Is the growth in Chatbots signalling the end for humans? 

Customer preference will always play a role in the customer service experience. The nuances of that will make the future of Chatbots versus humans a difficult outcome to predict. So, before I even jump into this blog, I am already presenting a muddled view on whether advancing technologies can truly replace the role of a human being.  

I have been in Information Technology for over 30 years and continuously find myself amazed at the pace of Digital Transformation and even more so since the Pandemic. According to a McKinsey Global Survey of executives, “companies have accelerated the digitisation of their internal operations by three to four years” as a result.  

The benefits that Digital Technology have brought to our everyday lives are extraordinary. Thanks to technology I no longer need to make my way into town to solve my banking problems as I can simply engage in a conversation with a Chatbot from the comfort of my sofa. 

My experience and interactions with Chatbots have been mixed but, at the same time they have been a lot more convenient than visiting town; or being held in a queue waiting to talk to someone. So maybe the answer to my question is, yes? 

The growth in the use of Chatbots has been increasing in recent years and will continue to displace the need for human interaction in many situations. Chatbots are becoming more intelligent with developments in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing making interactions as good, if not better, than similar interactions with a human. But will they replace the need for quality, human interaction in the foreseeable future?  

I personally do not think so and believe, like me, customers will continue to value the importance of human based channels such as the telephone for the foreseeable future. According to a Gartner report from November 2020, “Over 90% of business consumers avoid engaging with virtual support agents, leaving the investment largely unused” (2), which seems to back this up.  

So, like they say in the Dragon’s Den,” it’s for that reason I am out,” I will not be investing in replacing all human based channels for digital ones right now here at Delt. 

Instead, maybe the answer is that there is room for both. Continuing to augment our talent with digital technology such as Chatbots seems like the right thing to do, for us, and therefore in conclusion, the answer is no, the human at Delt is still very much alive.  

Humans are our greatest asset at Delt, and we will continue to invest in Digital and Humans to deliver the optimal “Better, Faster, Cheaper” outcomes for our customers for the foreseeable future.  

Paul Jones, Chief Information Officer

Note: Link (2) below is for Gartner Clients only.  

1. COVID-19 digital transformation & technology | McKinsey 

1. Innovation Insight for Virtual Support Agents (gartner.com) 

Trust

Trust is a funny old thing. It seems to be evaporating faster than spilt wine at a summer barbeque.  

On the current trajectory, soon nobody will trust anyone. There’s a fairly strong argument to say that some of us are already there. This strikes me as a fairly major societal issue. Trust only requires a firm belief in the reliability, truth or ability of someone or something. It doesn’t require agreement. Yet trust in our leaders, institutions and providers of information is at an all-time low. Does this mean, as suggested in the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer that we have reached the point of Information bankruptcy?  

Trust, at least as far as the Trust Barometer goes, is a function of both competence and ethics. This seems entirely reasonable. If I am going to trust somebody, I want them to be both competent at what they do and well-meaning. A well-meaning idiot is probably not to be trusted and a clever crook who makes me feel confident, as they steal my money, doesn’t do much for my feelings of trust either. 

In fairness, pretty much everybody comes out of the study pretty badly: 

NGOs are seen as ethical but not that competent; 

The media are seen as less competent than NGOs but also unethical; 

Government is viewed as both unethical and incompetent; and  

Only business is viewed as both somewhat ethical and marginally competent. 

Business was also viewed as more trustworthy than government and the media back in 2007/2008. Probably a mistake. At this point, business ethics, at least in financial institutions didn’t seem to be an especially high priority with lending being based not on the borrower’s ability to pay, but the lenders ability to palm the debt off onto somebody else quickly and profitably. The creation of increasingly complex financial derivatives like naked credit default swaps certainly suggested great competence on the part of somebody, but the ethics of seeking to profit from others misfortune?  As an aside, if you haven’t heard or read The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble, the only short story ever to have been published in the Financial Times, it is a brilliant description of the perils of modern economics, told in goats and I highly recommend it. 

