Do you feel like you’re playing IT whack-a-mole? One problem goes away, and another one appears? Worse, the same one comes back?

Proactive IT support from Fresh Mango Technologies is designed to stop the problem from occurring in the first place! And when you do get a problem, we fix it AND the cause. So you won’t have to ‘whack’ it again!

Stop playing whack-a-mole with your IT support with proactive IT support from Fresh Mango Technologies UK.

You’re not alone. ‘IT Whack-A-Mole’ issues affect the entire IT world. Many modern professionals in IT use the term ‘IT Whack-a-mole’ to refer to processes or pervasive problems that just keep occurring, even after you think you’ve fixed them.

These types of problems are common in a lot of businesses, with hardware & software that fails routinely such as printers, monitors or email. These sorts of issues have become so commonplace in many places they’re the expected norm. We want to change that.

We understand that these are critical tools you need to get your job done and losing them, again and again, sets your business back exponentially. Failure in even one of these areas can bring work to a halt for many businesses, costing you time, resources and money.

We believe the route of these issues lies in poor IT support from companies or individuals who lack the expertise and knowledge to offer truly proactive IT support. Support from Fresh Mango Technologies UK, however, is different. Our team is reliable, dependable, experienced and professional, offering a unique approach to support.

Our approach to IT support means our technicians not only resolve the issues at hand but go above and beyond to ensure the stability of your system even after we’ve stopped working on it. We answer why and how a problem occurred and better yet, provide you with professional experienced advice on how your systems can be improved and adapted to never experience this issue again.

With over 30 years of successfully providing computer, website and IT support across the UK and Caribbean, you know you’re in safe hands. We pride ourselves on rapid response and our friendly, professional, highly qualified engineers who are trained to understand your needs and deliver sound advice and the right solution the first time.

You may also be interested to read our blog piece on the ideal IT System setup.

If you enjoyed this article you may also be interested in Children & Technology: Cookies, Webs & Touchscreen.

I thought it may be interesting to write up what a typical day in my life as an IT Support Technician at Fresh Mango Technologies is like. So I worked with one of our team members on a random day (a Tuesday last month) and kept a diary of everything he did that day.

It turned out to be a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

IT Support Technician – a ‘typical’ day

Well let’s put something to rest immediately – there’s no such thing as a typical day for an IT Support Technician! We certainly plan the weekly work for the team, and so on a day-to-day basis, they always have a clear schedule in place. However, we never know when a customer may have an urgent IT matter that requires a ‘DER’ (Drop-everything request) and so all plans are fixed in stone until they aren’t!

Fortunately, we don’t get many DERs – with continuous monitoring of customer systems and regular ‘patching’ and other health checks – we keep problems to a minimum. That doesn’t mean they don’t occur though, as we were to see on this particular Tuesday… Here’s how it played out. It’s written in the first person from our technician’s perspective.

Leaving Home

I left home at 730AM to ensure I could beat the traffic and be at our customer premises near Leeds for an 8 AM scheduled onsite visit. The relatively early start was to ensure minimal disruption to the customer (their staff mostly start at 9 AM). This particular customer has quarterly visits and their systems are relatively new, so I anticipated a pretty smooth visit.

After checking in I went to the server room to conduct physical checks and updates of systems. This took around an hour, and then I did a ‘touch check’ of every PC and laptop available. This entails simply talking to every member of staff and asking if they have any IT issues. We find that sometimes people will suffer an annoying issue and they don’t raise it as a support request. By ‘touch checking’ everyone we can iron out any niggles whilst on-site and it’s always appreciated.

At the same time, I handed out special offer cards, ensuring each PC is labelled and had ‘How to contact us’ stickers on them. I found a couple missing and added them.

10 O’Clock

Back to the Leeds office and to my desk to conduct scheduled work and to help deal with any tickets (support requests). It was a busy day. Microsoft had issued an ‘Emergency patch’ update overnight. This means that Microsoft has found a security issue with their operating software, and so the software needed to be updated on all customer computers as soon as possible. So I set about scheduling overnight updates for the customers that had been assigned to me.

