In another dramatic example that computer security is fast becoming the number one IT issue of our time, Saint John's Ambulance services suffered communications issues caused by a computer virus. Details regarding this most recent computer security issue are included in the Waikato Times article here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/5953597/Computer-virus-hits-ambul...

Microsoft® released 22 important and helpful security patches for Windows 7 today containing essential security protections for holes in Bluetooth and others. You can read more details on this page: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/07/microsoft-fixes-scary-bluetooth-flaw-...

It is important that businesses establish a definitive upgrade plan from their existing Microsoft® Windows XP and Vista to the robust and feature rich Windows 7.

The announcement of Windows 8 is a positive one, but we do not recommend waiting to upgrade, as we have seen numerous issues with computers running on legacy OSes or improperly updated versions of Windows.

If your business is still running Microsoft® Windows XP or has numerous Vista computers, now is an optimal time to update to the more stable, better performing Windows 7.

Licensing for upgrades are affordable and we can assist in the procurement process to ensure you have proper and complete licensing for all of your Windows computers.

There are numerous benefits to upgrading, including more robust security features and far better performance using Windows 7.

You may also find that upgrading your OS licensing can be in conjunction with a Microsoft Office 2010 upgrade. The new 2010 software offers significant benefits when compared to older versions of Microsoft Office such as 2003.

The benefits gained from proper capital expenditures on upgrade licensing outweigh the costs and in the long run we believe will actually save your business dollars as there are reductions in support and after-hours maintenance costs.

Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, XP, Vista and Windows 7 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation both in the United States and Internationally.

Most small enterprises prepare for catastrophic events such as the tragic earthquake in Christchurch, serious fire, or theft by purchasing insurance and writing documentation.

Unfortunately, in any significant event, these techniques do not enable real business continuity.

Any solution for maintaining continuity begins with your IT infrastructure.

We have published a brief document that hopefully can provide small businesses guidance with regard to more effective business disaster recovery.

Please click on this link to review our PDF document: Essential Items for Business Survival

We have been receiving more and more frequent call outs regarding Microsoft® Outlook 2003 and 2007. An Outlook personal folder file greater than 2GB may become corrupted. This is highly dependent on whether you imported from earlier versions or had database integrity errors prior to the growth. For this reason, we are recommending to all of our clients that you immediately perform the following checks to ensure your Outlook data and also your Outlook email back-ups will remain functional: 1. Reduce the overall size of your Outlook.pst file by creating new Personal Folders and storing older or larger emails (with large attachments) into the new folders and NOT in your Inbox or current Personal Folder. 2. Regularly run the Outlook scanning and recovery tool called Scanpst.exe found on almost all Windows PCs under the following folders: Outlook 2010 32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14 64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14

In the past few weeks our security monitoring team has noticed an escalation of brute force attacks against websites throughout New Zealand and Australia. In most cases the attacks are simplistic brute force login attempts, with few successes. However, most New Zealand companies remain fairly naive to the significant level of industrial espionage and hacker attacks now occurring.

Today one of New Zealand's premiere online services companies Orcon, notified its clients that in a system anomomly they had lost potentially 266 clients' emails. You can read the details in this news article. This issue is now increasingly becoming prevalent as companies in New Zealand have relied quite a long time on limited redundant email systems, or poor infrastructure to manage their business emails. We have noted clients who store up to 20,000 emails using antiquated applications or simply desktop systems such as Outlook. These systems are simply not made to handle growing business email infrastructure needs.

Computer security should not be placed in the back seat, as today's headlines show. Last night the Parliamentary website for New Zealand was hacked by someone who changed the front page and posted a message. Apparently a hacker named Iskorpitx replaced content on the Parliamentary website with a Turkish type flag and the hackers own personal message. See this NEWS link for details: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4145177/Hacker-hits-Parliament-... Today an Auckland, New Zealand politician's name and identity were used to create a fake Twitter profile and completely fake page with false policies and nonsensical details. See this NEWS link for details: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/super-city/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501110&objec... These two incidents bring up a profound question. Is web security for business being taken seriously by company leaders?