But of course, at the end of 2008 came the reckoning and alongside Lehman’s, trust in business was vapourised and everyone trusted government again. From 2012 to 2019 we had a period of relative trust stability with people largely trusting traditional media at least, if not their leaders. It is something of a welcome revelation that the majority have never trusted social media. 

Come the end of 2019 and Covid, government had another opportunity to regain the trust of people and by May 2020, they were more trusted than anyone else. The British Government found itself leading the table with a 24% increase in perceived trustworthiness. I imagine that would sit well with those of our national politicians who seem to consider everything a global game of ‘we did better than them’. This of course didn’t last long and between May 2020 and January 2021 our government lost more trust than anyone else except the South Koreans. Our leaders would probably be less keen to share that statistic, especially as France bucked the trend of all other big governments losing trust and managed to continue to gain it. But that’s the inexplicable French for you.  

As of right now, business is the most trusted intuition with ‘My Employer CEO’ being nearly the most trusted of those in leadership roles (we are trumped by Scientists to the top slot). To my amusement, everyone else’s CEO is significantly less trusted than your own, which is a delightful conundrum. I had to stop and think about it for a bit. 

As a CEO I have no more reason to be trusted than anyone else, except perhaps ‘my cousins’ friend who works in a hospital and has a cure for Covid’ who should never be trusted about anything, ever. I am required by law, as well as personal ethics to make decisions in the best interests of our company, which may not always be the best for you, or even sometimes, for me. I suppose that if you know that this is the basis for my decision making and you believe that I’ll follow it, that might qualify me enough to earn your trust.  

One of the joys of working for Delt is that doing the right thing for the right reasons is more important than making money any way you can. We try and recruit people who are willing to live our values. As a company we don’t always manage to do what we wanted to, in the time we wanted to do it – but we certainly try to. I don’t imagine business will stay in the trust top spot for long and it seems equally clear that unless something significant changes, we’ll continue to trust everyone less. However, for now, CEOs carry an extra burden, beyond worrying about satisfying their shareholders and supporting their staff. Some people still trust us. 

Giles Letheren, Chief Executive Officer

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

Manic Monday

For those of a certain generation the American pop group – the Bangles song ‘Manic Monday’ resonated strongly with workforces throughout the world.  The song was released, on vinyl, in 1986 before the real mass market appeal of CD let alone Spotify, and similar instant music streaming services, existed.  The song described a woman who was waking up on a Monday morning to go to work wishing it was still Sunday so she could continue to relax, but despite the evidence of gender we could all appreciate the sentiment. 

Fast forward 36 years and we find ourselves facing ‘Blue Monday’, identified as being the most depressing day of the year.  The day was born out of research by Sky Travel having considered the normally depressing weather (though as I am writing this there is an unusual sun beaming down and showing off the natural beauty of Plymouth!), the dark evenings, end of fiscal year planning and the inevitable arrival of the credit card statement showing how much we abused it over the festive period! My cynical nature, of course makes me think they created this day to sell more holidays! Despite changes in technology not much has changed since the Bangles song and there remains a gloom about having to get up and face the working week ahead for many. 

Organising the recent mental health wellbeing lunchtime talks, which we are hosting at Delt, has made me reflect on why the world seems intent on labelling another day as being ‘special’ but with a negative connotation. Personally, I do not necessarily see it first-hand, but I do see it in others. I am fortunate that within my role, within Delt, I don’t despair about the forthcoming working week, I have a great supportive team around me and if anything, my blues come about because I did not have enough time to do the things that I wanted to do that weekend rather than what the future week looks like. 

Delt, in my view, is a progressive employer and puts other companies that I have worked for, and those I have knowledge of, to shame. Delt encourages the work-life balance that we all strive for and how to achieve it, it’s not just lip service. Our employees are actively encouraged, through our wellbeing commitments, to spend quality time on …… ourselves. OK… I have immediate access to my HR colleagues which helps of course, but for others there is always someone to reach out to for support, signposting or just lending an ear. As Ant and Dec have said its ‘good to talk’.  

