Something that we take for granted. Most modern phones support mobile email so let's just go ahead, enter our user details and off we go! It's that easy for anyone.
Email has changed the way that we communicate. The usage of email can vary greatly between a business user and an individual. This is why before setting your phone up for email - especially if you're a business you need to think of the following basic questions.
Will this cost extra on my data usage?
Will I roam?
How often will the email update?
Do I need to syncronise my contacts and calendar too?
Is the connection secure between the phone and email server?
What happens if I lose my phone?
Depending on your phone make and model and mail server configuration there are various methods of communicating.
The Blackberry platform can be secure as long as it is configured properly. You see, the connection form the phone to the blackberry network is but then if you activated basic email on your phone then there is a good chance that the connection between Blackberry's servers and your email servers are insecure. This occurs when using technology that is unencrypted such as pop3, imap or outlook web access using the non-secure HTTP connection. There are however ways to secure this. But if you are using Microsoft Exchange in your organisation or Google Apps then with a little help, you can benefit from the Blackberry Enterprise Server Express at no extra cost on your service plan. This then offers truely secure and encrypted push email from your company network and without requiring any holes to be opened up on your company firewall. You can also have the choice of remotely locking and wiping your phone, enforcing certain features of the phone only to be allowed or disallowed use.
The next best thing is Exchange Activesync. This requires your company server to be running Microsoft Exchange or Small Business Server. You simply enter your username and password details in to the section of your phone and enter a secure push of email this way. This does however mean that certain security is in place such as your Exchange server using SSL encryption and that you have a strong username and password in place. If you do not, anyone could enter your user details and then view your emails, contacts and calendar details. Not ideal, the security relies heavily on your infrastructure being planned with security in mind and if you change your user password on the network then you need to remember to also change the details on your phone. Phones that use this technology are iphones, microsoft windows mobiles, google android and some sony and nokia handsets.
The more basic form of mobile email is pop3 and imap access. If you use these then often email is pulled at certain intervals and does not arrive immediately. If you use these methods and worry about security, look in to your provider providing imaps and pop3. These encrypt data from the phone to email server using SSL to stop any possibility of the messages or usernames and passwords being read.
Should you business wish to use any mobile email technology or wish to health check your existing system then please do not hesitate to contact us on our main website. http://www.firbanks.com
Thursday 19 May 2011
Friday 29 October 2010
Why encrypt your data
You wouldn't give a stranger your bank details would you? How about your email login and password? Of course not! If you lose your laptop, USB memory stick, mobile phone or blackberry how safe would you feel? Not only the loss of your work, contacts and emails (which of course you can retrieve from your most recent backup) and the wasted time getting back up and running caused. What happens to your machine in someone elses hands? It could be a competitor,,,
In this age of increasing cybercrime. More people are online than ever before and make use of computers from everything to writing correspondence and letters, keeping a database of your contacts, managing your finances whether commercial or private - you would think that people would be more aware of computer security but it seems that there are many patches in people's knowledge.
The majority of online banks issue card readers requiring the user to have a username, a password and a device accompanied by something that only the authorised user possesses - their debit card and their pin number. An excellence way to secure online transactions - you see, an attacker may guess a username and password but they also require access to the debit card and pin making it even harder to access unauthorised information.
Google apps have also recently deployed two factor authentication. Making use of the Android, iphone or blackberry by running an app providing an up-to-the minute key required to access your online account - thus safeguarding your work even further than just a username and password.
But it's great having online security but what about all of those documents that you carry on your computer or laptop? Securing an entire drive can be done in a matter of a few hours and does not cost much at all. Also causing hardly any disruption at all you can ensure that your data is for your eyes only and no one else. The data on the physical hard drive appears in no readable form whatsoever and you just need to enter the correct password upon bootup to access the data - simple!
Why didn't I do this before? I hear you ask.
Because you probably didn't know if was possible, easy, quick, seamless and transparent. No you know that it is, contact us at www.firbanks.com NOW to secure your data.
Have you PIN protected your mobile phone? Why not? If someone else possesses your phone your text messages, contacts, emails and any other data stored on the device is immediately accessible. Set a pin, it's simple! If you're not sure how to do it then contact us and we'll show you.
Your data is safe with us. Firbanks IT employ data encryption on all of our fixed office and portable laptops. We work with many customer's data during times of data recovery and you can feel safe that any data that passes our systems is entirely secure. Our email systems support two-step authentication - ensuring that only our staff have access to their email and no one else. All portable phones are protected each with their own unique key with remote wipe functions to completely wipe and disable the device should it fall in to the wrong hands.
