Published on Sunday 26th May 2024
There is a major change coming to phone systems across the UK in 2025 – we will all have to use digital phone services.
What is happening?
The UK’s phone network is being upgraded – every landline cable is switching to faster, more reliable and responsive Internet Protocol (IP) technology. To use the IP network, any systems connected to a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) phone line will need to be moved to a IP-based service.
At Trichromic we understand that not everyone is aware of this change and what it means to them. So, over the next few weeks we will be giving you the facts about this change and what you need to do to maintain your business communication systems.
The world of telecoms is full of confusing acronyms, especially when it comes to line rental. PTSN, ISDN, SIP, VoIP – what do all these acronyms mean? And which one is right for your business?
Here are the main differences between the big three: PSTN, ISDN and SIP. Continue reading →
Published on Tuesday 21st March 2023
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 →
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 →
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 →
Published on Friday 16th December 2022
Hopefully our recent post will help you avoid some of the Christmas cyber scams out there. Unfortunately, there are plenty of these.
Here are some more scams to be aware of and how to avoid them:
Continue reading →
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 →
Published on Sunday 13th November 2022
In recent weeks, our team of friendly experts at Trichromic have been contacted by a several customers who have had difficulty connecting to their IT systems due to a new process. The cause of the problem is Outlook 2013 not being automatically configured to use Modern Authentication so, it loses the ability to connect to the 365 Exchange Online mailbox. This is a very frustrating issue that wastes a lot of your valuable time.
Modern Authentication is an umbrella term for a combination of authentication and authorisation methods between a client (for example, your laptop or your phone) and a server. Basically, it is a method of identity management that offers more secure user authentication and authorisation.
Modern Authentication is a good thing – it improves security. The use of the current Basic Authentication process is being removed for Exchange Online mailboxes on Microsoft 365 and replaced with Modern Authentication across all Microsoft products.
But there is a fix for this…
Continue reading →
Published on Tuesday 18th October 2022
Microsoft is investigating user reports of issues with Remote Desktop on Windows 11 systems after installing the Windows 11 22H2 Update.
Affected administrators and home users have been sharing their experiences across several online platforms, including Microsoft’s Q&A community platform for IT professionals.
Installing the Windows 11 22H2 feature update will cause Remote Desktop clients not to connect, randomly disconnect, or freeze unexpectedly.
A Windows admin said on Microsoft’s Community site, “All of our Remote Desktop Users using Windows 11 are having problems connecting to Remote Desktop after installing this update. It just hangs at connecting,”.
It appears there is a bug in the Remote Desktop client which is affecting the connection to another device – basically, the Windows 11 client only seems try one protocol (UDP) but, if this cannot process the data traffic, the secondary protocol (TCP) isn’t used, and the connection fails. Continue reading →
Published on Sunday 4th September 2022
If the Windows computers in the office are turned on 24/7, this method could help reduce electricity usage and create less heat, which could further reduce the energy consumed by air conditioning.
Most newer Windows computers are configured to use the ‘Balanced’ power plan by default, and this makes sense because the Central Processing Until (CPU) clocks down when not being heavily utilised and clocked up when more performance is required. However, the ‘Balanced’ power plan does result in slower performing computers, so the ‘High Performance’ power plan is often preferred during working hours. There’s also a ‘Power Saver’ plan which could potentially save more power.
One option to save energy and create less heat is to manually change the power plan just before finishing work, and when starting work, but most people will forget to do this.
A better solution is to schedule these changes to be made using the Windows Task Scheduler or the Managed Service Provider’s (MSPs) preferred Remote Management & Monitoring (RMM) system. Continue reading →
Published on Tuesday 28th June 2022
Trichromic has proudly renewed their Cyber Essentials certification.
The standard is part of the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Strategy and demonstrates our commitment to cyber security, our ability to safeguard our own systems, the hosting services we deliver to clients, and it reinforces our capabilities as a managed services provider.
Launched in 2014, the Cyber Essentials scheme focuses on promoting the essential security controls that organisations need to have in place in order to reduce the risk posed by threats on the Internet. The scheme addresses five key controls that, when implemented correctly according to the government, could prevent around 80% of cyber attacks:
Continue reading →