If your organisation has Mental Health First Aiders, then reach out to them. They are trained in offering you a non-judgemental ear and helping you find the next step to getting the support you may need. If your organisation does not have MHFA then try your HR department and see if they can help banish those blues. 

If you don’t feel you want to speak to a work colleague, try an Employee Assistance programme. Many organisations now offer these on a 24/7 basis and have become an invaluable tool for many. Importantly find someone trusted to talk to, such help can be found in the most unexpected places. My ‘go to guy’ is someone who I have only recently met though my university degree course and, despite the 30 years age difference, is the person who keeps me grounded and is there for me when I need. Of course, it is reciprocal, and I am humbled that they allow me in their life (I should note my thanks to his girlfriend for allowing me time with him!) 

So, let us turn the manic and blue Mondays into something that can be looked forward to by reaching out to your colleagues and build those relationships where we can all look out for each other. Consider a health and wellness check in as part of a weekly scrum, create a play list based on team members suggestions and go for a walk whilst listening to it (Don’t include the Bangles manic Monday song though) but most important of all remember ‘it’s good to talk.’ 

Adrian Dinham, HR Advisor

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash

Computers Can Do Astonishing Things

Stay with me on this one… Let’s start off with a very small camera, taking an admittedly black and white and fairly low-resolution picture. Let’s call this Picture 1. 

Then take another one but from a slightly different place. We’ll keep it simple and do this in only two dimensions rather than three. But in the second picture, the camera can have moved in both x and y by a little bit, or quite a lot. 

Now to do some computing!  

Take the first picture and shift everything up one pixel. Does that match Picture 2? No? Then move everything across a pixel. Does that match now? If not, keep moving Picture 1 around until you get a match. When you get a match, by the magic of maths, you’ll know how far the camera has moved. Now repeat the whole process, but quickly. About 1,000 times per second quickly. That’s a lot of maths. Probably needs a big, expensive computer, right? No, because that’s roughly what’s going on inside an optical mouse, like the one you might be using right now. A mouse like the one I can currently buy on Amazon for £5.39 (including next day shipping).  

That something so complicated and needing to be done so fast can be achieved in a device that appears to cost much less than the sum of its parts is some kind of weird computer magic. Is there nothing that can’t be done better, faster and cheaper with computers? 

People can do astonishing things too. I’m a fan of Cirque du Soleil, but behind all their theatrical magic, the shows would be little to nothing without the amazing things a trained human body can do. Things a normal person could never do. Even somebody much smarter and stronger (and lighter) than me. 

Just recently I have learned how to ride a bicycle. It’s not what you might be thinking! I learnt to ride a bike at the age of 5 but I could not tell you how I did it. It just happens. I have taught both my children to ride bikes and was able to do so successfully without having any idea about what to tell them to do. Yet what is going on, is not unlike what’s going on inside the mouse. Lots of calculations being made very quickly but in three dimensions, not just two. Immediate corrective action being applied when any of those calculations is out of spec. Did you know that you cannot turn a bike right without first turning it left to unbalance the whole system? It’s the recovery from that instability that allows you to turn. Try and turn right without first moving the handlebars to the left (just a bit) and I will not be held responsible for the medical consequences. 

The act of riding a bicycle, driving a car, walking upright or any number of apparently simple things is evolutionary computational mastery. That said, I’m pretty sure a computer could ride a bicycle, probably really well. Computers don’t get sick, tired or grumpy. They are happy to work long hours, or on holidays. They don’t fall out with other computers. My life would be about a million times easier if Delt employed 200 computers instead of people.  

But, and in this case it’s a huge, flashing neon but, there are some things that computers really aren’t very good at. One of them is answering the phone and fixing problems with computers. There are elements of technology support that can be automated and actually serve to benefit the consumer, not just the supplier. However, when somebody needs help, then the best way to get them working again is usually through a conversation with one of those utterly brilliant pieces of evolutionary computational mastery – a person 

A person who understands that you are frustrated, have work to do and really don’t want to engage in a machine led ‘Simon-Says’ with as much empathy as a brick to the face. 

