Stay Safe Online

We’ve had a few reports recently of phone calls from people pretending to be from BT – and you may well have contacted BT recently about something so automatically think they are real – until they start asking for personal information. If in doubt, take their name and phone number – check the phone number online – and ring back from a different phone (sometimes they stay on the line).

This scam email really had me worried – but I did immediately note that the address the email came from: [email protected] is nothing to do with www.gov.uk. So I searched for the phone number 0300 200 3700 on Google – and it did indeed link to www.gov.uk– BUT when I searched for the reference number I found this website::

https://myonlinesecurity.co.uk/fake-hmrc-submission-email-delivers-some-sort-of-malware/

which said:

“All the alleged senders, amounts, reference numbers, Bank codes, companies, … email addresses and phone numbers mentioned in the emails are all random. Some of these companies will exist and some won’t. Don’t try to respond by phone or email, all you will do is end up with an innocent person or company who have had their details spoofed and picked at random from a long list that the bad guys have previously found. The bad guys choose companies, Government departments and organisations with subjects that are designed to entice you or alarm you into blindly opening the attachment or clicking the link in the email to see what is happening.”

Whatever you do – don’t open the attachment! And never click on any links in emails unless you are absolutely sure they are legitimate.

If you do have a problem – or are worried at all – turn off the computer and ring us – advice is free!

Rainford-IT are part of Strawberry Fields – Nominet Channel partners and Cisco network partners. We register and renew domain names. We manage our own servers, email, IT and website hosting. We can fix most hardware – including I-phones and I-pad – and recover data. We design and program e-commerce websites – or simple websites, we create videos, take professional photos, make bespoke music, write blogs, and create WordPress websites you can update yourself. It’s a family business and we provide a personal service.

Kwik Fit has confirmed that its computer network has been infected with malware, disrupting its ability to book in vehicle repairs and handle other customer requests.

The car service specialist began telling customers that its IT systems had gone offline on Saturday, but initially indicated the issue had been rectified the same day.

It has since told the BBC that it is still experiencing some problems.

However, it declined to elaborate.

“We first experienced some issues with a virus in our IT network during the weekend,” said a spokeswoman.

“This affected a number of our systems but in the interest of ongoing security we can’t confirm the source of the problem.

“We have been working to get our operational systems back up and running normally and while there is still some disruption, our centres are open as usual.”

Several customers have sent messages to the firm via social media to express frustration.

The company declined to discuss what the motivation for the attack might be, but said that it did not believe its customers’ records had been affected.

“We can reassure customers that we do not store any of their financial information and currently have no reason to believe that any customer data was compromised,” said a spokeswoman.

“For security reasons we are not able to say anything else.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47062480