The support for Windows XP with Service Pack 3 ends 8th April 2014. If you’re running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3) after support ends, to ensure that you will receive all important security updates for Windows, you need to upgrade to a later version, such as Windows 7 or 8.
As if Apple weren’t embarrassed enough…
Some smart person has found a bug in iOS 6.1 which effectively renders the lock screen entirely useless. By doing a bit of this and a bit of that whilst the phone is in a locked state, any person that knows the simple process can make use of the bug in iOS to unlock the iPhone 5 in a matter of seconds.
As IT Consultants, we’re not going to give you the process for doing it. We want to make users of the iPhone 5 aware of this serious security flaw so that you can be extra vigilant with your iPhone until Apple get around to releasing a fix for this mess.
By sliding to unlock, doing a few other things, then pushing the sleep/wake button, the phone will unlock as if you’ve entered the pin code (and no, you don’t enter the pin code!).
The Information Commissioner’s Office has urged organisations to review their policies on how personal data is handled, after the Nursing and Midwifery Council was issued a £150,000 civil monetary penalty for breaching the Data Protection Act.
The council arranged for the DVDs, which contained confidential video files relating to alleged offences by a nurse as well information about two vulnerable children, to be couriered to a hearing in October 2011. Upon arrival it was found that the package didn’t contain the DVDs.
The council lost three DVDs related to a nurse’s misconduct hearing, which contained confidential personal information and evidence from two vulnerable children. An ICO investigation found the information was not encrypted. The DVDs are yet to be found.
David Smith, Deputy Commissioner and Director of Data Protection, said:
“It would be nice to think that data breaches of this type are rare, but we’re seeing incidents of personal data being mishandled again and again.
Please remember this is a work in progress and we’ve just created this page on the fly!
The Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi just runs one of the stock images available from the RaspberryPi.org site (Raspbian “wheezy”). On top, we’ve chucked Nginx and PHP. We’ve not given instructions on how to do the Nginx and PHP as a quick Google search shows enough information to allow you to do this 
(You’ll notice that a lot of the content here simply says “Go Google”. Sorry about that!).
At this point you should make yourself aware of the GPIO pins on the Pi. Print out the schema so that you have it to reference: http://elinux.org/RPi_Low-level_peripherals
You can see the GPIO pins on the top left of the Pi
The Relay and the Remote
The relay board connects to the Pi using the pin outs.
It’s almost Christmas! This year we’ve taken our decorations to the extreme. We’ve given YOU the ability to log on to our website and take control over Christmas lights!
Jump onto http://christmas.considerit.co.uk and join in the fun!
If it’s busy, you’ll need to wait in a queue for a little bit, but be patient, it’s a great laugh!
Let us know what you think by leaving a message on our Facebook page or sending us an email: hello@considerit.co.uk!
Have a really great Christmas!
The Consider IT Team
There is currently a massive increase in complaints from Skype users in relation to viruses. The newest and the one that seems to be infecting a lot of users at the moment is one that sends a message to the users with the text:
lol is this your new profile pic?
The users are asked to then click a link and are taken to a downloadable .ZIP file which will infect your computer.
Skype advise that all users update their Skype application and make sure they have up to date anti virus running at all times. More importantly, we advise users to be cautious. When you see links from friends, always be careful and check that they are genuine.
Emails that claim to be “Urgent” are highly likely to contain malware as attachments a new report reveals. FireEye released a report (view it here) that details a list of top words used in phishing emails (those are emails that pertain to be from various legitimate sources with the intent of infecting the machine or conning the user to give out important information).
The attackers mainly use zip files to hide their malware, ultimately aimed at gaining access to valuable corporate and intellectual data. It appears very few corporate establishments block these kinds of executables, which FireEye’s research confirms.
The report also shows a decrease in the use of ZIP files from last year (2011), a decrease in the use of standalone EXE executables, but an increase in PDF files.
Hackers have managed to install malware on to brand new factory built and sealed PCs. This brings a whole new meaning to the old term “All Your PCs are belong to us!”
Microsoft is warning that cybercriminal gangs have managed to get the Nitol bug and other dangerous malware software installed to one in five laptops and PCs checked by their investigators. To avoid any confusion, it should be noted that reputable vendors such as Dell, HP etc. are not affected by this.
The malware installed could give the criminals control of the computers, allowing them to watch every tap of the keyboard to steal personal information including your name, address, details of any holidays and credit card information – whether it’s going down an encrypted channel or not.
Local police in Cambodia have announced that one of the founders of the Pirate Bay, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, has been arrested as a result of an international warrant issued against him last April by his homecountry Sweden.
The country reacted after Warg failed to turn up for the beginning of his 1 year jail sentence for multiple copyright violations.
“His arrest was made at the request of the Swedish government for a crime related to information technology,” Cambodia’s police spokesman Kirth Chantharith told the AFP news agency.
“We don’t have an extradition treaty with Sweden but we’ll look into our laws and see how we can handle this case,” the spokesman added.
Warg, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and their financier Carl Lundstroem were convicted by a Swedish court for encouraging copyright violations in 2009.
A Hertfordshire police website has been hacked, leading to the publication of what appear to be login details and passwords for dozens of officers and part of the police force’s website has been taken down as a “precaution” while investigations continue. Hertfordshire Police said information stored on an externally hosted database had been published on the internet.
The information which includes phone numbers and IP addresses, relates to a number of officers in Safer Neighbourhood Teams.
The Police force said in a statement:
“Hertfordshire Constabulary is currently investigating following the publication on the internet of information stored on a database linked to the public Safer Neighbourhoods pages of the external Constabulary website.
“As a precaution these pages have been temporarily disabled whilst the circumstances as to how this information was obtained is investigated.
