Best practices Archives - Macnamara ICT

Best practices

Leave Passwords in the Past: Why the NCSC Is Backing Passkeys for Login Security

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has delivered a clear new message: “Leave passwords in the past – passkeys are the future.” In April 2026, the NCSC formally updated its guidance to recommend using passkeys as the default way to log in wherever services support them, instead of traditional passwords (even those paired with multi-factor authentication). This is a major shift in cyber security advice, and overturns decades of password-centric best practices.

Macnamara Content Team 5 May 2026

Best practices

Making Sense of Information Security – Online Course

In this series of 5 short tutorials, ‘Making Sense Of Information Security’, Ciaran delivers a step by step guide on getting to grips with this at times tricky concept. Aimed at office managers, we cover areas such as how to get senior management buy-in, how to undertake a risk assessment, how to approach treatment of those risks, your responsibilities to data subjects under the GDPR, and more.

Ciaran Kenny 27 November 2024

Best practices

Is Your IT Support Cyber Essentials Certified?

Cyber Essentials is the minimum security baseline that all companies should aim to achieve. It checks to ensure that the very basics are covered, such as MFA on all Cloud service accounts, no admin rights for day-to-day use, and that security updates are installed promptly. If you are seeking to certify your own organisation, you should definitely ensure that your IT Support – who likely have far more access and control over your company data than you do – has at least this basic benchmark certification.

Geoff Courts 15 October 2024

Best practices

Data Loss Prevention Policies in M365

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies in Microsoft 365 (M365) are useful security measures designed to monitor or prevent legitimate, inadvertent or malicious sharing of sensitive information outside of an organisation. As companies have moved away from on-premises servers for file storage towards M365 SharePoint and OneDrive, more and more are using it to save all their company data. But many business are not using the full range of functionality and background security features that make M365 a truly powerful modern tool for work and collaboration.

Geoff Courts 13 September 2024

Best practices

How To Set Up Signatures In Outlook

Email signatures are important and have a number of purposes. A well designed signature can be a real benefit to your company brand. They also provide all your contact details, can be used to help with marketing campaigns, and if you’re a business, provide important required information about your company registration. Here’s some guidance on adding signatures in Outlook.

Geoff Courts 5 April 2024

Best practices

How To Get Best Experience From Your Wireless Access Point

We all know that Wi-Fi can be much more convenient for your office setup than connecting everything via cable, and as Wi-Fi speeds and connectivity get better, more offices are switching to wireless. However, many people have concerns that wireless is less reliable than cabled, and they worry that they will struggle with weak signals or frequent disconnections. This blog will provide you with all the knowledge you need to get the best wireless experience and keep you at your desk rather than under it, fiddling with cables.

Ash 5 April 2024

Best practices

What is Information Management and Information Security?

Before the cloud, when businesses were primarily working from an office, they knew where their information was, how people could access it, how it was backed up and how it was protected. Now since we’re ever increasingly working in the cloud and from multiple remote locations, it’s less clear. This can cause all sorts of problems and headaches for businesses, including a heightened risk of becoming the victim of fraud through to non-compliance with your legal and regulatory obligations.

Macnamara Content Team 9 November 2023

Best practices

Why You Shouldn’t Mix Personal and Business Browsing

Using browser profiles is extremely useful. It allows you to sign in on multiple devices and get the same bookmarks, passwords, and history across your devices. BUT, you should never use the same profile for work that you use for your personal browsing, and for good reason.

Geoff Courts 8 November 2023

Best practices

Why Use Managed Email Signatures?

While email signatures are not (let’s face it) the most glamourous aspect of IT, they are however often overlooked and under-appreciated. Not only can they be great for branding, they can even be used as an important element of your company security. There are also some regulatory reasons to have a signature on company emails too. ‘How can my email signature contribute to my security’ you ask? Good question!

Geoff Courts 13 July 2023

Best practices

Surviving The Summer Heat: How To Keep Your Devices Cool And Protected

As the summer sun beats down, it’s essential to keep our electronic devices from breaking a sweat. Whether you rely on a PC, laptop, mobile phone, or server, excessive heat can put a damper on their performance and even lead to functionality problems.