We sometimes use recorded messages – if we have a big outage for example, but beyond that we try to answer the phone in person and quickly. It is our job to get you up and running again with minimum frustration, and the best way to do that is by talking to you, one on one. 

It’s no surprise that this approach (or rather the cost of it) comes in for some criticism but there is little point in providing a lower cost service, if the way we do it is by pushing the costs straight back to the customer in the form of increased non-productivity.  

For now, despite the astonishing things that computers can do, we’ll continue to take the position that there are some things that people do better. 

Giles Letheren, Chief Executive Officer

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

What does Workplace Wellbeing Look Like at Delt? 

One of the silver linings from the pandemic has been the increasing willingness of employers and employees to talk about the importance of mental health and wellbeing. There’s an increasing understanding that employee wellbeing leads to increased productivity and turnover, with a decrease in those expensive absences from work.  For businesses to remain competitive, they need to put employee wellbeing at their very core.  

At Delt, we constantly review our Wellbeing practices and initiatives – drawing on employees’ needs and feedback. We provide a tailored wellness portal with free workouts, healthy recipes, financial advice and an abundance of resources. But these online portals can miss the real problems.  

Our strategy integrates mental health awareness with hands on support. Many of our staff are trained in Mental Health First Aid and provide an initial port of call for anyone who may be struggling and unsure where or who they should turn to.  

Our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) can be accessed 24/7 and is not only available to our staff but their partners too. With one to one counselling available, employees can truly feel supported through any difficulties they may be experiencing in a confidential and safe environment.  

From my experience with Delt we have been able to identify a number of benefits to adopting a rounded wellness strategy… 

• Through the EAP we are able to recognise that problems can’t usually be compartmentalised; issues that affect our employee’s personal lives will often affect their work life and vice versa, so employees can discuss any and all types of problems, from debt management advice to relationships to health. 
• Confidentiality is paramount. All our Mental Health First Aiders are educated in confidentiality and our employees know they are in a safe space. Our outsourced, third party provider of our EAP means our employees can be certain that any problems they discuss are kept in complete confidence. 
• Accessibility and flexibility need to suit all employees. Our EAP helpline and online support is available to our employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week offering immediate information, answers and advice. 
• Mental Health and Wellbeing is more than talking. We understand that some of our employees don’t feel comfortable talking but would rather look to fitness or other activities to help their mental wellbeing. We make sure to offer as much variety to our staff as possible. From online resources, fitness challenges to opportunities to learn new skills and develop themselves in areas of genuine interest.   

 Of course, we know we can’t solve the problems for everyone, but we work to achieve a positive workplace and happy and healthy employees at all costs.

Helena White, Head of HR Services

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

There’s No I In Team

The challenge of the unknown, being asked to develop a new service line, or take over an area of the business that I have had previous exposure to is always an exciting but scary journey. 

I have been privileged in my professional career to be given the opportunities to develop new services, new customers, and new people. Of late this has been focussed specifically on developing new services to new and existing customers.  Whilst daunting, it’s not something we at Delt shy away from, as we have a collective passion to deliver successful outcomes for our customers and partner organisations. 

Our latest venture has been the introduction and integration of Estates Management Services, and now a year in I’m confident to say that there has been a successful transition of the services and significant improvements to our customers. Who, in turn, have a better environment for their service users. Is it easy? No! But with the right mindset, risk appetite and positive can-do attitude we have steered the turbulent waters of turning a service around. 

We have always had a great track record of helping our staff to grow beyond their existing roles, and supported them as their personal aspirations are realised. It’s only one small step to take those personal aspirations and use these to define and drive service improvement, be this at a senior strategic level, or on the ground teams. By selling the vision, of the future service outcomes, and then supporting the whole team on the journey we can grow from the services seeded by customers. Those customers who want to see improvements but have completing priorities with their own primary service needs, to freeing already performing teams to be the best they can. 

