Colin's IT Technology Blog

You can't recover what you haven't backed up. I am renowned for being obsessed with ensuring client data is backed up in multiple different ways in multiple locations / media. It is imperative that you backups are checked. If you backup has stopped running, is someone looking after it daily to make sure the issue is fixed. Or did you suddenly discover the last time your backup ran was three months ago...? Or was that a year ago... Nothing we haven't seen before... So... solution one is to make sure your backups are automated... They don't require someone to remember to change a tape or cartridge etc...  Solution 2... make sure that if the backup fails then someone is notified and they actually do something about it... Do you have a system in place to check this and make sure it happens. Is the backup status of your critical servers reported to the directors during management meetings? Solution 3... backup off site. Be this online backup which we prefer especially wit

We had a pretty shocking discovery the other day when a new client who has old systems in place (we are trying to convince to upgrade) had a whole lot of strange things on one of their server's screens. After taking a look, we discovered that someone had logged onto the server using vnc  . We traced it back to someone in Turkey. They didn't do a great job of covering their tracks which is pretty unusual in my experience. Usually the only way you can tell your server has been hacked is because all the log files have been deleted. Considering how rubbish their internet connection is, they probably lost interest.  What did they do? Well... essentially used various websites that sent spam email, pretending to be from Credit Agricole Bank to thousands of email addresses in France. Pretty serious stuff. They used different websites and different bits of software to do this. Step one is to block access to the server for them to carry on utilising the server as a gateway. Note the