The Latest News from Illuminate IT

I am incredibly relieved that Spring is officially here! The evenings are drawing out, Easter, and hopefully some warmer weather, is right around the corner… Along with those reasons to celebrate, March also means that the Yahoo and Gmail security upgrade nightmare, Microsoft license price increases and NCE are all behind us too! Here’s hoping that the financial year end is smooth sailing for you all as April approaches.

Illuminate have achieved IASME Governance Level 1 and 2, plus Quality Principles designation. This allows us to provide Cyber Essentials Basic certifications without relying on a 3rd party. It is also very closely mapped to ISO27001, coming soon…

We have officially outgrown our office in the Midlothian Innovation Centre and are currently hunting for a new home. If you know of anywhere in or around the Midlothian area, please give Sarah a shout!

If you were lucky enough to avoid any issues with Gmail and Yahoo emails at the start of this year, then you might have missed that both companies decided to kick-off 2024 with a big security upgrade (something that is long overdue as they are often the account type of choice for hackers). This meant changes to business IT systems to allow them to be able to send to their customers that have Gmail/Yahoo accounts. This was a crucial security improvement for all email traffic and something we encourage you all to implement. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.

Did you know – if you are on one of our security packages, we’ll send out fake phishing emails periodically to test your business and will provide a report on how you do?

Creating a work culture where IT security is baked into how you and your team conduct business is key to avoiding potentially damaging mishaps. We offer security awareness training that provides you with important skills that can be applied beyond work to your personal life too. Learn more here. illuminate-it.co.uk/services/cyber-security/

Thank goodness for GDPR, said no business owner, ever. But while multi-factor security – passwords, PIN codes, biometric scans of your retina and fingerprints, facial recognition – can seem like a chore for all of us in the UK and EU, the alternative can be far worse, as US health insurance company, UnitedHealth Group, found out recently.

The company had to pay an alleged $22 million to regain access to systems that they had been locked out of by hackers. It’s unbelievable that a company as large as UnitedHealth, who hold reams of sensitive customer health data, do not have even the basics of cyber security in place.

As long as you have a secure and tested back-up system, there should never be a reason to pay a ransom to regain your IT security. Adding a spam filter and crucially having cyber security awareness across your whole organisation can avoid the situation and subsequent escalation that UnitedHealth has faced.

Personal, professional and everything in between. Has someone got a new certification? Did you speak at an event? Get on STV? Is someone raising money for charity? Does someone have a book/film/show recommendation they want to share?

Amanda was recently invited to speak at an event for International Women’s Day and Women in History Month, hosted by Proact, a Machester-based data and information management company. She discussed the challenges of being a woman working in IT and how we get more girls and young women into the technology sector.

Craig, our Service Desk Manager, has been hard at work recruiting for a new team member and we are pleased to announce that we have a new team member starting on April 1st. We look forward to introducing them to you very soon.

If you need further information about the stories in this newsletter or you’d like to discuss any of our services, book a meeting or use the form on our Contact page.

Thank you for reading and see you next month.