P1 / CLOUD

COMMUNICATIONS

Could hosted voice services help you?

P2 / ARE YOU PREPARED?

Now’s the time to make sure

you have an effective DR plan

in place.

P3 / CASE STUDY

Our Hosted Voice services help a leading law firm deliver sustainable growth.

P4 / GONE PHISHING

Phishing emails are on the rise. Our advice could help protect your organisation.

ConnectedIS#9 WINTER EDITION

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In recent editions of our Connected newsletter we’ve been looking at the

impact of cloud services on businesses.

This has generated many enquiries

about the types of applications that can

be hosted remotely. Most people are

comfortable with storing data in the cloud;

but it often comes as a surprise as to the

types of applications that can be hosted.

The application that delivers the biggest

‘wow’ factor is our hosted voice services.

This service, in a nutshell, is a telephone

communications system in the cloud.

The reason many people are surprised

at the quality of these services is that

they reduce voice communications to just

another application for the data centre

to deal with. For organisations with

The application that delivers the biggest ‘wow’ factor is our hosted voice services.

“ ”

Cloud communications

>> CONT. PAGE TWO

Cloud strategy

multiple sites, hosting a communications

system in the cloud makes perfect sense.

No longer will each branch need a separate,

on site, telephone system. A central system

makes it easier to deploy a sophisticated,

companywide communications strategy.

In this edition of our newsletter you’ll find

out why one organisation, Lawson West

Solicitors, chose to use Abtec’s Hosted Voice

service.

Elsewhere, we’ll get some good advice about

disaster recovery planning, and find out how

to protect our organisations from a returning

problem, phishing emails.

As ever, if there’s anything IT related that

you’d like to discuss, give us a call on 01858

438 500. We’re always happy to share our IT

experience.

>> CONT. FROM PAGE ONE

Storm Desmond has swept across the

country, leaving a trail of destruction in parts

of Scotland and England.

It’s a timely reminder, if one were needed, that

now is the time to review our business continuity

and disaster recovery plans.

Regular reviewsIt’s best practice to tie in the updating of your plan

with each significant change that occurs within

your infrastructure. However, in reality, that can

often prove challenging, especially if you work in

a fast changing environment.

It’s worth remembering that the aim of a good

disaster recovery plan is not to replicate your

organisations ‘normal’ operating procedures, but

to get the essential elements working, so that

your business can operate.

We’ve been protecting organisations from

disaster for over 20 years. Our expertise has

helped keep businesses in the worst hit areas of

Storm Desmond operational.

We can:

• Build your business continuity strategy

• Reduce your recovery time objective,

getting you back up and running sooner

• Protect your applications and data with our

offsite storage services

• Provide auditable reviews and testing

Disasters are not always natural. Our business

continuity services could protect you from cyber-

security threats and malicious attacks.

To find out more or to book a free Disaster

Recovery audit contact our experts on 01858

438 500.

As we head into the season of bad weather now is the time to ensure that you are prepared for the worst.

Are You Prepared?

2

The Government’s Broadband Connection

Voucher Scheme, which began in

December 2013, has now closed.

The scheme gave small to medium enterprises

(SMEs) grants of up to £3,000 to offset the

cost of upgrading to faster broadband speeds.

The scheme certainly proved popular in the 50

designated cities. Around 55,000 vouchers for

superfast broadband connections were issued

to SMEs during the lifetime of the scheme;

37,000 since April 2015. The scheme’s

budget of £40m is now fully committed, hence

the reason its closure.

If you are in the market to improve your

internet connection speed we can still provide

you with a great value, high speed service.

We have a variety of high speed internet

services; from Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC)

at up to 80 Mbps to dedicated leased lines at

10 Gbps. We can also provide 3G and 4G

mobile data services, where available. The

great thing is that we can add these services

to your existing Abtec bill.

Abtec is an independent ISP dedicated to

delivering high quality network connections,

tailored to SMEs. Our network is used by

25% of the FTSE 350 Oil and Gas Producers

sector. We look after 10% of the UK’s

Building Societies communications networks.

We are trusted by some familiar household

names including National Grid and Norbert

Dentressangle.

To find out how our networks could benefit

you contact us on 01858 438500.

End of Broadband Voucher Scheme

Lawson-West is a high profile law firm in

Leicestershire. It offers a range of private

client and commercial legal services.

Business growth meant that the business needed

to move to larger premises.

Sustainable growthThe move presented the organisation with

the ideal opportunity to review its IT and

communications strategy.

Lawson-West brought in Abtec help create and

deliver that strategy. Vicky Jones, Director and

Head of Personal Injury, lead the project and

comments “We had experienced a number of

challenges with our current supplier and wanted

to work with someone who could help us build

the right strategy.”

Communications strategyVicky continues “It’s great to work with Abtec’s

team face to face. It’s made the process much

easier.”

Providing a resilient and flexible hosted

communications system was central to Abtec’s

strategy.

The company chose to use Abtec’s Hosted

Voice communications service. This telephone

system resides in Abtec’s private data centre

rather than on the client’s premises. It offers

sophisticated call routing and telephone

features without the capital expenditure of a

traditional, on premise, telephone system.

Residing in the cloud makes it much more

flexible than a traditional, ISDN connected,

telephone system. Additional calling capacity,

for example, can be added quickly without

having to wait for an engineer to connect new

telephone lines.

TransformationalAbtec’s Hosted Voice service represent the

first step in realising Lawson-West’s new IT

and communications strategy.

“I’d like to say a massive thank you to Abtec

on behalf of Lawson-West for all the help

provided.” comments Vicky, “This enabled us

to complete our office move and introduce

our new communications system on time and

without any problems.”

It ’s great to work with Abtec’s team face to face

“ ”

3

Case Study: Hosted Voicemakes it easy

Gone Phishing

The volume of phishing emails with macro attachments has

increased by 1,500%.

