The 5 golden rules for IT safety

At Corbel,  the friendly IT tech support team think about IT all day, particularly what we can do to help our clients.  Of course, we wouldn’t expect you to think about IT in the same way. After all if you did, you probably wouldn’t need our services.  We like to think your mind is focused on your own business interests and passions. We get it. So we won’t bore you with the technical stuff, but since you’re here, there are a few IT safety and security issues we thought you should know about.

1. Shutting down and restarting your computer really will fix many issues. It’s an IT support cliché, sure. But it’s the logical first step when there’s a problem, and it works wonders. And when we talk about shutting down, we mean actually turning the thing off and on again, not just logging off. Think of it like riding a mule across the desert. When the mule starts to falter, it isn’t enough to halt your journey and stay in the saddle. The poor thing needs you to get off so it can lay down and recover for a while. And when you start up again, the going will likely be much smoother.

2.Don’t open attachments or click on links in emails from people you don’t know. This is the biggie. The internet is a haven for unsavoury characters who’d love the chance to plunder your data, identity and bank account. They could hit you with a ransomware attack and charge you money to recover your own data. You could be faced with disruption, a tarnished reputation and a costly repair job before you get free. Remember, you are your own firewall. Clicking on that link could open you up to a world of pain.

3. All those updates and patches are vital to your wellbeing. We get it, you’re busy and you can’t afford to have your computer trudging through another painfully slow round of patches and updates. After all, surely you did all that last week? I’ll just mention those cyber criminals again, they’re always prodding and poking at the flaws in your cyber security. Which is why those patches keep coming thick and fast. When those criminals find a computer that doesn’t have those patches, they rub their hands together in glee. So please update your patches, they’re there to keep you safe.

4. A tidy computer is a happy computer. Think about a hoarder’s flat. Do they really need all those copies of the Daily Mirror going back to 1992? Your computer can get like that if you’re not careful. Do you need every photo you’ve ever taken? Or an entire War and Peace-sized wedge of emails discussing meeting arrangements you’ve been cc’d into? It becomes an issue for you because your anti-virus and malware software need to sift through each file when you start up, which means having a hard drive full of stuff will start to slow you down. Clear the clutter, and you’ll find your productivity gets a boost.

5. Don’t be afraid of details when you raise a support ticket. In fact, that’s the key to a swift diagnosis, and a return to action for you. We love screen prints of error messages, for instance. The codes might not mean much to you, but they will to our engineers.

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