tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 25+ years working with over 100 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. Also a healthy music knowledge music over the last 5 decades Available for independent housing RSL implementation, procurement of HMS, Repairs, CRM, EDM, DLO, Financial, Scheduling systems, critical friend etc. In Scotland I work with the folks at Arneil Johnston Check us out on Soundcloud /housingitguy

Friday, 23 September 2022

Dark Matter

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I am familiar with the ‘Dark Web’, although I have never done any transactions on it, spookily enough. I know what its used for and what stuff ends up there. Not a decent place for nice folk I guess.

So, having read about the big recent Clarion Housing Group cyber attack, it was interesting last week to read that the police were warning residents, that it's likely their personal data has been compromised and may end up on the Dark Web. If I were a Clarion resident, to be honest I would have preferred to have heard this direct first from my landlord with an apology, rather than my local county police force. This isn't the first of this kind and will not be the last either.

As been covered in this blog in past posts, data loss and cyber awareness are risks to be evaluated and mitigated, what ever kind of organisation. From the particular viewpoint of social housing residents, loss of data, be it personal, direct debit sort codes/accounts or whatever, can be catastrophic.

While this data breach has been reported in the housing press over the last few weeks, potential loss of data has been played down, while reportedly many weeks of disruption have been suffered by customers. If a breach of personal data can be proven, clearly there are penalties that should be served on Clarion. Clearly, this lost data could be exploited this month or anytime in the future.

While we cannot undo what has gone before, how could this (potential) data breach have been prevented?

Well for starters, have some serious cyber awareness in place. Have your staff as aware of potential dangers, as well as putting the logical and software blocks/measures in place. Often our staff, the human firewall if you like, can be our Achilles heel. Lack of an enforced password policy can be the means of easy attack, tighten up and ensure that an appropriate password policy is in place and followed. Do we limit our users’ execution permissions effectively and enforce the principle of least privilege?

Have we got boundary firewalls and internet gateways tightened up? Can we detect and block executable downloads, continuously block access to known malicious domains?

What’s our malware protection like? Have we established and maintained malware defences to detect and respond to known attack code?

Is our solution portfolio up to date? As matter of course, do we patch known vulnerabilities with the latest version of software, preventing attacks which exploit software bugs?

What’s policy on listing and execution control? Do our solutions prevent new/unknown software from being able to run or install itself, (including AutoRun on USB and CD drives).

Do we actively restrict the functionality of every device, operating system and application to the minimum needed for business to function?

With all of the above in play, we need then to continuously monitor what’s occurring (as Nessa from Gavin & Stacey might say). Monitor unexpected or suspicious activity, keep training staff and have them updated on new threats and issues. Put plans in place to deal with potential incidents and learn from ones that occur. We are on a current path to put more applications and data in the Cloud, where it can be more secure than ever (if we do bother to secure it of course!).

Our UK national Cyber Security Centre term the stages as Survey, Delivery, Breach and Affect

Now I don’t know where Clarion were with all of the above, however the hope would be that they have learned from their recent experiences. The key of course is doing all that is possible in order to safeguard resident data. Once out in the wild, dark web or not, we are clearly down to damage limitation or recompense payments. I think for me, where the latter is involved, corners should not be cut. Social housing tenant data is as valuable as anyone else’s, that should definitely NOT be forgotten.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation,

please just get in touch, for a chat over a brew.

I will bring plenty of Chocolate Hobnobs ☕😋

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

Porcupine Tree – Dark Matter.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Wednesday, 7 September 2022

Real Life

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

What are we all like with our social media?

Whatever you do, Facebook, Insta, Twitter etc, we are always looking to post our best life, even if we don’t realise we are. I post enough real ale images, although I may take six shots and just post the best, with a decent head (if appropriate OBVs). Its kind of human nature, but does clearly show a false view of our lives. On the downside, we can present a golden shiny view and be suffering and dark inside.

Part of the illusion is that we can groom and engineer those shots to be the best ever (or the best we can manage). What if you couldn’t do that and the social media app decided when you could take that photo you are allowed to post? Some folk I know, may consider that to be violating their human rights!

This is exactly what a new socialmedia app looks to do. BeReal (“Your friends for real”), gives everyone the same two minute window, to post daily. Is this going too far?

I don’t know if any of my contacts are on BeReal, although I am sure a dose of reality would do us all some good sometimes. Particularly when I see tweets from socialhousing tenants and particularly those via Kwajo @KwajoHousing, there’s a different kind of reality there, than is often portrayed in council and socialhousing publicity. More attention to resident issues would reduce the incidence of repair problems and make a massive difference to life chances and outcomes.

My own upbringing in social housing on a Manchester 1960s overspill estate on the edge of the Peak District served me well, although I feel we had better safety nets back then. Rent collectors would look in on tenants every fortnight and be the eyes and ears of the council landlord, potentially picking up issues, repair problems etc in real time. They knew who was ill, who had just lost their job, who had just snagged a new one etc. These people were the ultimate predictive data profilers, something we lost when Housing Benefit was paid direct and for those folk collectors were no longer required.

Indeed, I have been told that some tenants asked that the rent collector still called, so as not to reveal to neighbours, that they were on full HB. So some folk were trying to show their ‘best life’ in their own way, back then. Its likely that the fortnightly rent round with the ‘Gilbert Strips’ picked up many issues quicker, with potential problems solved faster, that today in a more remote fashion we work, relying on our CRM.

We can certainly improve what we do and most organisations I work with are looking to transform so staff work more efficiently and serve residents better. I certainly believe that and in terms of how organisations procure services, if cost is a predominant factor, you can bet that often the reverse is in fact true. All the case management and CRM solution options are mature and out there. Lack of tech is no excuse, whatever size organisation (50 - 50k+ properties) you are.

Some social housing organisations (and councils with retained housing), do seem to struggle with seeing and understanding their residents in real life. To provide better services, we should never take our eye off real life. Complaints always need to be taken seriously and regarded as a means of digesting feedback, to improve services. Fail to do that and we fail to be real. Costly and frustrating internal and external waste is created in our processes, which often managers can’t or won’t tackle.

Social Housing shoots itself in the foot at times, at first resisting the regulator, then agreeing with it. Be real all the time, not just when the regulator is watching, or inspecting us.

Oh & if you try out BeReal, do share with me how you get on 😉

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with keeping it real

or any other HMS transformation, please just get in touch, for a chat over a brew.

I will bring plenty of Chocolate Gingers ☕😋

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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Magazine – Real Life/Definitive Gaze.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here