For me, personally, this summer has been emotionally challenging as I was given the opportunity to take a team from one of our education customers and improve the delivery of the service, ultimately to improve the learning experience of some of our communities most vulnerable and challenged pupils. The areas requiring attention were so diverse it was difficult to know where to start, but having those challenging conversations with our customers allowed us to identify the areas which were causing them the greatest challenges and, at least, provided areas of focus.  

Collectively we developed a plan of action which was shared, and then we simply started at the beginning and worked though the defined tasks, overcoming obstacles as we went. Being able to clearly lead at times and knowing when to step back and let others take the helm helped to form bonds and gave aspiring leaders the opportunity to shine. Providing ongoing communication was key to successful delivery. From co-ordinating contractors, feeding back to stakeholders and sharing the success with the internal teams. It’s been a long time since I have done physical work but even that was required, on occasion, to support and build the team, walking a mile in their shoes gave me a valuable insight into their challenges and how I can help to overcome those with them. 

Ultimately, we made a promise to our customers, and we delivered on that promise, at the same time forming new relationships and strengthening existing bonds. Whilst exhausting, it has been one of the most rewarding summers that I have had in any workplace. 

Damean Miller, Chief Services Officer

Holiday Pictures 

I recently flew 3000 miles to Iceland to cross ‘see a live volcano’ off my bucket list. I should have known better. As soon as I set foot in the country the volcano went to sleep. A few days after I left, it let rip again, with glorious rivers of molten lava rolling along, blissfully far away from habitation but close enough to be a relatively short drive from civilisation. 

Iceland is not a big country and almost everyone seems to live within an hour or so of the capital. I decided not to do the typical tourist thing and stay in the comfort of Reykjavik where the hot water is delivered by mother nature (and smells like rotten eggs) but be bold and stay a couple of hours outside the nearest thing you could call a city and at least 30 minutes’ drive from the nearest paved road. This was to be blissful isolation, unbothered by phone, email, Microsoft Teams or the rest of the world. 

I was almost at my AirBnB shed, hidden in the vast, flat and largely featureless volcanic wasteland that makes up much of Iceland’s southern interior when my mobile rang with a WhatsApp call. This was super annoying because I was using my phone for SatNav and with no real roads, knowing where you were was quite important. More annoying was the fact it was my son, who having been too embarrassed to go on holiday with his father, had stayed at home, made himself a cup of tea, spilt it on the upstairs floor above where the fusebox is and was now wondering why there was a smell of burning in the house and no power. Even from 3000 miles, cause and effect was fairly obvious and a short drying time later, all was well. 

It transpired that despite being somewhere that looked rather remote, and according to the map, of having no cellular coverage, I still had four bars of solid 4G. In fact, every single place I went in Iceland, except for 50m inside a glacier and 140m down a hole that was once a volcano, I had perfect data coverage. Cornwall, where I live most of the time, is full of coverage holes. So is Devon. I’m tempted to have a rant about this but there’s probably a good reason. Iceland is mostly flat with some big mountains – perfect for cellular. Cornwall is not. I was roaming in Iceland, so could use any available signal but in the UK, we are not allowed to roam between networks due to a deal between the Telcos and Government. I’m not sure if I am madder that my son could reach me in nowhere, Iceland or that I can’t make a call from just outside Stratton. 

The main active volcano in Iceland is only a 45-minute drive from the capital but bear in mind that a 10-minute drive from said capital removes you from most signs of humanity. There is no tourist sign saying ‘Volcano’, just an unmarked gravel track. But SatNav in hand, it was easy enough to find. There was a field to park (no charge – clearly, we aren’t in England) in followed by a 45-minute hike up the ridge of what is probably a relatively small and not very steep hill. Google maps tells me its roughly 2km with a vertical climb of around 250m. This should not be that hard a walk but when it’s blowing a force 8 and raining, this is not a fun afternoon stroll. I really got to understand what ‘leaning on the wind’ means. After nearly deciding to give up several times I finally made it to the top where I should have been able to see the crater of the Fagradalsfjall Volcano in all its glory. You already know I didn’t find my view of a lava spewing monster at the top. But what did I find? 

