The good start.

So far 2019 has been a good year for me from a business point of view.
Orders for new PCs and laptops are up by 300% for the two months so far.

Really great news for me and also for the customers who all have shiny new and fast computers to enjoy.

Some of this is attributable to the fact that their computers were old, slow, and were not worth upgrading. Money is better spent on funding a new machine rather than propping up a 6 to 7 year old one.

Coupled to this is the fact that Windows 7 goes out of support in January 2020, which I will explain more of below, and that just adds to the cost of a possible upgrade.

What 2020 will bring?

As I mentioned above, the first thing 2020 will bring is the end of life for support for Windows 7.

Does this mean Windows 7 computers will stop working?

No, it doesn’t, but what will happen is that they will no longer receive critical and important security updates. Therefore your computer will be more vulnerable to attacks, hackers and be generally less secure than it was.

You may not realise it but whenever your computer is connected to the internet it is being constantly attacked and probed by cyber criminals etc. looking for ways into your machine.
Usually your anti-virus and firewall software prevents them. However, if the actual operating system is open to attack because of a vulnerability that has not been fixed via an update then these attacks can succeed and get through.

So when Windows 7 stops being updated cyber criminals will target any known exploits and vulnerabilities and thus become less secure.

The way to combat this is to upgrade your version of Windows to a newer one, realistically this means Windows 10.

I will write more on this subject during the year, and if you are running Windows 7 currently you have several months to plan and prepare.

No need to panic just yet.

Until next time,

Damian

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

First of all, Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all had a good break.

The holiday period is over and we are back at work or in our usual routines. It’s at this time of year people tend to relax their vigilance as they are still in ‘party’ mode.

So please whatever you do, don’t relax on your online and data security.

Watch out for seasonal themed emails that might have come in over the holiday period. It is so easy to drop your guard when dealing with a backlog when you first get back in to work. You then inadvertently click on something you ordinarily wouldn’t because you are in catch up mode.

That’s what the unscrupulous folk who send these emails out are relying on. So be careful and don’t give them the satisfaction.

It’s not just emails though, criminals are forever trying new ways to get your data or personal info. Compromised web pages are also a problem, many of them masquerading as actual industry companies such as Microsoft or Apple.

You may get a pop-up page advising that you have a problem and need to contact them immediately on a displayed number. Don’t be fooled, they are always a scam and are attempting to get you to call them or click on a so called ‘support’ link. Just ignore the page, close your browser using Task Manager (or force quit on an Apple), restart your machine and start again.  Most of these are delivered via compromised ads on the web page you were viewing.

That’s all for this month, and again if you have any queries or need assistance on any topic not just those above then please get in touch.