The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, and has been providing quality doohickeys to the public ever since. Located in Leicester City, XYZ employs over 2,000 people and does all kinds of awesome things for the Leicester community.

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About computer and Internet security!

Every single day people have their identities stolen. Apart from the immediate hardships of having no money in their bank account, no access to credit, regular mortgage and insurance payments declined and the subsequent penalties they incur, it could takes years to fully overcome these problems. The credit rating may never be fully recovered. Meanwhile, every day people are opening email containing malware that will encrypt all of the data on the PC, making everything effectively disapear until a ransom of upwards of £500 is paid to the criminals.

Some simple house keeping, attention to detail, a pause before opening an attachment to an email or clicking a link can avoid the majority of problems. If however you fall victim to one of these catastrophes we can help. Prevention is better than cure so check out some of the utilities and preventative software we have collected in the self help page.

Two arms of our business

Corporate

We offer a regular maintenance and security service to small and medium sized companies, who would ideally have a full time IT professional "in house", but given the expense have either handed over the roll to an employee with some grasp of computers, or merely call in a professional when something goes wrong. As approximately 90% of all PC fails can be avoided by preventative maintenance, a 100% uptime of all equipment is the goal we are striving towards.

Domestic

In the 21st Century, every home will have both a computer and broadband, however the unfortunate part is that "If your device can access the Internet, then the Internet can access your device". Televisions, baby monitors, webcams, CCTV cameras and even now central heating controls are all a way in.

People at home tend to be a little more blasé about security than in business, thinking that a hacker would not bother with them. However that is wrong on several levels.

As is mentioned several times throughout the website, the first rule of the Internet is; If your device can access the Internet then the Internet and anybody on it, can access your device. The watchword here is access, and if you don't have to be on the Internet, then don't.

The days of dial-up modems taking ages to access the Internet are long since gone and routers now can hook up in a matter of seconds, so if you are not actively using the net, switch off the router!

A timer switch may be purchased for less than £5, so if you don't use the Internet between say the hours of midnight and 8 am, then why are you connected at all?

That said, some may still be unsure of what they are up against every minute of every day they are connect to this wonder tool the Internet. Whilst the World and all of the information in it has been opened up to us, most of it free, caution must still be exercised. A person could probably learn how to drive a car in five minutes, however they would not be proficient or indeed experienced enough to go out alone.

To help understand some of the threats and dangers I would like to share the following video with you, which shed a little light on some of the obstacles.

Firewalls

The rule is "if your device; computer /tablet /smartphone has access to the Internet, then the Internet has access to your device". Clearly this is not always a bad thing because without allowing some access no information may be downloaded. Control however, of exactly what and how data is downloaded, should be totally up to the user. This is achieved by the means of a firewall. Most people won't even be aware that they are behind a firewall, but they are built into most broadband modem/routers, these however are not sufficient and additional provisions should be made.

Anti Virus

Every day our Honeypot email trap catches that day's main risks. More and more we are seeing attachments carrying an infection in the form of zip files, PDFs, Microsoft Word and Excel document files attached to email. This on opening, will infect your computer. The infection of choice seems to be ransomware which will encrypt all the data on your PC. The only way to retrieve your data (decrypt it) is by paying a ransom of anywhere between $200 and $600 at going rates, clear the virus and restore the most recent backup if you are able, or pay a professional to do it.

Anti Malware

Malware, short for malicious software, is any software used to disrupt computer operations, gather sensitive information, gain access to private computer systems, or display unwanted advertising. This comes in various guises and is delivered in many different ways. The worst being that which is embedded into a normally  benign program, this because as the main programme is being installed, it is getting the operators permission and OK, the malware is by default getting the same permission right up to the security level of the operator.

Anti Adware

Adware, is a form of software that downloads or displays unwanted ads when a user is online, collects marketing data and other information without the user's knowledge or redirects search requests to certain advertising websites. Adware that does not notify the user and attains his or her consent is regarded as malicious. Also known as PUPs, is very often installed on the victim's device without their consent, or knowledge packaged within a sometimes genuine programme downloaded from a site other than that of the software publisher.

What is Ransomware?

The following are links to the various help sites designed to guide the user through the maze of freeing their PC from a virus, Ransomware, Trojan or browser highjacking. Adopting some good working practices will also help. If you don't need to be connected to the Internet then don't be, turn the router off when not in use, when it takes only seconds to connect these days, there is no excuse to keep it "always on".  Do not open attachments or click links in emails when you are not 100% sure that the email is genuine. Currently the most common infected attachments are in no particular order, zip files, PDFs, Word docs and Excel docs. Very often these will not be the file themselves but a downloader that will seem benign, but will download and install a rogue piece of malware to do the damage.

Also here you will find links to the various products and tools mentioned on this website to prevent infection and avoid being caught out in the first instance. Prevention is always better than cure and the "it won't happen to me" attitude has no place on the Internet in 2019. When genuine sites like UNICEF, Google, Yahoo and Bing can be compromised then nobody surfing the Internet is safe without adequate protection.

A Guide to removing browser Virus, PUPs and Trojans
A programme to stop virus/malware running so that you can run a cleaner
A programme to clean rogue advertisements infecting your browser
Alternate programme can be used as well as the one above
Stand alone Virus scan and removal tool
Online realtime Virus scan and removal tool
Stand alone Virus scan and removal tool
Free Firewall software programme
Free Antivirus software programme
Free All in One, AV and Firewall software package
Free alternate Antivirus software programme