Our office telephony systems are fully digital ensuring complete security and prevention of eaves droppers easily being able to listen in on the conversations.
Ask us on how you can work more securely. Don't leave your data to chance.
In this age of increasing cybercrime. More people are online than ever before and make use of computers from everything to writing correspondence and letters, keeping a database of your contacts, managing your finances whether commercial or private - you would think that people would be more aware of computer security but it seems that there are many patches in people's knowledge.
The majority of online banks issue card readers requiring the user to have a username, a password and a device accompanied by something that only the authorised user possesses - their debit card and their pin number. An excellence way to secure online transactions - you see, an attacker may guess a username and password but they also require access to the debit card and pin making it even harder to access unauthorised information.
Google apps have also recently deployed two factor authentication. Making use of the Android, iphone or blackberry by running an app providing an up-to-the minute key required to access your online account - thus safeguarding your work even further than just a username and password.
But it's great having online security but what about all of those documents that you carry on your computer or laptop? Securing an entire drive can be done in a matter of a few hours and does not cost much at all. Also causing hardly any disruption at all you can ensure that your data is for your eyes only and no one else. The data on the physical hard drive appears in no readable form whatsoever and you just need to enter the correct password upon bootup to access the data - simple!
Why didn't I do this before? I hear you ask.
Because you probably didn't know if was possible, easy, quick, seamless and transparent. No you know that it is, contact us at www.firbanks.com NOW to secure your data.
Have you PIN protected your mobile phone? Why not? If someone else possesses your phone your text messages, contacts, emails and any other data stored on the device is immediately accessible. Set a pin, it's simple! If you're not sure how to do it then contact us and we'll show you.
Your data is safe with us. Firbanks IT employ data encryption on all of our fixed office and portable laptops. We work with many customer's data during times of data recovery and you can feel safe that any data that passes our systems is entirely secure. Our email systems support two-step authentication - ensuring that only our staff have access to their email and no one else. All portable phones are protected each with their own unique key with remote wipe functions to completely wipe and disable the device should it fall in to the wrong hands.
Our office telephony systems are fully digital ensuring complete security and prevention of eaves droppers easily being able to listen in on the conversations.
Ask us on how you can work more securely. Don't leave your data to chance.
Friday 1 October 2010
Understanding SMTP and mail delivery
A couple of IT guys new to the business have recently enquired to the workings of SMTP. Below I attempt to explain the basics of how mail is delivered and accepted.
SMTP stands for 'Simple Message Transfer Protocol' and in itself is a very basic text form of message transfer. A straight forward set up would comprise of a server running mail software listening on port 25 for connections waiting for a sending mail server to connect to it. A listening mail server will be configured with a list of domain names in which it can accept email delivery. So for this example we'll use xyz.com.
When a sending server connects to the 'listener' on port 25 a few text based transactions take place. Mainly, the identity of the sending mail server - i.e. abc.com and the intended recipient of the email - for example fred@xyz.com. As long as the domain matches an approved list, the receiving server will accept delivery of the email, match the message to a user list and then either pass on the message or bounce it back to the sender (usually be making an outbound SMTP connection back to the sending server and generating a bounce message).
In order to receive an email the sending server must know how to reach it so here goes a basic explanation of DNS and MX records..
DNS servers are like an index which is searched upon to tell the requester the location of a server/service. We'll just focus on A and MX records for now.
Firstly, a server needs a name - mail.xyz.com will do for now. So, say the server listening for xyz.com's email has an internet IP address of 111.111.111.111 there would be an A record pointing to this.
It would look like
mail.xyz.com. A 111.111.111.111
It's as simple as that. But for mail transfer to work there also needs to be a 'mail exchange' record for xyz.com to explain where to send the email. We know it needs to go to mail.xyz.com so...
MX 5 mail.xyz.com.
Would be a typical entry that you would need. This tells the sending server that any mail for xyz.com is sent to mail.xyz.com which is based at the IP address of 111.111.111.111. The sending server than creates a connection on port 25 to 111.111.111.111 then transacts the email across.
All in all, this is a very basic, plain email system. There are many variables and security aspects and spam implications. As you can see, an SMTP receiver by itself just 'listens' for email. A bit like a postbox is ready to receive a letter from ANY sender. Without more advanced configuration a high risk of spam and the possibility of configuring an open relay is always a risk. We'll explain this in more detail soon.