Lunchtime (1230)

Having gotten through all my updates, I headed for some lunch. I usually bring something into the office, but I had another scheduled on-site visit with a customer south of Leeds so decided to eat ‘on the hoof’. This was for a straightforward installation of 2 new PCs.

I arrived at the customer premises at around 1 PM and installed the computers. I asked the users to ensure they were set up to their liking (they were) and also did a quick check of their server (not scheduled but I think it’s good practice). Just as I was getting ready to head back to the office, I received a call from Bruno (our Technical Manager). He wanted me to head straight to another customer just a couple of miles away. They had just called to say they thought they may have been hacked. OK, foot-down time!

245 PM

Arrived at the customer’s premises. Bruno had briefed me en route and one of our senior technicians was also accessing their systems remotely to run security checks. Strictly speaking, we didn’t necessarily need someone on-site, but when a customer thinks they have been hacked we always establish an on-site presence as quickly as possible. This is in case we need to isolate a device, or the entire network if a sustained cyber attack is underway.

Fortunately, that was not the case with this particular event. We quickly found the source of the hack – a single PC – and so I immediately quarantined it. This is of course disruptive for the individual using it, but we can’t risk a hacker gaining access to other systems, nor do we wish to see ransomware spread across their network. Having confirmed with Bruno that all scans were negative, I headed back to the office with the quarantined computer so we could diagnose what happened and clean it of any malware.

4 PM

Arrived back at the office, and with assistance from Bruno, we began the diagnosis. As is so often the case, we found that the user had clicked on a ‘phishing’ email. This particular link took the user to a convincing, but fake, Microsoft login screen. This in turn asked for credentials that they had entered. So, the first thing to do was to reset their password, which I did. We then ran a full security sweep of the PC and confirmed no other ‘nasties’ were on it.

That was a close shave for the customer – fortunately the individual who had clicked on the link had the presence of mind to realise something may have been untoward and had notified us accordingly.

545 PM

Time to head home. I arranged for another member of the team to return the quarantined PC to the customer first thing tomorrow since my schedule was taking me to see three clients in North Yorkshire.

So there you have it – a typical day for an IT Support Technician. And it’s still only Tuesday…!

Computer tax relief – New temporary tax reliefs on qualifying capital asset investments from 1 April 2021

The Chancellor recently announced an extension to the super-deduction corporation tax relief measure, effectively providing computer tax relief.

This means when you purchase (not lease) qualifying investments you can claim 130% tax relief on them until 1st April 2023. This means you should be able to obtain computer tax relief on any computer systems you purchase until that date.

Of course, you should check the position with your accountant before claiming computer tax relief.

So, don’t delay, now’s a great time to commence your computer system upgrades!

You can read the full report from HMRC here.

What you should consider for your IT systems

First and foremost you should review your computer server and determine if it is time to upgrade. If you are still operating on Windows server 2012 then you really have no choice, since this will soon be out of support by Microsoft. Notwithstanding that, if your server is (or will be) 5 or more years old, it’s really time to consider a new one.

Associated with servers is network equipment. Lead times for this equipment, notably switches, are hugely problematic. You should plan on a 6-month lead-time. That means you should start planning now if you wish to have your new IT system in place before the April 2023 deadline.

Finally, you should consider upgrading all your PCs and Laptops. If they are still operating on Windows 10, keep in mind that Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in 2025. At that point you will need to upgrade to Windows 11. Note that in order to run Windows 11, PCs require a minimum hardware specification. So it is worth considering making the change to Windows 11 now.

Excerpts from the report

General description of the measure

This measure will temporarily introduce increased relief for expenditure on plant and machinery. For qualifying expenditures incurred from 1 April 2021 up to and including 31 March 2023, companies can claim in the period of investment:

• a super-deduction providing allowances of 130% on most new plant and machinery investments that ordinarily qualify for 18% primary rate writing down allowances
• a first-year allowance of 50% on most new plant and machinery investments that ordinarily qualify for 6% special rate writing down allowances

Policy objective

This measure is designed to stimulate business investment. It does so by increasing the incentive to invest in plant and machinery by offering higher rates of relief than were previously available.