 A cellphone tower, microwave link and webcam. 5 bars of 4G, so I could WhatsApp my son and tell him that I was standing next to an invisible volcano, but that if he looked on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA-9QzIcr3c and could see through the rain, he might be able to see me waving. 

Giles Letheren, Chief Executive Officer

Photo by Giles Letheren.

The Stuff of Nightmares 

Ronald Reagan once said ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’  

Whatever your politics, when the American government decides to spend $2B of taxpayers money on helping, it’s probably something important. In this case it’s cyber security. The Senate have now passed Joe Biden’s big infrastructure bill and assuming it makes its way back through the House largely unchanged – far from certain, it will see £1.9B being made available to secure national critical infrastructure, of which the majority will go to local government. 

Senator Maggie Hassan from my adopted home State of New Hampshire said: ‘A cyberattack on a state or local government network can put schools, electrical grids, and crucial services in jeopardy. Even though cyberattacks are becoming more and more common in today’s threat landscape, state and local governments often do not have the adequate resources to defend against them. This new grant program will be a crucial resource for state and local governments…’ 

Our public services have become utterly reliant on technology, which has (or should have) significantly increased speed and quality of service. It has also driven huge costs savings. I had a job in local government over 30 years ago in which not only did I not have a computer, but my boss nor bosses boss nor bosses bosses boss didn’t have one either. The only computer was in finance…. and I still got asked to help fix it.  

We have adopted all the benefits of technology and wilfully taken many of the operational savings, whilst complaining how expensive IT has got. In fairness I should note that we’ve also shouldered the burden of huge failed projects, projects that delivered late, or projects that cost far too much. That’s misery of the world of IT.  On balance though, I hope the benefits have significantly outweighed the disadvantages. 

The public sector in the UK is facing an unprecedented level of cyber threat. Almost as fast as you can close one door, somebody levers open another. For both the amateur and professional criminal alike, let alone sovereign states, the potential upside is huge and the downside pretty much negligible. If you held up a local government cash office (in the days when local government still handled cash) you’d likely be caught and go to prison for quite a long time. If you hold up a local authority now – as happened not so recently at Hackney and others, the odds are that whilst the authorities might be able to figure out who did it, they almost certainly won’t be brought to justice. There’s little incentive for the bad actors not to try. 

I don’t know what the UK government are spending on local government cyber defence but, the Hackney article referenced above suggests £50m. By head, of population, that’s about 75p a person. In contrast, the US investment, if approved, will be closer to £2.21 a person. I don’t know what the right number is, but having run headlong down the digital path, turning almost everything we do into 1’s and 0’s, spending appropriately to protect our ability to keep delivering public services in the face of a fast growing threat feels like exactly the sort of help you’d expect from government. Unless perhaps you are Ronald Reagan. 

Lest anyone think I’m suggesting the American way is better rather than simply different, let me restore some balance. With half my working life spent in the States, I’ve found a balanced view to be important. In the same infrastructure bill, the Senate have agreed to fund the Office of the White House National Cyber Director. That post was appointed in June but with no funding – no one will get everything right.  

Giles Letheren, Chief Executive Officer

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

How can you make public Wi-Fi as safe as possible?

Having warned you off public wi-fi in a previous post, this post covers how to protect yourself if you do need to use it. 

Ultimately, the best way to protect yourself on public Wi-Fi is still not to use it, enabling you to sidestep all the issues caused by not controlling the local network or the people on it. I would encourage anyone who spends a lot of time on these networks to investigate a large data plan for their mobile phone, or alternatively a “Mi-Fi” device that uses a SIM card. 

With that in mind, this post is written assuming that this is not an option.  

