General

Glo’s Recent NPS Survey

Recently we carried out an NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey to ensure that we are providing excellent service to our customers. We would like to thank everyone for taking the time out of their hectic schedules to fill out this survey for us, we really do appreciate it! An NPS score is a universal measurement that businesses use to measure customer satisfaction & business growth. The survey is very simple, just one simple question that you’ve probably seen before from other NPS surveys. “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”, with a scale of 1-10 to answer with. We can then use these results to see issues that may go unseen without the aid of this survey. Overall, we are very happy with our results with a score of 59 from 39 responses (68% response rate). For reference, any score above 0 is considered to be “good”, above 50 is “Excellent” & 70 or above is “World Class”.  According to a 2014 study conducted by TemkinGroup, the average NPS score for the Technology/Software/Hardware industry is 30. An NPS score of 59 is quite an achievement & we are very proud to hit…

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General

Phone System Changes

If you are an existing Glo customer you may have noticed some changes to our phone systems if you’ve had to call us lately. To fulfill our ongoing commitment to excellent communication with our customers, we have made the decision to remove the menu from our phone system. So now when you give us a call on 0330 2230 033 you will receive a short welcome message to Glo, just to make sure you’re calling the right people for the job, then you will be on the phone to one of our engineers to solve your IT problems ASAP! We have gone in this direction as we understand more than anyone else that the last thing you want when trying to resolve an issue, is to be stuck in a menu & not actually getting any closer to resolving the issue at hand. It’s not just us that thinks this way, a Consumer Report from 2015 reported that 75% of people described the process of waiting to talk to a human being when calling a phone number as “Highly annoying” & a further 57% of people said that they have hung up before speaking to anyone out of frustration with…

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General

How to protect your business against email phishing scams

What is a phishing scam?   A phishing scam is any attempt to fraudulently obtain personal information or bank details, and involves a cyber criminal posing as a trustworthy entity or company. These online scams are often carried out over email, and nearly always have malicious intent behind them. Cyber criminals deceive the email receiver with empty threats, harmful links, and often act as well-known companies. They can then steal your business’ sensitive information, or make unauthorised payments with your details – leaving your business in an undesirable situation. A phishing scam email will look something like this:   Netflix phishing scam Late 2017, Netflix subscribers were targeted by a phishing scam. Users were hit with an email trying to trick them into thinking that their accounts were going to be suspended. The targeted and personalised emails told users that they’d need to update their billing information, and must ‘restart their membership’, if they wanted their subscription to continue. The deceptive email also had a link to a fake Netflix site, which it urged users to click on. Netflix has over 109 million worldwide subscribers, all of which were in danger of having their credit card details stolen.   Qatar…

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General

Do you have an effective IT security policy?

Most businesses are aware of possible threats to their IT security from external sources. They understand the need for antivirus software, they know how to treat suspicious emails, and they appreciate the importance of keeping their servers and PCs up to date. However, often little attention is given to possible internal threats. It’s important to protect your company’s IT infrastructure, as internal threats are often as dangerous as external. Threats to your business’s IT systems could come from a variety of sources—an individual with malicious intent, an ex-employee, or an employee who didn’t intend to compromise security. Such threats can be avoided by implementing a set of policies which must be adhered to by individuals who have access to your company’s assets and resources. An effective internal IT security policy is one that is tailored to a company’s existing cultural and structural framework to support the daily functions of the business and not impede on its organisation and goals. We’ve defined five possible threats to your internal IT security, along with five policy suggestions that can help mitigate them.    1. Password sharing Would you share your credit card PIN or bank password? The answer is no—and it should be…

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General

The Processor Bugs of 2018 (aka Meltdown and Spectre) – What you need to...

You may have heard about a pair of security flaws (aka Meltdown and Spectre) that have been found in almost all recent processors that will require updates to Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS (iPhones, iPads, etc.), Android, FreeBSD …. Basically everything. We’ve compiled a short list of questions that will hopefully help our customers understand what’s going on and how we’re approaching things. If you have more questions, or just want to talk please either raise a support ticket or give us a ring. So what does this all mean, exactly? You can get full information from meltdownattack.com (it’s really well designed and well written, we encourage you to take a look), however the simple version is that both flaws allows programs and virtual machines to access areas of memory that they shouldn’t. This allows data to potentially get stolen. One attack (Meltdown) affects just Intel processors. The second attack (Spectre) affects at least Intel, AMD, and ARM processors. Is this just theoretically possible? How likely is it really? People have demonstrated stealing things like passwords and reading memory from virtual server hosts using specifically designed exploits already, so it is serious and not just theoretical. Companies like Microsoft and Amazon…