In this blog piece, I’ll discuss how to add extra security to your systems with two-factor authentication (TFA). It’s actually very straightforward and provides a step-change improvement to your security.

What is Two-factor Authentication?

Two-factor authentication protects your applications by using a second source of validation, like a phone or token, to verify user identity before granting access. It is engineered to provide a simple, streamlined login experience for every user and application, and as a cloud-based solution, it integrates easily with your existing technology.

Add extra security to your systems – Our recommended TFA solution

We have tested several solutions for TFA/MFA and have chosen ‘Duo’ as our preferred offering. Duo is fast and easy for users to set up, and with several available authentication methods, they can choose the one that best fits their workflow. No headaches, no interruptions — it just works.
Because Duo functions like a gateway for your existing and future IT infrastructure, it’s the perfect solution for growing businesses of any size. Set up new users and support new devices at any time, and protect new applications almost instantly — without impacting legacy technology.
Duo natively integrates to secure any application or platform, so whether you’re adding 2FA to meet compliance goals or building a full zero trust framework, Duo is the perfect addition to your security portfolio.

• Multi-cloud, hybrid, or on-premises environments
• SAAS tools, critical infrastructure, custom applications, and even SSH
• Secure remote access

Add extra security to your systems – An example deployment

We use a bespoke management system called JIM. We continuously maintain and improve the security of the system. We implemented Duo so that, even in the unlikely event that a hacker cracks one of our encrypted passwords, they would still not gain access. The account owner would receive a TFA push request on their smartphone, and be immediately alerted to the attempted unauthorised access. So a double-win! Hacker prevented from access, user alerted to attempted hack.

Get Started with TFA!

So why not get started and add extra security to your systems with TFA? It’s straightforward to set up and for your team to use. What’s more, you’ll sleep that little bit easier knowing you have significantly improved your online security.

Why do Hackers Hack?

Victims of hacks and attempted hacks often take it personally. Why did they come after me? I’m not famous or rich. Why did they come after my company? We’re just a small business.

That’s a perfectly natural human reaction. The fact is that cyber-attacks are rarely personal or business-specific.

Hackers are ready to exploit any security crack without taking into consideration who you are or what you do. Here are some of the things that motivate them:

Money

Cyber-attacks do not often result in immediate monetary gain. Hacks allow cybercriminals to extract information that can be exploited for financial gain. For example:

1. Credit card information
2. Contact information to be sold to unethical marketing lists.
3. Username and password logins, to access and take over server resources, and to attempt dictionary attacks.
4. Sensitive or proprietary information to sell or extort.
5. High-security information to compromise the premises of a facility

Resources

You might think that your business is not big enough for someone to be interested in tapping into your traffic or your authority. However, cybercriminals will often attack an entire web server.  As a result, your small website might just end up being a part of a big hack.

Cudos

Some hackers break into targets just to prove they can. They also show off their craft by forcing access and stealing valuable information.

Social Justice

Hackers may pursue a religious or political agenda and use their skills to deface targets.

So if (when…) it happens to you, try not to take it too personally…

Why don’t I have Administrator Credentials?! We’re asked this question from time-to-time, and the short answer is it is standard IT policy for any professionally managed IT network. If you’re keen to understand why this is the case then read on!

IT History – Standardisation

In any business or organisation, standardisation in your IT systems is an essential factor in ensuring smooth and efficient operation. Imagine a situation where every single device was set up in a bespoke manner. No standardisation, differing password policies, differing software, differing access rights to directories and so on. Every user of any device able to make amendments to their PC/laptop as they see fit.

Now try to imagine administering and managing such an IT system from an IT Management perspective. Any time a staff member had a problem, the IT technician would have to run a huge amount of diagnostics in order to figure out what may be going wrong. This is because each PC/laptop has a non-standard setup and settings may have been changed by the user since the last time the computer had an issue.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to realise that managing such a chaotic approach would make the IT management nigh-on impossible. This would lead to significant knock-on effects, not the least of which would be dramatically reduced inefficiencies in the workforce.

