Yahoo says "state-sponsored" hackers stole data on about 500 million users in what could be the largest publicly disclosed cyber-breach in history.

The breach included swathes of personal information, including names and emails, as well as “unencrypted security questions and answers”.

The hack took place in 2014 but has only now been made public.

Software as a services (SAAS) is becoming increasingly popular. MYOB, Sage and Xero are common cloud based accounting systems. With the recent data breach of Sage (a UK based company); personal information for UK businesses and employee information has been exposed.

Whilst 3Sixty support SAAS we strongly recommend that our clients use password managers and encourage strong and unique passwords. New Zealand businesses are at risk as those companies in Europe and the US.

Get in contact with one of our team at our Auckland or Christchurch office and we would be more than happy to see how we can help make your business more secure.

Within the last couple of days Delta Airlines have cancel or delayed thousands of flights. This kind of business disruption can cost thousands of dollars, lost of client and lots of stress for the employees who (1) have to cope with the contingency and (2) the catch up with activities to bring life back to the norm.

At 3SixtyNZ ( 360 ) we take care and try our best to make your business as bullet proof as possible, however in real world we have unforeseen circumstances.......

With the experience gained over decades of support and management of it systems 360 helps businesses to keep their business running in normal times and those unpredictable times where things are just mess.

Give 360 a call and we would be more than happy discuss how we can help your business in good and bad times.

How safe is New Zealand? The Australian census website was shut down by what authorities said was a series of deliberate cyber attacks from overseas hackers.

Millions of Australians were prevented from taking part in the national survey on Tuesday night.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had boasted only hours before that its website would not crash.

The prime minister assured the public that their personal information was not compromised.

Whilst security of systems is paramount for countries and businesses if your business was hacked where would that leave the management and staff. Obviously the downtime and stress would be disastrous, would the business be able to survive?

At 3 Sixty we focus on security; to start with cloud backups and contingency recovery exercises are part of the IT Services that we provide.

Press Release

360 NZ is pleased to announce the release of our new help-desk system. We have retired our Zendesk system and migrated to our own custom built '3SixtyNZ Tracker System [360TS]'.

We have been trialing and configuring the 360TS system with some of our Auckland and Christchurch clients over the last quarter and are very excited as we are able to drive better efficiency internally and for our businesses that we support.

One of the downsides of the old help-desk system was the mass of emails automatically generated every-time a change was made. This consequently lead many of our clients just auto-filing the help-desk correspondence and / or the creation of a meaningless paper trail.

What happens now is that you get an acknowledgement email, then we resolve activity as we have done in a timely fashion over the last decade.

We will be introducing weekly/monthly automated reporting for our clients during the next quarter.

3SixtyNZ IT Support Team

With the close proximity of users, offices and competitors in Auckland's CBD a cyber-security research firm has warned that information typed on a wireless keyboard can be easily intercepted.

San Francisco-based Bastille said keyboards transmitted what was being typed in "clear text", making it possible for attackers to listen in on from up to 75m away.

New Zealand companies that with affected keyboards could not be updated and should be replaced. Contact a member of the 360 team to learn more.

3Sixty take security very seriously and provide leading security advise to companies across New Zealand.

Friday 29 July marks the last day to get a free upgrade to the Windows 10 operating system. Call 3Sixty right now so we can save you approx $200 on you operating system licenses. Eligible devices include tablets and PCs running Windows 7 or newer.

3 Sixty provide IT support and strategic advice to businesses in NZ.

Microsoft has said it will miss its target of getting its Windows 10 operating system running on more than one billion devices by 2018.

In a statement, it said problems with its smartphone business would delay it hitting the milestone.

The software giant has struggled to find customers for Windows phones in a market dominated by Android and Apple.

Microsoft says Windows 10 is in active use on about 350 million separate devices at present. 3 Sixty has rolled out Windows 10 to a number of customers in New Zealand and feed back has been positive. If you looking for a new IT Support Partner then get in contact with us.

Up to 10 million Android smartphones have been infected by malware that generates fake clicks for adverts, say security researchers.

The software is also surreptitiously installing apps and spying on the browsing habits of victims.

The malware is currently making about NZ$417,000 a month for its creators, suggests research.

The majority of phones that have been compromised by the malicious software are in China. 3 Sixty recommends Nexus and Samsung phones due to security and compaterbility with andriod OS

Computer security company Symantec has patched eight security holes discovered in its own security software.

Researchers at Google's Project Zero informed Symantec of "multiple critical vulnerabilities", which they said were "as bad as it gets".

The vulnerabilities were present in Symantec and Norton-branded security software such as Norton Antivirus.

Symantec said: "Fixes are currently in place, and updates are now available for customers to install."

The vulnerabilities were fixed before Project Zero - which aims to discover security holes in software before they can be exploited by criminals - made the details public.

Whilst Symantec is a very popular AV program 3 Sixty NZ recommend award winning ESET NOD. We have found that the foot print and the leanness of NOD works better for us and our clients.

In the Android world, security concerns are so widespread that rarely does a week go by that we don’t have to touch on it in some form or another. At Google I/O 2016, Android developers cited security issues on the operating system as being the largest problem the team is having to deal with. In spite of efforts on the part of Google, manufacturers, and even the FTC and FCC, security patches simply aren’t getting rolled out to devices in a timely enough manner. It’s gotten so bad that one top security research recommends Android users only buy Nexus or Samsung devices.

The chief executive of Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus, Brendan Iribe, has become the latest in a string of company bosses to have their social media accounts hacked.

The Oculus boss had his Twitter account compromised, but it is now restored.

Google's Sundar Pichai, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Uber's Travis Kalanick and Twitter's Dick Costolo have all fallen victim to similar hacks.

