Make Sure Your Software is Updated and Secure

Ophtek, Security, Security Threats, Software, Software Security Patches, Updates, , , ,
14
Apr 2020

It’s vital, if you want your PC to remain safe and secure, to install all software updates and patches. The alternative is, of course, that you get hacked.

Now, no one wants their PC to get hacked. The fallout from such a scenario can only spell disaster for a business. We’re talking stolen data, disrupted IT operations, financial damage and a major drop in productivity. And no one wants that. Certainly not a business and certainly not their customers. But hacking is a major threat in today’s digital workplace. In the first half of 2019 alone, a total of 4.1 billion records were compromised. It’s a figure which is clearly huge, but it’s also one that could be significantly reduced if organizations updated their software regularly.

So, to help you keep your software updated, we’re going to run through the basics of updating and securing your software.

What are Software Updates?

It’s difficult to create a flawless piece of software. The complexity of coding means that, even when developers feel their application is finished, it’s likely that minor problems will remain. And, in most cases, the only impact of these errors will be felt in the application’s functionality. However, on occasion, these minor flaws can represent major security issues. Hackers, if they are to be commended on anything, are highly persistent. And, if they can find a vulnerability in a piece of software, you can rest assured that they will exploit it.

This is why software updates and patches are crucial. The most common update that most PC users will encounter is an operating system update. These are regularly released by developers in order to counter security issues which have been discovered. These updates, in their simplest terms, patch the software. Following the patch process, your operating system will be considered more secure and functional. Unfortunately, many organizations are either too busy to worry about updates or they fail to understand their importance. And that’s why you need to know the best ways to keep your software updated.

How Do You Update Your Software?

Updating software on a PC is straightforward and simple, but only if you know how. Therefore, it’s important that you practice the following:

  • Allow Automatic Updates: The sheer number of updates that are required for multiple applications is mind-boggling. And the time taken to action these updates is significant. But, with this in mind, most pieces of software allow you to select an automatic update option. This takes the pain out of authorizing and conducting every new update and patch. The setting is most commonly found in the updates section of an application’s control panel. 
  • Visit Developer’s Websites: It’s good practice to regularly visit the websites of developers to make sure you’re working with the latest updates. Adobe Flash Player and JavaPress, for example, can both be verified by visiting their respective websites. The relevant software is quickly analyzed to determine which version it is. And, if any updates are outstanding, the user will be prompted to install these or upgrade to a new version. 

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Old Server Brings Paris Airport to a Halt

Software,
02
Feb 2016

orly airport

Chaos reigned supreme at Orly airport, Paris recently thanks to a technical fault on an old server running the ancient operating system Windows 3.1.

Yes, you read that correctly, the server was running on Windows 3.1 which is an operating system (OS) launched in 1992 and, as far as we thought, made redundant 20 years ago by Windows 95! It was the ancient nature of this OS which caused so many problems.

Let’s take a look at exactly what happened and the lessons it can teach us on maintaining and upgrading your servers.

All Flights Cancelled

flight-canceled

Pilots and air traffic controllers at Orly airport rely on a computer system called DECOR which helps communicate information about poor weather conditions. As you can imagine, this is crucial for taking off and landing, so it’s a vital piece of software. However, the problem is that DECOR doesn’t run on the lovely new OS Windows 10. Neither does it run on Windows 7. Or even Windows XP.

Instead, it uses the antiquated OS Windows 3.1 which certainly seemed a marvel back in the early 90s, but these days it looks like a dusty relic from the past. And, due to a glitch in DECOR, air traffic controllers were suddenly unable to relay critical runway conditions to their pilots. As a result, all flights were grounded as technicians raced to find a solution.

Outdated Software on Old Server

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For an airport, having all your flights grounded is an absolute disaster, but Orly airport only has themselves to blame.

Upgrading your software intermittently is very important for the health and security of your servers. By ignoring this practice you run the risk of the following:

  • Loss of knowledge: Alexandre Fiacre – from France’s UNSA-IESSA air traffic controller union – has conceded that they only have three specialists who understand DECOR. One of these is retiring soon and they still haven’t found a replacement. Due to the obsolete nature of Windows 3.1 it’s unlikely any newcomers will have the required knowledge either.
  • Lack of Spares: Outdated servers, naturally, use outdated parts. And this becomes a huge issue when a spare part is required. Many manufacturers these days don’t like to give more than a 10 year lifespan for products, so parts are often made obsolete after this cut off point. And if the parts are no longer available for your server you’re going to face a big problem when they fail.
  • Risk of Hacking: The lack of interest in an old piece of software such as DECOR means that the creation of any security upgrades and patches would have ceased a long time ago. This opens up the software to potential hacking incidents where the client will be left defenseless.

