We are seeing an increase in this type of computer compromise, so this month I thought that we should spend some time looking at ways in which you can protect yourself from this new and worrying form of virus.
Ok, so first let’s define what we are talking about – ransomware is a type of virus that will encrypt your files (documents, emails, pictures etc.) and then ransom you usually 100’s of euros to get them back. There is no reliable way to get your data back directly once it has been encrypted without paying the ransom. Paying up has two downsides, firstly you’re losing money and secondly in some cases you are handing over your credit card details to criminals. Read this entire article »
A lot has been said about how Microsoft are invading peoples privacy and ‘stealing’ their personal information when using the new Windows 10 operating system. The fact is that for a number of the new features available in the new system to work, they need to have access to some of your personal information – this really doesn’t mean that they are snooping on you. However, there are also some settings that are turned on by default (if you select the express setup when installing Windows 10) that you may want to tweak, and that is what this article is all about. Read this entire article »
I have been contacted by quite a few, understandably sceptical, customers when they saw a “strange” icon appear in the bottom right of their computer screen. When they hover over or click the icon, they receive an unlikely offer from Microsoft. The offer is for a free upgrade to the latest operating system – Windows 10.
Yes, believe it or not (and you should because its true) Microsoft really are offering all of the current Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 customers a free upgrade to Windows 10 and users will have 12 months from the release date of the 29th July to take advantage of the free upgrade offer – after this time Microsoft say that the upgrade will be still available although users will have to purchase it. Read this entire article »
Well it’s warming up! It is always tricky to write about the weather 2-3 weeks before you read my article so I hope that its not pouring down when you read this. It’s mid April at time of writing and and the days seem to be getting warmer and warmer, ramping up to what hopefully will be a lovely summer.
Summer is traditionally a quiet time of year for BlueMoon Solutions; as many of our customers either go back to the less stifling weather of the UK or just sit in the sea or pool cooling off. Quite understandably, it seems a bad time of year to be sitting inside using technology when you can be outside enjoying the long warm sunny days with family and friends – let’s face it, that’s why many of us moved to the Costa Blanca in the first place. Read this entire article »
I was recently asked to give a talk to the association of retired police officers (ARPO) about Internet security i.e. Anti Virus and all that sort of stuff – they must have been stuck for someone interesting to talk to them so in a fit of panic asked me to!
Anyway, in doing research for the talk I came across a very interesting fact – AVG is no longer the best free antivirus out there – and I thought you should know about it.
I regularly review statistics on anti-virus products in an attempt to keep up with current trends and to offer my customers the best advice that I can. Every time that I have checked over at least the past 8 years, either AVG or Avast have been the best free antivirus products with Kasperskey usually topping the list of products that you have to pay for. Well this month to my suprise there is a new guy that has knocked AVG and Avast from the top free positions – its name is Panda antivirus. Read this entire article »
Ok, so unless you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you will have heard about this bug (also referred to as SSL or secure certificates). A bug is a mistake in the programming code that has been around for over 2 years. This is the first thing that you should be aware of. The problem has already been around for over 2 years, so although it’s now receiving a lot of publicity, the chances are that if it was going to affect you then it would have already done so. Read this entire article »
On the 8th April this year Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP (and Office 2003) – that is, if you read the popular press and believe everything that the “guy down the pub that knows computers” says then your whole computing world will end. Famine will sweep across your hard drive, a plague of locusts may well emerge from your CD ROM drive and every single hacker in the whole world will go to town on your bank account details. Or will they? Read this entire article »
Sounds obvious really doesn’t it, but I have recently visited a number of customers who didn’t realise that this process wasn’t automatic, so I thought I would write about it this month and just highlight the pitfalls and what you should do / expect when paying for the AVG anti-virus product.
As many of you know AVG have a free product that is available to download and use to protect your computer from nasty’s however every year they release a new free version and although it’s not mandatory it’s a good thing to update to the latest version to stay protected – and its free so why wouldn’t you? Read this entire article »
Last time we looked at a new virus making the rounds called Crypto Locker, this virus is ‘ransomware’ and not only locks you out of your computer, demanding money to give you access again but also encrypts all of your important data so even asking/paying a computer tech to clear the virus won’t give you your data back! Read this entire article »
Ok, I know that we are all cautious when it comes to viruses and we always try to ensure that we have our anti-virus programs up to date. However, in reality the worst case scenario is that if you are unlucky enough to become infected all you will need to do is pay someone like me some folding stuff to come and sort it out for you. Even if you are badly infected, computer experts can in most cases recover all of your important data (as long as you haven’t tried too hard to fix it yourself that is!) Read this entire article »