First the great news. As of 10:00 this morning we are not aware that any of our clients have suffered from this high profile well publicised attack for "WannaCry" ransomware cyber attack.

Why did our client base survive this attack? Hopefully our regular reminders about data backup, security, anti-virus software and e-mail spam filtering and keeping PC’s current, helped.

Primarily common sense, in order to be infected a user has to open a "dodgy" e-mail attachment. Hopefully we are all experienced enough not to do that. Secondly almost all of our clients are running operating systems which 'automatically update' and are supported by Microsoft. This particular piece of "Ransomware" exploits the "Eternal Blue" vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Operating Systems to spread across networks. Please be aware that Windows 98, XP and Vista are no longer Microsoft supported and thus will have this vulnerability to spreading the problem. See our Windows XP no longer supported article.

In general Ransomware is incredibly difficult to stop because it exploits human vulnerability. We all love e-mail and the ability to attach pictures and links. Ransomware exploits this. I urge all to be extra vigilant as this crime wave shows no sign of abating any time soon.

The surest method against this particular threat if you don't want to rely on human diligence is e-mail spam filtering and yes we do use this ourselves, do recommend, supply and install it.

Re old operating systems, please, please upgrade these PC’s. Catalyst makes this as painless as is possible by helping migrate your data and configure new PC’s to be part of your network.