How to Avoid An Orly Airport Incident At Your Business

The simplest way to ensure your servers can be maintained efficiently is to upgrade them every couple of years. Sure, this has financial ramifications, but is less disruptive and embarrassing than having to temporarily close your business.

France’s transport minister has promised to upgrade the Orly’s software by 2017, but in our opinion that’s too late. It should have been upgraded in 1997!

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Windows 10 Performance Summary

Software,
16
Sep 2015

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Windows 10 has been released and promises to improve your PC experience like never before, but how does Windows 10 performance compare against 7 and 8.1?

Now, Windows 8.1 certainly scored highly when it came to outperforming Windows 7, but the flat design aesthetics certainly riled a few consumers in terms of looks an usability.

Windows 10, therefore, presents the perfect opportunity for Microsoft to push the performance of Windows that little bit further and improve on its aesthetic appeal.

To get a better understanding of what Windows 10 can offer consumers, we’re going to compare it against its two predecessors.

Powering Up

Windows-8-vs-Windows-7-Speed-Performance-Testing-1

Waiting for a PC to boot up used to be an agonizingly long affair where you had enough time to go and make a coffee! Boot up speeds, thankfully, have improved, but still aren’t perfect and consumers are willing to invest in anything which speeds up this process.

The speed in which a PC can boot up is always going to depend – to some degree – on the hardware involved, but operating systems also contribute towards this result.

And whilst it’s no surprise that Windows 8.1 boots up in 4 seconds compared to Windows 7’s 5 seconds, you may be surprised to find that Windows 10 is the slowest of all three with 6 seconds. It may be a barely noticeable difference, but it doesn’t indicate progress.

Due to the energy conscious world we live in, the sleep option for PCs has been widely celebrated. It’s here that Windows 10 really starts performing by taking just 10 seconds to wake up compared to 12 and 17 seconds for Windows 8.1 and 7 respectively.

Finally, waking up from hibernation tells a similar story with Windows 10 taking 21 seconds as opposed to 23 and 27 seconds Windows 8.1 and 7 respectively.

Application Responsiveness

The digital world is an incredibly busy place these days, so any time saving benefits are welcomed with open arms by all PC users.

Windows 10, therefore, you would expect to take note of this modern ire and build on its predecessors’ performances.

Somewhat bafflingly, though, Windows 10 does not take the initiative of improving the application experience with a significant increase in speed. In fact, the majority of applications appear to run slightly faster on Windows 8.1 and 7

Storage Performance

7299_02_microsoft-windows-10-vs-8-1-storage-performance-analysis

Everyone wants to have their hard drive working as quickly as possible be it either reading or writing data, so how does Windows 10 perform in this arena?

Depending on the hard drive being tested, Windows 10 does outperform Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 (where applicable) in terms of faster read/write speeds, but this success certainly varies between models.

The World of Entertainment

In terms of synthetic performance such as CPU and graphics card performance, Windows 10 performs very strongly against Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.

What this means for the average user is that leisure activities such as gaming, watching movies and ripping/burning movies becomes that little bit quicker when you’ve got Windows 10 at your disposal.

Again, though, Windows 10 doesn’t always outperform Windows 8.1 and Windows 7, but certainly matches and holds its own in comparison tests.

Is Windows 10 Worth the Upgrade?

Whilst we can’t state that Windows 10 bursts out of the starting blocks into an unassailable lead, we can tell you that it’s quicker than its predecessors in some key areas such as waking up, storage and entertainment options.

Sure, it’s not perfect by any means, but it’s a very new release and previous versions of Windows have always gone on to improve and optimize their performance with the latest updates.

If you’re running Windows 7 or 8.1, though, it’s fine to carry on running with these systems for now as they will deliver solid performance, but the more bleeding edge user will be looking to upgrade to Windows 10.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Windows 10 Upgrade Problems You Should Know About

Software,
12
Sep 2015

broken-glass-windows-HD

The Windows 10 upgrade is now available, but it’s proving to have a few downsides. Here are some tips to getting round these Windows 10 upgrade problems.

There are a number of particularly annoying side effects of the upgrade that users may not even be aware of. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t need remedying. To help you get to grips with these irritating changes we’re going to show you what to do to take control of your system!

Privacy Concerns

20150731085221_windows_10_privacy

We live in an age of security leaks and hysteria about how our personal information is handled, but Microsoft doesn’t seem to be aware of this.

In fact, by agreeing to upgrade to Windows 10 you’ve had to agree to their Service Agreement – that long list of legalese that you give up reading after the first few points give you a headache! The problem is that, hidden within it, are clauses which allow them to sync their servers to your personal information.

This means that details such as WiFi logons, browsing history and passwords will all be stored on Microsoft’s servers.

