News - Kinetics

Why does my laptop feel like it’s contributing to global warming?

06 Oct 2019 Comments off

Have you ever noticed how your laptop gets quite warm. Sometimes if you are actually using it on your lap, it can get a little uncomfortable. Or why your phone gets hot enough to toast bread? The reason might surprise you. Of course, we’re so used to the slim machines we enjoy today that we often forget how big laptops used to be. Miniaturisation has [...]

Those scamming so and so’s

02 Oct 2019 Comments off

In September, Kinetics held a lunchtime IT security event focused around a presentation by our CTO Bill Lunam. After taking us though an abridged history of the internet, and an update on the current status of Internet crime, Bill explained some specific’s around the types of hack taking place, the impact they can have on a business and what [...]

Microsoft Update – Backup Authenticator (Two-factor authentication tool) and Window 10 1909 ?

29 Sep 2019 Comments off

Firstly, unless you just delete our emails, or ignore what we (and every other tech professional) have been saying, you should now be using 2FA (two factor authentication) on pretty much everything, especially your Office365. The downside is that you don’t want to have to set this up when you change phones. I had the misfortune to drop mine the other [...]

Bigger than Texas?

22 Aug 2019 Comments off

Its easy to think of security as something that’s only for larger organisations. They can afford the fancy systems that lock down networks, wireless connections and endpoint PCs & mobile devices. After all, aren't they the only organisations that hackers target? We’ve debunked that myth many times, pointing out how hackers attack SMEs in mass, [...]

Compare two (near) identical Word files, without going insane

17 Aug 2019 Comments off

Of course, in a modern cloud world, this shouldn’t happen! We should share a link to a file and use versions to maintain it’s history. But we’re not in a perfect work, and we often get multiple people updating copies of the same file. Its all good until we have to figure out what’s changed. Did you know that Word can do this for you? Either [...]

Scamming your payroll

17 Aug 2019 Comments off

Keep an eye on your payroll! We're hearing about a but it's bound to come to our shores soon. It's probably more likely to be effective in larger businesses or ones with an outsourced payroll. Essentially, the scammers try to intercept staff salary/wage payments and redirect it to their accounts. They do this through two avenues. 1) They [...]

Would you click on either of these?

17 Aug 2019 Comments off

You are most vulnerable when you are busy, frantically jumping from call to call, meeting to meeting, distraction to distraction. So when you get a dodgy email, it's very easy to open it. Thankfully (or rather - thanks to Microsoft ATP) , the message 'unsafe attachments blocked' was a good warning. Then of course, a closer inspection [...]

Is your phone one of the 25M infected Android phones?

14 Aug 2019 Comments off

Agent Smith is the name of the somewhat dry villain character in the Matrix movie trilogy from the late 90's. He appears everywhere, instantly, taking over legitimate personas and replacing them with himself. So is a well-named virus (actually Malware) that's infecting Android phones by the millions. It spreads when a user downloads an app that's [...]

Why old versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SQL are putting you at risk

05 Aug 2019 Comments off

Modernise your infrastructure and future-proof your technology Prepare for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 end of support With the end of support for Windows Server 2008 fast approaching, and SQL Server 2008 recently expired, now is the time to start thinking about modernising your infrastructure. Extended Support for Windows Server [...]

Why you should care about BlueKeep

11 Jul 2019 Comments off

Regular readers will know that we are fanatical about updates and patches for all critical software. The world is more connected and the cyber-crime community is more organised and determined than ever. If you think cyber-criminals are teenage kids working from home, think again! We're seeing more and more hack attempts every day and is just [...]