We have been told for years that our passwords for emails, online banking, shopping etc. need to be long, contain capitals, numbers, and special characters. These can be a nightmare to remember, and many people end up using the same one for everything or just replacing letters with special characters. Such as C0mput3r or some other word that is recognisable. … Read More

Email security is the hottest topic in Cyber right now. Mainstream news channels are extensively reporting on the newly publicised vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange. What is a vulnerability in software? This is usually a weakness, glitch or flaw present in the code of the software. Without fixing these, vulnerabilities can impact the performance and security of the software. These glitches … Read More

What are phishing emails? Phishing emails are sent to trick you into divulging a password of some kind or other personal details. Some estimates claim the number of fake emails sent each day is now in the billions. During these long periods of working from home due to Covid, many workers are unable to quickly ask a colleague if they … Read More

Since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Coronavirus as an international emergency at the end of January, cybercriminals have predictably encorporated it into their last scams. They have been sending out emails proporting to be from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the (fictional) Wuhan Medical authorities. These emails contain a link that will show an updated … Read More

When we talk about disaster recovery plans, we tend to think of huge corporations with spare offices setup in different locations – desks, phones, PCs and servers just sitting there waiting for something catastrophic to happen to the old office*. When it does, the idea is that employees can simple switch to the spare office and continue working without missing … Read More

In this blog Josh Peacock, one of the network engineers here at Optima will compare 3 of the most popular VPNs on the market today. IPVanish vs IPVanish vs NordVPN Firstly, what is a VPN? VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, it essentially adds you onto another Network and all your traffic goes through that Network. You can connect to … Read More

Now we use the internet to such an extent we need to make sure our details and browsing history is safe and secure. What are Cookies and what do they do? Cookies are used to track our browsing history and are used by companies to target advertising based of our searches. In some instances, this is useful as it shows … Read More

There is finally some hope for the thousands that have fallen victim to so called ‘push payment’ scams with the announcment of a new voluntary code for Banks. Push Payment scams are where a fraudster seems to highjack emails and ask people to pay an outstanding bill or invoice to a different Bank Account. The account in question is owned … Read More

Have you ever wondered if your gmail account has been hacked? Or your Amazon account details leaked somewhere on the dark web? A website called Hack Notice can help you find out. What is Hack Notice? Hack Notice is a website that allows you to enter in your “identities” to be monitored. These can be particular email addresses or freetext … Read More

Scammers. The scourge of the internet! Always looking for new ways to make innocent people part with their hard-earned cash. A recent scam involves sending people an email claiming they visited adult websites. They pretend these websites downloaded malware that gave the scammer access to various aspects of the recipients computer. These include what they type and also access to … Read More

Do you think your network is safe? It’s not just cyber criminals that can bring down your network and compromise data; careless users or disgruntled staff can be just as bad. Your network security is made up of hardware and software, policies and procedures which work to defend against threats to your systems. Layers of hardware and software can prevent … Read More