How do you protect your organisation from this threat?

4

You might not be surprised to learn that the attack technique of delivering malicious macros through phishing emails has made an unwelcome return.

Cybercriminals appear to have moved away

from sending emails with malicious URLs to

deliver malware. Recent reports1 indicate that

the trend has shifted to emails with attachments,

usually appearing to be benign Microsoft Office

documents.

A key reason for the resurgence of this technique

is that it prays on human, rather than technical,

fallibility.

Social engineeringOur defences against phishing emails have

become more sophisticated. Emails from banks

or service providers requesting readers to confirm

login details are often met with caution. Yet, if

we receive an email apparently from our own

domain, with a subject of ‘Staff Salaries.xlsx’ and

a spreadsheet attached, curiosity will often win

1 The Cybercrime Economics of Malicious Macros; Proofpoint Inc, 2015

over our caution.

That file could contain a macro and social

engineering will, again, enable it to deliver its

payload. Aware that most users will have their

Office security settings set to to block macros by

default the file will often have a visible message

asking the user to enable macros to view the

file’s content.

Enabling that macro will download malware

without the user’s knowledge. This opens the

door to a variety of keyloggers, Trojans and

viruses.

How to protect your organisationLike many aspects of security, there is no single

silver bullet. A layered approach can mitigate

many of the risks. Richard Pitman, one of Abtec’s

networks and security engineers, recommends

these five steps to help protect your business.

1. Education – Prevention is better than cure.

Raise awareness of the issue with your users.

Are they aware of phishing emails? How do you

spot a phishing email and what action is required

when you identify one?

2. Office security settings – Ensure that these

are set to disable macros (either with or without

notification).

3. Email filtering – Although an email filtering

service won’t stop 100% of the phishing emails

getting through. It should greatly reduce the

number reaching the inbox. Our email filtering

service ‘learns’ from other users behaviour to

help identify malicious emails.

4. Keep your anti-virus software up to date – I

know it can be a bit of a faff so it could be a good

time to consider an anti-virus service that you can

manage centrally and that automatically updates.

5. Tested DR policy – If the worst does happen,

a tested disaster recovery plan will help recover

your data get your users back working. We’ve

been helping organisations devise, deploy and

test DR plans for years. Like the scouts say, be

prepared!

Remember, if you need any help or advice about

securing your organisation’s IT give us a ring on

01858 438 500.

Image: M

aureen Did

de

Yusen Logistics (UK) Ltd is replacing its UK wide IT networking infrastructure. The company believes the move will improve its flexibility and increase efficiency.

“The new network will improve our IT capabilities”

says Simon Calver, Yusen Logistics (UK)

Networks Technical Lead. “It will make it easier

to share information with our clients in real time

and for us to add new distribution sites.”

IT specialists Abtec Network Systems will be

providing the new network. Phil Kennerdell,

Abtec’s Sales Director, points out, “We’ve

used our own national network which gives

Yusen Logistics faster connection speeds and

improved resilience.”

The network will connect Yusen’s distribution,

administration and datacentres together. A

diverse range of applications will be running

across the network including its warehousing

supply chain software and vehicle tracking data.

“It will support our focus on delivering customer

centric services for our clients” adds Simon.

As the Logistics firm’s reliance on IT continues

to grow, safeguarding this infrastructure was an

important network design consideration. Phil

notes “We’ve built additional resilience into the

network to ensure that Yusen can still operate

even in the highly unlikely event that disaster

strikes.”

The new network extends Abtec’s growth in the

third party haulage market. Its clients include

Norbert Dentressangle, the Road Haulage

Association and Panic Transport. Phil explains

the reasons for this growth, “Our understanding

of the needs of businesses in this sector help us

create unique services for haulage firms. These

services help businesses exceed their clients’

needs and can cut costs too.”

New network to increase flexibility for Yusen Logistics

5

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Barents House, Compass Point, Market Harborough, Leicestershire LE16 9HW

www.abtecnet.com01858 438 500 enquiry@abtecnet.com

Case Study: BuckinghamshireBuilding Society

Founded in 1907, Buckinghamshire Building

Society now has more than 11,000 savings

customers and 1,000 borrowers.

Prompted by the need to review its existing IT,

the Society engaged IT specialists Abtec Network

Systems. Kate Buggs, project lead at the mutual,

comments “We needed to work with a company

that has significant experience in the financial

sector.”

Abtec works with many UK building societies and

understands the industry’s regulatory framework.

Efficient and flexiblePhil Kennerdell, Sales Director at Abtec Network

Systems proposed a plan to satisfy the organisation’s

immediate and long term needs. “Our plan had two

aims; first create an infrastructure that could be

managed efficiently. Second, build flexibility into it

so that it can respond to future changes.”

Both aims were underpinned with high levels of

security and resilience.

Abtec’s engineering team began by replacing the

organisation’s estate of desktop PCs with Wyse

thin clients. This would make it easier for the

Society to manage their computers, and reduce

running costs.

Next, the team created a more resilient and flexible

data centre for the Society, using virtualisation

software. The organisation’s firewalls and wireless

access points were upgraded too. Abtec chose

Cisco equipment to help deliver market leading

security.

TransformationalBuckingham Building Society takes the safe

management of its members’ data very seriously.

Abtec now provides regular disaster recovery

testing. These audited tests provide evidence

that the organisation can recover data, restore

applications and continue to operate should an

interruption occur.

The project was delivered on time and in budget.

Kate comments “I’d certainly recommend Abtec

to other building societies. The team’s industry

expertise and technology skills have enabled us to

focus more resources on our members.”

Kate BuggsBuckinghamshire Building

Society

“I’d certainly recommend Abtec to other building societies.”