Hacking group OurMine has claimed responsibility for many of these hacks.

It does not appear to be behind the hacking of Mr Iribe's Twitter page though.

His account was compromised on 29 June, with the hacker announcing himself as the "new CEO" of Oculus and questioning why the chief executive behind "such cool technology" had been using a four-year-old password.

The hacking group OurMine said it plans to target more tech execs and celebrities

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has become the latest tech executive to have a social media account hacked, and the group responsible says more targets will follow.

On Sunday, a group of hackers calling themselves OurMine briefly took over Pichai’s account on Quora, a question-and-answer site.

"We are just testing your security,” the hackers wrote, with the same message auto-posted via Quora to Pichai’s Twitter account. On Monday, the posts had been deleted.

OurMine is the same group that hacked the social media accounts of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this month, and they've claimed other victims too, including the CEO of Spotify and a prominent Amazon executive.

The hacks have been fairly innocuous so far, with no major repercussions or sensitive data stolen. But Silicon Valley types are likely wondering who'll be next.

3 Sixty NZ take security very seriously and if you do not want to suffer the embarrassment of explaining to your staff, partners and customers about a poor security update strategy then come and speak to 3 Sixty NZ.

Much like fashion, web design is constantly changing with trends and fads coming and going. When it comes to creating a website that will make a professional impression, you will always do well to keep everything up to date and on trend. After all, when you go to an interview don’t you want to look your best? If you answered “absolutely!” then here are 5 crucial web design tips to keep in mind:

1. Keep it clean and clutter-free

The world around us has become quite cluttered and the web is no exception. Ads, banners, icons, badges, signs, pop-ups, buttons, and so on – sometimes it can all get a bit heavy. So why not give your site visitors a break from all the noise and clutter? Embracing things like flat design and white space (you can read more about both these terms here) can do wonders for your site visitor’s experience. Try to keep everything simplistic or even minimal with only your most important content spotlighted. Sometimes less really is more.

2. Do some web design recon

If you’re reading this blog, you’re already on the right path. But you can take your research a step further and start looking at websites with a specific purpose: to figure out what you like about them and what you don’t. Make some mental or actual notes on what you would like to emulate on your own site. Do you think a long scrolling page would work well with your site? Maybe you really admire someone elses approach to their contact page. It can be something as small as imitating a use of an arrow icon that points to an important message. Whatever it is you find appealing, think about how you can make it happen in your own website’s design scheme.

3. Put visual hierarchy to use

Visual hierarchy, what’s that again? It’s a term that basically means our eyes pay attention to web space in a certain pattern – a pattern that can help you optimize important content on your site. For example, if you create a ‘sign up now’ button, you likely want as many people as possible to click it and follow-through with the sign-up process. Visual hierarchy tells us that the eyes move top to bottom, left to right. This means you’ll get the most eyes on your button in the top left corner of your site, and those eyes could very well mean more clicks. Remember, only put your most important content in these coveted spaces – if you put too much in one spot your visitor will be overwhelmed and you won’t get the result you’re aiming for.

4. Make your text easy to read

Text is important. It’s there to provide information and answer questions even before they’ve been asked. With that said – don’t make your readers squint to read it. There are a few simple rules you can adhere to that will keep you and your text in the clear.

Make sure your colors work together. For example: putting cream colored text on a white background will either leave your site visitors with a headache or make them give up and move on. Neither of these outcomes are desirable – so make sure you double check all your text for it’s ease of readability.Don’t use uber-tiny font size. While it might look cute, it’s just not practical. Make sure your readers won’t need a magnifying glass to figure out your message.Stand by your fonts. Create a theme and even carve out a brand where your site sticks to no more than three fonts – two might even be better. For extra points, make sure the fonts you choose are reader-friendly and don’t leave your visitors wondering if they’re reading Sanskrit.

5. Get the most out of the mobile version of your site

What good is a professional-looking website if it’s not professional-looking on mobile devices? In today’s world, zilch. Despair not! The Wix website builder comes fully equipped with an intuitive mobile editor and it’s ready to be used this to it’s full potential. Make changes that keep all of the above tips in mind and toggle between the editor and the preview version so you can see your changes put into action. After all, you don’t want to miss out on potential site visitors/users/customers just because they’re on the subway, do you?

There are now more than 120 separate families of ransomware, said experts studying the malicious software.

Other researchers have seen a 3,500% increase in the criminal use of net infrastructure that helps run ransomware campaigns.

The rise is driven by the money thieves make with ransomware and the increase in kits that help them snare victims.

Ransomware is malicious software that scrambles the data on a victim's PC and then asks for payment before restoring the data to its original state. The costs of unlocking data vary, with individuals typically paying a few hundred pounds and businesses a few thousand.

A destructive scam email that infects computers and holds them hostage has successfully targeted at least 10,000 Australians since it was detected this week, a cybersecurity analyst says.

The email, purporting to be from energy company AGL, sends a fake bill and prompts the recipient to click on a link to download a copy.

It then saves a .zip file on the computer which, when extracted, locks the machine down using malware known as "ransomware". The recipient is prompted to pay $US640 ($A880) to unlock it

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/consumer-security/thousands-targeted-by-ransomware-email-scam-which-copies-agl-energy-bills-20160603-gpb9ty.html#ixzz4Ar0WGtWo Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

Microsoft has tackled a problem with its email filters that had prevented them from properly screening out spam.

It first acknowledged the problem with Outlook and Hotmail on Tuesday evening.

"Some users may be receiving excessive spam mail," a service page update stated.

The company later said it had managed to put in place two sets of fixes to protect users' inboxes and its own infrastructure.

Many affected users had complained about the issue on social media.