the air in Christchurch are from dust off the cultivated plains and the ongoing demolition and construction work.

It is hard to prevent dust from intruding in to a server or workstations as these devices need air to keep the processor and power supply cooled.

A regular clean will keep this under control and reduce the risk of overheating due to the dust build up. In extreme cases, too much dust build up has caused fires.

Computer Culture can carry out this cleaning maintenance over the Christmas break which reduces the risk of system malfunction and a potential office fire!!

Since the disruptions caused by the earthquakes, a lot of Christchurch companies have a better idea of the true cost to their businesses when they can’t trade.

Many overlook the fact that the cost of an employee is much higher than the hourly rate he or she is paid.

If we add to that the cost of lost sales and fixed costs such as insurance and rates then it all gets a bit scary.

One of our clients calculated their downtime at $3,000 per hour. At that rate, losses start to mount up quickly.

Computer Culture’s role is to help you put in place systems which will enable a company to get back up and running in the shortest time possible, therefore reducing the downtime cost.

Since its inception, Computer Culture has strived to develop a culture where the team and customers are genuinely cared for and only the best solutions are provided.

Our processes are continually reviewed and enhanced to enable us to deliver on our promises.

Our vision, what we stand for and our culture are reflected in our Core Values:

We care about people
We provide the best solutions
We build Computer Culture to deliver excellence

1. Make sure you have a good understanding of your computer network, what the key assets are, and their locations and how these are protected
2. Keep all your software up to date, including operating systems and applications
3. Back up all data to a secure, offsite location. ("air gapped")
4. Segment your network: Do not have all your data on one shared location accessible by everyone in the company.
5. Implement staff training on safe cyber security practices
6. Have a communication strategy so that you can quickly inform all the staff if a virus reaches the company network.
7. Get your IT company to perform penetration testing to find any vulnerabilities.
8. Arrange cyber cover through your insurance broker
9. Talk to your IT Provider

Microsoft often sends out important updates for their operating system and they’ve recently released the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, packed full of features requested by their customers.
This is an automatic download but if you don’t have it yet and want to manually download it, click here.

Sometime during 2012 a large number of the free Dropbox accounts had the login and password details hacked. There was considerable publicity at the time and users were urged to change their passwords.

Unfortunately, it does appear that many people didn't react to this warning as they may have either missed the publicity or just plain forgot.

Dropbox has recently asked users that haven't changed their password since, to now do so.

Passwords are a continual problem.

We rely so much on them to secure our company systems, our secrets, our customers’ private information, and yet we typically leave it in the hands of our staff to choose their passwords safely.
 
That’s why passwords like “123456”, “qwerty”, “abc123”, “letmein”, “qazwsx”, “iloveyou”, “trustno1” and, yes, even “password” are so common.

Those are obviously all terrible passwords and yet they’re horrendously typical choices for users.
However, most users balk at the idea of coming up with a unique, nonsensical jumble of characters to secure their accounts.

One thing you can do to try to reduce the chances of users choosing poor passwords, is to build appropriate rules that are required to be met for a password to be deemed acceptable.

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have taken on this challenge, and are developing proposed improvements to password requirements. The hope is that the proposed guidelines will be adopted as a template by organisations and developers outside of the US government.

According to NIST, these are some of the things you can do to improve your passwords;

Minimum length - NIST says passwords should be a minimum of eight characters long.  Note that that’s not a definite minimum, more sensitive accounts may require a larger minimum length for passwords.

Maximum length - If there has to be a maximum length limit for a password at all, it should be no less than 64 characters. Adopting a maximum length limit of no less than 64 characters encourages users to choose a memorable pass phrase rather than a password.

No banned characters - NIST says that all characters should be allowed in a password. You can even use UNICODE characters if you wish, which will no doubt please those addicted to their emojis.

No common passwords allowed - Applications and websites should check proposed passwords against a dictionary of commonly-used and known bad passwords.  No more “password123”, “il0veyou”, or “baseball”.

No password hints - The problem with password hints is that they weaken authentication.  “Rhymes with farce-word”.  If you don’t allow users to store a password hint, there is no chance that it will be accessed (and abused) by an unauthorised party.

No periodic password changes unless evidence of compromise - Many think it’s a good idea to regularly change your passwords, but evidence suggests that it leads to poorer password choices by users. Of course, if there is a good reason to change a password then the password should be changed.

NIST’s password requirement proposals still require final approval, but the hope is that they will pass sooner rather than later.

And if other organisations outside the US federal government adopt the guidelines for their own password requirements that has to be a good thing for the security of all of us.

Backups are so important, hence why we bring them up a lot! Recent cyberattacks have proved how critical having a recent reliable backup is.

Here are the 5 most important features that make up a good backup solution:

HP last week announced a worldwide voluntary safety recall and replacement program for certain notebook computer batteries. The affected batteries were shipped with specific HP, Compaq, HP ProBook, HP ENVY, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavilion laptops sold worldwide from March 2013 through August 2015.

These batteries have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard. It is extremely important for customers to check whether their batteries are affected, and to cease use of affected batteries immediately.

Not all batteries in all HP, Compaq, HP ProBook, HP ENVY, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavilion Notebook Computers are affected. To check whether your HP laptop is affected, download this utility from HP.