We are excited to announce that today marks the launch of our 2017 Internet Safety Poster Competition! The competition ties in with Safer Internet Day on 7 February which aims to promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

Three schools are in with a chance of winning with prizes available for first, second and third place. The winning student’s school will receive £500 worth of eSafe vouchers, second place wins £250 worth of eSafe vouchers and third place £100 of eSafe vouchers. Each of the three winning pupils will also receive a fantastic Polaroid iF045 14.0 MP Compact Digital Camera!

The competition, which is aimed at children aged between 4-11, will be judged by four prominent figures; Gary Shipton, Editor in Chief of Sussex Newspapers; Tim Loughton, Conservative MP for Worthing East and Shoreham; Mark Donkersley, Managing Director at eSafe and James Stoner, founder and Managing Director at JSPC.

Our 2015 Internet Poster Competition was a great success with some really exciting entries. The competition was entered by lots of children in Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex, drawing their attention to the dangers they may face online. We are hoping that our 2017 competition is just as successful and helps us to educate even more young people about the importance of online awareness and enjoying the Internet in a safe and positive way.

Posters should promote the importance of Internet safety and can be drawn, painted, collaged or designed on a computer. The most creative and interesting design will win!

To enter, please send your creations to shelley@jspc.co.uk, give to a JSPC Technician or post them to the JSPC office address by 28th February 2017. For further information and terms and conditions please click here.

Calling all schools on Exa! You will be pleased to hear that Exa has launched a status checker for their services. The new checker notifies when Exa are experiencing problems with their broadband or mail services, it also details any planned upgrade or maintenance works they undertake.

To subscribe, click this link and scroll down to the green ’Subscribe’ button at the bottom of the page. You will then be asked to enter your email address to receive emails about any Exa issues or updates.

We know that many of you receive your emails on your phone. This new service means that even if the Internet is temporarily down you will easily be able to access up-to-date information regarding any Exa problem via your mobile and determine whether there is an overall issue or if it is a problem specific to your school.

As always, if you are concerned by any issue please feel free to give us a call on 01903 767122.

Cybercrime targeting schools is on the rise and with the New Year is a new scam making the rounds. Knowledge is power when it comes to these kind of attacks, so we wanted to make sure that our schools are in the know about this latest attempt by fraudsters.

The most recent approach is for someone to ring the targeted school from the Department of Education (not the genuine Department for Education) requesting email contact details for the school’s Headmaster or Finance Administrator. They state the reason for requiring the direct email address and not just the school’s generic email is because they are sending across guidance forms containing sensitive information.

Once they receive the email address they will send an email containing a .zip file which could also be disguised as a Word or Excel file. The attachment will contain ransomware which once downloaded will encrypt files and then the fraudsters will demand up to £8,000 to recover them.

Contact us on 01903 767122 if you have any concerns.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to block systems until a sum of money is paid. Incidents of this kind are on the rise in schools and colleges across the UK so it is important to have the correct protection in place.

Anti-virus software relies on malicious files having been seen before and being assigned a ‘signature’ so that they can be identified and neutralised. However, ransomware is becoming more sophisticated and evolving so rapidly that often variants are being used for the first time and therefore slipping though the net.

The common misconception is that once a ransom is paid you gain access to your systems again. However, the only guaranteed method of being able to regain access to data is an effective, secure, offsite backup regime which enables your school to ‘rewind’ to a date before the compromise occurred.

Call us to speak to one of our experts.