So, in keeping with any operation, standardisation is the watchword for efficiency. IT is no different.

That’s the backdrop for why standard IT policies are so important. To the specific issue raised in the blog-title, standard users don’t have the ability to change settings on their system or download software. The former is part of IT standardisation, the latter relates to cybersecurity, which I will come onto next.

Why do you need Administrator credentials?

If a user is insisting on Administrator credentials, the question you need to ask is ‘why do they need them?’ Most people leave car maintenance to the experts. In these days of electronic engine management, it takes an expert to conduct a full car service or repair.

In other words, just because you can drive the car, you don’t mess with what’s under the bonnet (the hood for our US readers). Just because you know how to use your PC/laptop – why do you want or need the ability to mess with ‘what’s under the bonnet’?

Administrator credentials are best left in the hands of professionals who, to be blunt, know what they are doing.

The Cybersecurity problem

Let’s say you, the user of your computer, have Administrator credentials. Let’s also say you don’t go near the operating system or settings. What you do, however, is download software. It may be perfectly legitimate software. So what’s the problem?

Imagine you click on a link in an email. The email looked legitimate. Nothing happened when you clicked the link. No foul no harm, right?

Wrong. The link has opened up a channel to a hacker, and because you are an Administrator, they too can download software to your computer. Be assured that the software they put on your device is not there to help you – it’s there to get your data and to steal funds.

I can provide numerous references of businesses who have fallen victim to cyberattacks that could have been avoided by the simple measure of removal of Administrative rights for all staff – including directors.

Still think you want Admin rights for your computer? Then don’t take my word for it – take a look at the National Cyber Security Centre website. It’s a standard recommendation. It’s worth noting your organisation will receive an immediate-fail on any Cyber Essentials assessment as well.

As we say to all our customers – please listen to our advice. We’re offering it in your own best interests!

PS – in case you’re wondering – I’m a standard user at Fresh Mango Technologies. Just because I’m the MD I neither want nor need ‘Admin rights’. If I need software to be installed on my computer, I do the same as we ask of our customers – I log a support request ????

We’re often asked if it’s best to switch your computer off every day. Our answer is ‘no’, and in this article, we set out why we recommend leaving PCs switched on is the good practice today.

Switching a computer off is something of a hangover from the early days of PCs. When desktop computers were first introduced they were power-hungry. Their monitors – which were usually integrated – were huge and consumed a lot of electricity. Similarly, the computers generated a lot of heat and needed power-hungry internal fans to keep them cool.

All of this added up to a big electricity bill, especially for larger companies with lots of staff and computers. So the message was drummed into all computer users – switch off before you go home.

Fast forward to the present day and we have a very different scenario. Monitors are now separate devices to computers, with their own power supplies. Monitor technology is LCD, which means they consume far less power than monitors of old.

The PCs themselves still require fans (unless you have a Mac or tablet) but the miniaturisation of components means the power-demand of cooling fans has also decreased.

So all this means that concerns over power-consumption have been largely alleviated. Of course, there is still some power consumption, so why do we recommend leaving PCs switched on? Isn’t there a cybersecurity issue to consider as well?

These are all good points, here is the rationale for leaving your PC switched on when you leave the office (or kitchen table if working from home) for the day:

1. It ensures your IT team can conduct updates, health-checks, anti-virus scans and other remote work out-of-hours. This minimises disruption to your business during working hours
2. It allows your IT team to conduct emergency security patching out-of-hours in the event of a cyber-attack – an increasingly regular occurrence
3. It prolongs the life of your equipment. Turning your PC on and off every day shortens its life.
4. As for your electricity bill, your IT team should ensure all displays (the biggest drain on electricity) automatically go to sleep after a few minutes.

So far as cybersecurity is concerned, your IT team should ensure that your login credentials are ‘standard user’ only – ie non-Administrative. So, anyone who successfully hacks your login account remotely won’t get very far – a Standard User has very limited rights for this very reason.

So there you have it – the rationale for leaving your PC switched on! By the way, if your current IT team don’t have your PCs set up as described above, it may be worth getting in touch with the IT professionals at Fresh Mango Technologies!