There is, thankfully, a way to avoid this, so just follow the steps below:

  1. Open Settings, click the Accounts icon and then open the Sync your Settings option
  2. Look for the Sync Settings slider bar and drag the slider to the left to turn it off
  3. Close Settings to ensure changes are applied to your system

Bandwidth Theft

Windows-10-Delivery-Optimization-is-Stealing-Bandwidth

Your bandwidth refers to the capacity and space you have to do the things online you enjoy e.g. streaming, video conferencing and downloading. The more you have, the better the experience.

Microsoft, though, want to use your bandwidth to help fuel the ‘Windows Update Delivery Optimization’ service. This service applies updates to your system or, indeed, any other PC on the internet whether you like it or not!

To turn this off you have to burrow your way through Windows 10 as follows:

  1. Go to Start > Settings > Update & Security> Windows Update > Advanced Options
  2. In here you will have the choice of how to receive updates and the most secure option to pick is ‘PCs on my local network’, so click this option to ensure any bandwidth theft is limited to your own PCs benefit

Your WiFi Security is at Risk

Windows 10 comes with a feature named WiFi Sense which allows any of your Facebook friends to log into your WiFi without entering the password.

Now, we’re not saying your Facebook friends are going to cause havoc with your WiFi, but again it’s a question of personal choice.

To get started sorting this out you should follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi> Manage Wi-Fi settings
  2. Disable everything
  3. Close Settings to apply these changes.

However, other users with WiFi Sense will still have the capability to share your home WiFi network, so you need to append your network name with “_optout” e.g. change “ophteknetwork” to “ophteknetwork_optout”.

Microsoft Is Helping Fuel Personalized Ads

Windows-10-Ad-348x196

Windows 10 assigns each device running it a unique ‘Advertising ID’ which gathers information about web searches and websites visited.

This information is then used to serve up those carefully tailored ads which try and sell you products whenever you visit a website with an adserver.

It’s always a little bit creepy and, again, fails to protect your privacy. So, the best way to stop this invasion of privacy is by doing the following things:

  1. Head over to https://choice.microsoft.com/en-gb/opt-out and opt out of receiving these intrusive ads.
  2. Go to Settings > Privacy> General and then change your privacy option.

By protecting yourself with the steps above you’ll find that you’re able to enjoy Windows 10 with peace of mind that your security is as strong as it can be.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Microsoft’s New Strategy: Free Software

Software,
19
Jun 2015

Microsoft-Logo

Microsoft has always used a traditional way of marketing their products to customers until now. Here’s a look at Microsoft’s Free Software strategy.

The idea behind the strategy

With Microsoft dominating the desktop applications market for decades and charging customers for all of their products suites, why would they want to move away from their usual marketing method to offer free software?

It could be that in recent years, Microsoft has been falling behind Google and Apple, who’ve dominated their niche markets by offering their products and services free in return for ads or data. With smartphones becoming as ubiquitous today as PCs were in the 90s, Microsoft has had to step up their game to attract more users to their products. Their new strategy of offering free software is a step in aligning themselves to the competition and keeping up with the times.

Executing the strategy

Microsoft has recently offered a free version of Microsoft Office that can be used on the iOS platform. They’ve extended this to give Android devices free versions of Excel, Word and PowerPoint. In addition to this, they’ve also offered free licenses for Windows as well as Windows Phone for PC and mobile devices.

Reaching out to new markets

1920x1080_windows_10_technical_preview_windows_10_logo_microsoft

Since they’ve acquired a number of mobile applications, they’ll also plan to offer these for free too. Some examples include free mobile apps such as an email app that is used with Android and iOS platforms acquiring a much larger user base than before. For example, an Android or iOS user, who may not use Microsoft software at all, would now be presented with the opportunity to try the software for free and use it.

Microsoft’s hope is that users will gain a beneficial experience from their software, enough for it to become indispensable to them. The free version will come with a whole host of features that will be very useful. Still, there will be some features that are held back from the free versions, which will be offered in the subscription plans.

Microsoft’s ecosystem

Microsoft-Metrics-2014-Counterpoint-Research

Image courtesy of Counter Point Research

Microsoft is also looking to get users to experience a whole host of other products and services that are closely aligned with the free software offered by them.

This ecosystem of products and services is the perfect strategy that will entice users to sign up to their subscription plans. For example, by integrating Skype into Outlook, Microsoft plans to get users to become accustomed to Skype. Once they are familiar with the product, it’ll be easier for the user to upgrade within minutes of seeing the offer as well as the other paid features available through Skype.

In the same vein, users of Cortana are encouraged to use Bing, which will help draw them away from Google as a search engine.

For more ways to optimize your office software and productivity, contact your local IT professionals.

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