Hubert 19 June 2023

Best practices

Biometrics: Face The Future Of Digital Security

With 4 in 10 small businesses and a quarter of charities reporting cyber security breaches in the last 12 months * it’s more important to protect your personal and company data than ever before. With the increasing rise in cyber-attacks and data breaches, relying on a password alone can leave your computers, mobile devices, and online accounts in a vulnerable state. This is where passwordless sign-in can save the day.

Ash 5 June 2023

Best practices

Why Is The File Path Length Important?

The file path length is the total number of characters in the file path. This includes spaces and backslashes. When working with files and folders, it is important to consider the file path length. The Windows operating system has a maximum file path length of 260 characters, but this limit is often reduced to 255 characters due to some reserved characters that take up extra space. In this blog, we’ll discuss why file path length is important and the potential issues that can arise if the length of the file path is too long. Additionally, what can be done if you are encountering an error caused by a long file path.

Lee 18 May 2023

Best practices

Stay Safe Online: Why Public WiFi is a Risk You Can’t Ignore

Love using public WiFi? Beware! It can be dangerous. From hackers to identity theft, public WiFi can leave you vulnerable to all kinds of online threats. But do not worry, I have your back! In this blog, I will show you why public WiFi is so risky and give you some easy tips to stay safe. So, before you connect to that free WiFi hotspot, read on to find out how to protect yourself!

Hubert 3 May 2023

3d rendering of computer monitors with stock market data on the display

Best practices

How to Configure Your Display and Monitor Settings

Are you tired of straining your eyes and feeling uncomfortable while working on your computer? In today’s digital age, we spend a significant amount of time in front of computer screens. Configuring your display monitor settings can greatly enhance your computing experience and improve your work comfort.

Hubert 13 April 2023

Best practices

CEO Fraud – How It Works

CEO fraud is up there, along with phishing and ransomware, in the top three cyber threats facing small businesses. CEO fraud comes in a variety of more or less sophisticated forms, but most commonly appears as a forged email or SMS message purporting to come from the CEO or other senior person and asking for money to be transferred to meet some urgent requirement.

Ciaran Kenny 4 November 2022

Best practices

LastPass Password Manager

Password management can be a bit of a nightmare. We’re always told to use complex passwords that are hard to guess, and to never re-use passwords. But, in practice this can be a challenge to remember them all! Most of us may have dozens if not hundreds of online services that require a username and password to access. How on Earth are we supposed to have a different complex password for them all and be expected to remember them without writing them down?

The good news is, you don’t have to remember them, or write them down!

Geoff Courts 20 January 2022

Best practices

To Save or to Auto Save?

Save as you go. If ever there was a golden rule of working with computers, this is it. Anyone who has ever worked on a document before losing their progress to an application crash or power cut knows only too well the dangers of not saving your work. So the introduction of Auto Save in Office seems to be, on the face of it, an absolute gem. But how does it work and what if you need to turn it off?

Geoff Courts 13 September 2021

Best practices

Phishing – How Does It Work?

Everyone gets phishing emails. Unfortunately they’re everywhere. Most get filtered through to your junk folder or caught before they are even delivered, but some still get through. But what they are and how they work isn’t always clear. Here we’ll try to de-mystify an all too common and potentially dangerous nuisance.

Geoff Courts 13 April 2021

Best practices

Why you need a secure password

A strong password is essential for preventing others from gaining unauthorised access to your account or device. The stronger the password the more difficult it will be for a hacker to crack.

Fru 18 November 2020

Best practices

How to make a secure password

It can be hard to think of a password that you can remember when you need it, let alone multiple passwords and variations. What can make this is easier is using a methodology or naming convention for your passwords.

Fru 18 November 2020

Best practices

Why you shouldn’t password protect your Office Documents

Protecting your sensitive data with a password seems like a good thing to do, right? So why would we say it is not a good idea? Because protecting the location is better than protecting the document.

Geoff Courts 5 November 2020

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