SMTP stands for 'Simple Message Transfer Protocol' and in itself is a very basic text form of message transfer. A straight forward set up would comprise of a server running mail software listening on port 25 for connections waiting for a sending mail server to connect to it. A listening mail server will be configured with a list of domain names in which it can accept email delivery. So for this example we'll use xyz.com.
When a sending server connects to the 'listener' on port 25 a few text based transactions take place. Mainly, the identity of the sending mail server - i.e. abc.com and the intended recipient of the email - for example fred@xyz.com. As long as the domain matches an approved list, the receiving server will accept delivery of the email, match the message to a user list and then either pass on the message or bounce it back to the sender (usually be making an outbound SMTP connection back to the sending server and generating a bounce message).
In order to receive an email the sending server must know how to reach it so here goes a basic explanation of DNS and MX records..
DNS servers are like an index which is searched upon to tell the requester the location of a server/service. We'll just focus on A and MX records for now.
Firstly, a server needs a name - mail.xyz.com will do for now. So, say the server listening for xyz.com's email has an internet IP address of 111.111.111.111 there would be an A record pointing to this.
It would look like
mail.xyz.com. A 111.111.111.111
It's as simple as that. But for mail transfer to work there also needs to be a 'mail exchange' record for xyz.com to explain where to send the email. We know it needs to go to mail.xyz.com so...
MX 5 mail.xyz.com.
Would be a typical entry that you would need. This tells the sending server that any mail for xyz.com is sent to mail.xyz.com which is based at the IP address of 111.111.111.111. The sending server than creates a connection on port 25 to 111.111.111.111 then transacts the email across.
All in all, this is a very basic, plain email system. There are many variables and security aspects and spam implications. As you can see, an SMTP receiver by itself just 'listens' for email. A bit like a postbox is ready to receive a letter from ANY sender. Without more advanced configuration a high risk of spam and the possibility of configuring an open relay is always a risk. We'll explain this in more detail soon.
Thursday 23 September 2010
A Mobile landline
During the past few days, we have been getting exiting over our Mobile SIM cards. We are now able to provide mobile phone related services as well as our VOIP based switchboards. Or should I say a mobile phone service with a difference...
Our phone package is very unique. The phone can tag on as an internal extension to your switchboard, have the ability to transfer calls to and from the mobile phone, you can choose a landline direct number as well as make calls from your main office number.
During our testing I tagged our handset on to the Firbanks switchboard. I initially had to purchase a basic unlocked handset for testing purposes. The Nokia 2730 was perfect for the job as it has 3G capabilities (3G is required for our SIMS). I provisions our handset in a similar way to that of a traditional mobile phone operater, assigned it a phone number and tariff.
I had to say that initially I was anxious over the coverage. You see, our phones use the 3G part of the three and t-mobile networks. The coverage checkers explained that our office post-code did not have coverage. From field testing the phone, all locations have had superb coverage and the system has functioned every time. I am able to send and receive text messages, add the mobile to our office hunt group with the ability to answer remotely and then transfer the call to a colleague's extension. Call quality has been top-notch too. The mobile data can function at speeds of up to 14.4mbs and the cost of the service is also very reasonable.
If you are interested in this type of service or require a demonstration then please contact us at http://www.firbanks.com to arrange a visit. I'm sure that this product can assist a lot of users and fills a huge gap in the market. I am exited that Firbanks IT are able to provide such a product and training directly and for such a reasonable price.
Our phone package is very unique. The phone can tag on as an internal extension to your switchboard, have the ability to transfer calls to and from the mobile phone, you can choose a landline direct number as well as make calls from your main office number.
During our testing I tagged our handset on to the Firbanks switchboard. I initially had to purchase a basic unlocked handset for testing purposes. The Nokia 2730 was perfect for the job as it has 3G capabilities (3G is required for our SIMS). I provisions our handset in a similar way to that of a traditional mobile phone operater, assigned it a phone number and tariff.
I had to say that initially I was anxious over the coverage. You see, our phones use the 3G part of the three and t-mobile networks. The coverage checkers explained that our office post-code did not have coverage. From field testing the phone, all locations have had superb coverage and the system has functioned every time. I am able to send and receive text messages, add the mobile to our office hunt group with the ability to answer remotely and then transfer the call to a colleague's extension. Call quality has been top-notch too. The mobile data can function at speeds of up to 14.4mbs and the cost of the service is also very reasonable.
If you are interested in this type of service or require a demonstration then please contact us at http://www.firbanks.com to arrange a visit. I'm sure that this product can assist a lot of users and fills a huge gap in the market. I am exited that Firbanks IT are able to provide such a product and training directly and for such a reasonable price.