1. Practice mindfulness 

Not in the sense that you’ve probably heard the term more recently (though perhaps given there’s a need for it in this scenario, it doesn’t hurt to be thankful that there’s Wi-Fi available). Rather, be aware of what you’re doing on the network – if you don’t need to check your bank account, don’t. Some attacks don’t need to compromise your device, and instead will look for the traffic being sent on the network. Despite the encryption applied by many websites, it’s still possible to see the domain you’re using. For example, in normal use, it would be possible to view the domain of your bank’s website when you access it, even though the pages you view and data you send will be protected by that encryption. This would give a malicious party a foothold in terms of information about you, and they may in turn be able to combine this with other leaked information to carry out a comprehensive phish.  

There are other challenges, especially with the use of apps, where security warnings and errors may be suppressed so that you don’t even know they’ve occurred. Some may hide that they don’t even encrypt the data at all!  

2. Use a VPN, if you can. 

VPNs are a game of trust – you’re effectively saying, “I would rather the operators of this VPN see my web traffic rather than the operators of the network I’m on”. With that in mind, I’d strongly emphasise you have some scepticism about VPN services that advertise heavily on YouTube or other social media. Ditto the services that advertise that they don’t log any traffic – they almost certainly do in one form or another, but it comes with the added bonus that you’re associating your activity with those of other people interested in a “no logs” service – which may not be what you want (and remember that you’ve probably tied your activity to “you” via a credit card or similar payment, so it’s much less private!). 

If you’re shopping for a VPN, I’d recommend looking at those offered by security companies (such as Antivirus vendors) who have been operating the service for a while and have a proven track record. Many of these will also make their own software available to make the connection process easier.  

To check the VPN is running as intended, access a service that tells you your IP (e.g. https://www.whatismyip.com/) – between the listed location and the ISP, this should give you an idea of whether you’re running traffic through it as it should tally up with the VPN you’re using if it’s working!   

Some operators of networks may actively block the use of VPNs – this may be a point to reconsider whether you want to use the network at all. 

3. Make sure your firewall is enabled 

This is a simple one – go into your security settings and check that your firewall is active. In Windows 10, you can search for “Windows Security” which will open this part of the Settings Menu. You’ll see your firewall status under “Firewall & network protection”. A green tick means you’re good to go – anything else means you need to look at what’s wrong.  

If you get asked what type of network, you’re on when you connect to Wi-Fi, pick “Public” for the highest security. 

Even if you use a VPN, your device will still be able to communicate with the local network (including other people trying to connect to your computer), so it’s important that you check the firewall is active.  

4. Check that your Antivirus is enabled and up to date 

This is more likely to protect you if someone is able to access your system or get you to click a link, but you never know what might happen – in Windows 10 you can check this in the same “Windows Security” menu, this time against the “Virus & threat protection. Green tick again should mean everything’s in a good state.  

5. Check other Windows 10 security features 

It’s well worth making sure you’re in a good place with the other security features in Windows 10 as well. Click into Account protection, App & browser control, and Device security to check that you’re aligned to the Microsoft recommended settings. These include settings like the ransomware protection that’s part of Windows 10 and will be as useful at home as they are on public Wi-Fi. 

6.Patch, patch, patch! 

Install updates for Windows and any applications you have installed! If you’re running woefully out of date software, it can be trivial for an attacker to use an exploit tool like Metasploit and gain access to your system from the same network – having your firewall and antivirus active will make this more difficult for them, but sometimes all it takes is one mistake.  

7. Think about whether you can justify changing your data plan or getting a separate “Mi-Fi” unit 

You had to use public Wi-Fi this time, and whilst I said this guide would be written from that perspective – do you need to do it next time? If you regularly need the access on the go I would strongly recommend getting yourself set up to do this in a way that helps protect you from the pitfalls of public Wi-Fi.  

And that’s it – basic steps you take to protect yourself and your data when you’re out about with the help of technology which is, in many cases, already available to you. 

For more general tips on how to protect your digital presence, check out NCSC’s Cyber Aware, which includes a set of questions you can answer for a personalised action plan.

Joseph Smith, IT Security Specialist  

Photo by Petter Lagson on Unsplash