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Disaster recovery

Why you need a disaster recovery plan

Most companies rely heavily on their internet connections. The impact of an outage can be detrimental to infrastructure and applications, which makes operations struggle to continue. In 2016, 72% of businesses experienced an internet failure. This downtime cost UK companies around £12 billion in lost productivity and extra overtime. It’s vital to have a quality disaster and recovery system in place, as the failure to recover from a prolonged IT outage could put you out of business. What is a disaster recovery plan? A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a crucial part of any business continuity strategy. It’s a documented set of procedures to protect and recover a business IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster. The step-by-step plan consists of detailed precautions to minimise the impact of any disaster on the company. Disaster can strike due to a number of reasons, such as natural disaster, technological failures, human error, terrorism or intentional sabotage by hackers. According to the ”ESG Research Review Data Protection Survey” from Enterprise Strategy Group, 53% of businesses can tolerate less than an hour of downtime. With an effective disaster recovery plan in place, data should be secure and accessible to all employees. This means…

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Glo News

Glo Networks featured in the latest issue of the Bristol Business Post

We were approached by Bristol Business Post Media to give our view on the recent security breaches, data protection and IT security. We also gave our own take on GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The legislation will cover threats to IT systems – including power failures, hardware failures and environmental hazards. We explained how GDPR will affect businesses in the UK. Including the fine of up to £17 million, or 4% of their global turnover, for failure to protect themselves from hackers. Chris Connor, MD at Glo Networks, explains the implications of the new legislation in the article: ‘’The figures being mentioned sound worrying – but the truth is any company with the right policies and procedures in place would be covered.’’ ‘’The risk is highest when you are self-managing your IT systems or using a smaller firm for the purpose that isn’t geared up for the new landscape. We always set up clients in a way that is compliant with the new legislation and using the latest security systems.’’ Read our comprehensive guide to GDPR to find out more about the regulation, and how you can prepare. To read the full article, see below: Companies in the UK could…

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General

10 unforgettable cyber security disasters of the past decade

In an ideal world, everybody’s personal data would always be safe and secure 24/7/365. Yet data breaches happen daily and, unfortunately, large companies holding millions of people’s data are often the target of hackers. There have been many cyber security disasters in the past decade. In the UK alone, almost half of businesses have been hit by a cyber breach or attack in 2017. There is a chance that you may have even been involved in one yourself. Our list consists of the companies which have suffered the biggest consequences of cyber breaches and attacks in the UK and the USA. Read on to see who could’ve been more careful… 1. Yahoo Date: August 2013 Consequence: 3 billion users affected & $350 million knocked off Yahoo’s value Details: Yahoo takes the top spot as the most disastrous cyber-attack of all time. In 2016, while in negotiations with Verizon, Yahoo announced it had been the victim of the biggest data breach in history.It first claimed that the breach affected 1 billion users. Later, it then admitted that it had also suffered a second cyber-attack in 2014, and 500 million people’s data was stolen by hackers. Yahoo also revealed that it thought…

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General

6 benefits of outsourcing your IT department

Outsourcing key business services is common practice within SMEs. Many businesses already outsource their marketing, finances and logistics to other companies with more expertise – relieving themselves of the stress. A functioning and efficient IT system is crucial for the performance of daily tasks within your business, but IT departments can require costly hardware and an experienced team. The average small business spends 6.9% of its revenue on IT, which can take its toll on your company’s budget We’ve summarised the six main benefits that come with outsourcing your IT department. 1. Focus on your core competencies to increase productivity Through outsourcing, productivity will be increased as your employees focus on the job for which they were hired. If one of your team is ‘kind of’ good at IT, they can become lumbered with tasks such as fixing computers or networks, which will distract from their core duties. For example, if your company is particularly focused on customer service, and you generate most of your business from customer-focused phone calls and interactions, then devoting energy to areas which are not in your expertise – such as IT – could be counterproductive. Research shows that 48% of UK companies choose to…

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Cloud

6 benefits of cloud computing you need to know

 What is cloud computing? First things first, what exactly is the ‘cloud’? Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services – such as storage, databases, networking, software and analytics – over the internet. When you take a picture on your smartphone, it is stored on your phone’s internal memory drive. However, when you upload the photos to Instagram, you are uploading it to the cloud. Companies using the cloud grow 19.3% faster than their competitors. The adoption of the cloud in your business could be more beneficial than you previously thought. Check out the six benefits of the cloud which you could make the most of.  1. Instant availability Cloud-based applications and data are accessible from virtually any internet-connected device. So, as long as you’ve got internet, you’re good to go. Cloud apps for storage (such as Dropbox), for document sharing (such as Google Docs), for team collaboration (such as Slack) or CRM systems (such as Salesforce) mean that it’s easier than ever for your employees to work from anywhere in the world. Businesses can provide employees with a work-life balance which suits them and doesn’t impede productivity. You may be worried that this quantity of data in the cloud may…

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