Monday 20 September 2010
VOIP explanation and Case Study
Voice over IP is often mis-interpreted as requiring computer equipment to function in a way similar to that of Skype. This is wrong. VOIP is a method of utilising the Internet to carry telephone calls rather than the standard telephone network. Calls can be VOIP to VOIP number (free) or VOIP to landline, mobile, international which means the Internet carries your voice data and then the call simply terminates at the standard telephone network and then routed to the destination.
Recently a recruitment company downsized from a staffed office to a home office. Firbanks were approached to handle the IT move. When BT were called to explain the situation the customer was told by BT that the customer would need a new phone number when moving to the home office as the Exchanges were in different locations.
Mark Banks of Firbanks IT explained an alternative to the customer. You do not need to process this through BT but you could move your number in to our online telephone system and then practically use the telephone anywhere with an internet connection. Mark Banks signed the customer up to a single number telephone system at a cost of £5 per month, for this the customer received the usual call divert, caller display, call waiting at no additional cost and all that was required to keep the phone number was to fill out a number porting form. This gives us permission to approach BT and gain control of the telephone number. During the transfer process it was possible to set the outbound caller ID to that of the customer's main number, use call diversion until the number had fully ported to our IP telephone system.
The customer now owns a Siemens DECT handset very similar to that of a standard cordless handset with a base that plugs in to his home broadband router. The customer now has a 2nd phone line that he can use for work at home without making an impact on his home phone line and no high installation fees or long wait times and all provided for £5 per month!
As a comparison, previously the customer used an ISDN based switchboard with average quarterly phone bills averaging £500.
Recently a recruitment company downsized from a staffed office to a home office. Firbanks were approached to handle the IT move. When BT were called to explain the situation the customer was told by BT that the customer would need a new phone number when moving to the home office as the Exchanges were in different locations.
Mark Banks of Firbanks IT explained an alternative to the customer. You do not need to process this through BT but you could move your number in to our online telephone system and then practically use the telephone anywhere with an internet connection. Mark Banks signed the customer up to a single number telephone system at a cost of £5 per month, for this the customer received the usual call divert, caller display, call waiting at no additional cost and all that was required to keep the phone number was to fill out a number porting form. This gives us permission to approach BT and gain control of the telephone number. During the transfer process it was possible to set the outbound caller ID to that of the customer's main number, use call diversion until the number had fully ported to our IP telephone system.
The customer now owns a Siemens DECT handset very similar to that of a standard cordless handset with a base that plugs in to his home broadband router. The customer now has a 2nd phone line that he can use for work at home without making an impact on his home phone line and no high installation fees or long wait times and all provided for £5 per month!
As a comparison, previously the customer used an ISDN based switchboard with average quarterly phone bills averaging £500.
Is there such thing as a mobile landline?
Yes there is! Today, we received our first batch of SIM cards that compliment our IP telephone systems. Now, not only can you have extensions at home or office but now the extension can be carried in your back pocket in the form of a mobile phone! You can also benefit from mobile data and text messages in the same way as a mobile phone except they can orginate from your landline number.
This is a huge milestone for Firbanks and our communications. Have you ever encountered a problem whereby you leave the office but feel that you should divert your desk phone only to find that where you are visiting is in a basement and has lousy mobile coverage? This can have an impact on your main number if your main line includes your desk phone within your hunt group as your mobile voicemail will be sucking in those messages and not allowing your colleagues to attend the calls.
Now that the switchboard integrates directly with a mobile SIM, there is also an element of intelligence that can route calls correctly and prevent things such as this from occuring. We will keep you updated with our testing and we hope to be able to provide our VOIP customers with the service very shortly.
This is a huge milestone for Firbanks and our communications. Have you ever encountered a problem whereby you leave the office but feel that you should divert your desk phone only to find that where you are visiting is in a basement and has lousy mobile coverage? This can have an impact on your main number if your main line includes your desk phone within your hunt group as your mobile voicemail will be sucking in those messages and not allowing your colleagues to attend the calls.
Now that the switchboard integrates directly with a mobile SIM, there is also an element of intelligence that can route calls correctly and prevent things such as this from occuring. We will keep you updated with our testing and we hope to be able to provide our VOIP customers with the service very shortly.
Monday 31 May 2010
Paul Cooper leaves Firbanks
Friday, 28th May was Paul's last day at Firbanks IT. Paul has been with the company for 1 1/2 years as part of the helpdesk support team. Paul, you will be missed and we wish you every success with your future endeavours.
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