Commonly used computer related terms, abbreviations and other IT jargon to help anyone in a business communicate with their IT department

Published on Monday 11th March 2024

Here at Trichromic we prefer not to use too many computer-related terms (Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs),etc) and unnecessary IT jargon when communicating with our clients’.

However, these can’t always be avoided (and some like to use them when they shouldn’t) so here you’ll find a categorised glossary of the most commonly used terms and abbreviations which could be useful to anyone talking to IT departments or even an outsourced IT managed service provider like Trichromic. We’ll keep expanding this list and adding descriptions when time permits so please keep visiting to view the latest updates. You can contact us for more information on any of the descriptions below or even to find out how Trichromic can help improve the efficiency of your business processes by harnessing the latest technology. ~ Lloyd Reid

Systems, Standards and Common Terms

AD — Active Directory
AI — Artificial Intelligence
AGI — Artificial General Intelligence
ASCII — American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ANSI — American National Standards Institute
ASIC — Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
ASN — Advanced Shipping Notice
B2B — Business-to-Business
B2C — Business-to-Consumer
BYOD — Bring Your Own Device
CAD — Computer-Aided Design Continue reading

Technical support operations during Christmas and New Year

Published on Wednesday 29th November 2023

Trichromic Christmas 2023 Opening/Closing Dates & Times

Merry Christmas from all of us at Trichromic! We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your business in 2023 and we wish you a very Happy New Year.

Our telephone help desk will be closed from 17:30 on Friday the 22nd December and will re-open at 09:00 on Tuesday the 2nd of January 2024.

When open, our help desk can be contacted on 020-3327-0310 (option 1) and by email at support@trichromic.co.uk.

Those companies with a fully managed service contract should email or leave a voicemail on our help desk during the holiday season and we’ll respond as soon as possible.

The Trichromic Sapphire Cloud services (CloudDESKTOP, CloudEXCHANGE, etc) will be continually operating and monitored during the break and we have no current plans for any periods of scheduled maintenance.

Apple releases iOS 15.7.5 with ‘important security fixes’

Published on Tuesday 25th April 2023

Apple iOS 15.7.5

Apple has recently released an update for older devices (iOS 15.7.4) with a number security patches. Now, it is rolling out another update (iOS 15.7.5 & iPadOS 15.7.5) iPhone and iPad devices. These updates address two vulnerabilities that may have been actively exploited.

The official release notes don’t mention any new features beyond the security enhancements. Apple simply says that iOS 15.7.5 provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users. Continue reading

Apple Issues Urgent Security Update for Older iOS (iPhone and iPad) Models

Published on Thursday 30th March 2023

Earlier this week, Apple backported fixes for a security flaw to older iPhone and iPad models. The issue concerns a type confusion bug in the WebKit browser engine that could lead to arbitrary code execution.

This issue was originally addressed by Apple with updates released on 13th February 2023, after an anonymous researcher reported the bug. Apple issued a statement confirming it was aware of a report that the flaw may have been actively exploited.

The exact nature of the issue isn’t currently known, but Apple’s usual procedure of withholding technical specifics has been deployed as it helps prevent further targeting susceptible devices.

The update is available in versions iOS 15.7.4 and iPadOS 15.7.4 for iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation). Continue reading

Apple Issues Urgent Security Update for Older iOS and iPadOS Models

Published on Friday 1st December 2023

Earlier this week, Apple backported fixes for a security flaw to older iPhone and iPad models. The issue concerns a type confusion bug in the WebKit browser engine that could lead to arbitrary code execution.

This issue was originally addressed by Apple with updates released on 13th February 2023, after an anonymous researcher reported the bug. Apple issued a statement confirming it was aware of a report that the flaw may have been actively exploited.

The exact nature of the issue isn’t currently known, but Apple’s usual procedure of withholding technical specifics has been deployed as it helps prevent further targeting susceptible devices.

The update is available in versions iOS 15.7.4 and iPadOS 15.7.4 for iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation). Continue reading

LastPass hack: Engineer’s failure to update streaming software Led to Data Breach

Published on Tuesday 21st March 2023

LastPass

A recent security breach at password management service LastPass was the result of one of its engineers failing to update a movie streaming app on their home computer. Thus is a sobering reminder of the dangers of failing to keep software up to date and business and personal software separate.

It appears unknown hackers leveraged information stolen from an incident that took place in August last year and a second attack between August and October 2022.

The attack enabled the hacker to steal partially encrypted password vault data and customer information. The second attack specifically singled out one of the DevOps engineers, targeting their home computer with a keylogger malware to obtain the credentials and breach the company’s cloud storage. Continue reading

10 million customers’ data leaked in cyberattack against JD Sports

Published on Tuesday 7th February 2023

Personal and financial information, including names, billing and delivery addresses, phone numbers, order details and the final four digits of payment cards of approximately 10 million customers of Fashion retailer JD Sports were potentially accessed by hackers in a cyber-attack.

This data is related to some online orders placed between November 2018 and October 2020.

The affected JD Sports group brands are JD, Millets, Blacks, Scott’s, and Millet Sport. If exploited, this information could be used by cybercriminals to attempt phishing attacks, which could lead to financial loss or even identity theft. Continue reading

The end of Windows 8.1

Published on Thursday 12th January 2023

Microsoft has confirmed support for Windows 8.1 and Microsoft 365 Office apps installed on the Operating System has come to an end. This may have you jumping for joy, but it is bad news if you find yourself stuck with an unsupported operating system.

Any individual or organisation still running Windows 8.1 (including Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 8.1) will be affected. Support for Windows 8 ended on 12th January 2016. The problem is Windows 8.1, which up until now has been supported, is now having it’s support canned as well. To make matters worse, the support was pulled on 10th January 2023 and there will be no extensions. Continue reading

The Top 3 Christmas Cyber Frauds (and how to avoid them)

Published on Tuesday 13th December 2022

It’s that time of year again – Christmas is around the corner and many of us will be looking forward to some down time with our families and friends.

There is one industry that never has time off – fraudsters and criminals. The Christmas break is actually a very busy time for them; lots of opportunity to part people from their money and data whilst our guards are down.

At Trichromic we take cybercrime very seriously and to help you out we spoke to our local bobby who kindly flagged up his ‘top 3’ frauds and how to avoid them: Continue reading