You may hear the advice to back up your computer from your tech savvy friends and family, but what does that actually mean? Backing up your computer is like creating a safety net to save your computer in case things go wrong!
The actual process of backing up your computer means making a copy of everything that is important on the computer and putting that copy in another location. The important information would include any documents, photos, and videos you have on your computer. Options for backups include using the “cloud” and/or a local backup. The definition of a cloud backup is having your information stored in another location. A local backup, as the name suggests, is when your information is stored locally. The idea behind backing up is so that if your computer were to suddenly break, your important data is still intact and safe in another place. Most people don’t realize what they need on a computer until they no longer have it.
Some of the suggestions out there for how to backup your computer may seem complicated to an untrained person, but don’t let this dissuade you. Backups are extremely important. If you know someone close to you who is tech savvy, have a regular technician you see, or want to see us to consult on how to set up backing up your data, I recommend doing so immediately. You can rest easy once your backups are set up so that when disaster strikes you will be prepared. You can look forward to us revisiting this subject with more frequency and in more detail in the near future due to its importance.
Contact us for expert assistance for dealing with tech issues. Call 781-749-1130 or visit our website at https://rgbcomputersolutions.com.
Spam calls have plagued modern society for years now and are only getting worse. With the availability of generative AI technology to anyone, bad actors have started using it for evil.
If you haven’t seen Obama playing Minecraft or Plankton from Spongebob singing Rolling in the Deep, you may be unfamiliar with artificial intelligence voice synthesis. Artificial intelligence voice synthesis is a voice changer or text to speech program that uses AI learning models to mimic someone’s voice. Think of it like when you speak through a fan and your voice sounds like Darth Vader, but instead of a fan you use a computer and now it sounds like Taylor Swift. Apple introduced an accessibility feature that uses the same tech in iOS 17 that allows for mimicry of one’s voice with less than a minute of recording. In this case, it can be used for good. For example, someone with a speech impairment can use it to talk to someone by only typing into their phone.
With all that said, this tech can also be used for some very nefarious purposes. A new trend among spam callers is using the voice of a loved one, or someone you know to trick you into giving away personal information and sending money to the scammer. This is done by taking a model of someone’s voice who is known to be connected to you and calling you with their voice. It is important to be suspicious of any call that you get from an unknown number and with this new technology, one needs to be extra careful. If you still need to answer unknown callers for work or otherwise, a common work around is to set up a code word or phrase with your loved ones and friends. For example, if I were to get a call from an unknown number with the person claiming to be my mother and sounding like my mother too, I would ask them, “Do you remember our code?” and if she responded with the code we agreed upon, I would know it is legitimate.
Overall, it is wise to be wary of any unknown phone numbers. Using common sense when receiving asks for money or other critical personal information goes a long way in stopping you from becoming the next victim in a scam.
Ever gotten a call from Microsoft, Apple, or Amazon about your computer being infected or a recent purchase you made? While computers have gotten (by many measures, anyway) more secure over the years, for many would-be attackers, the human is now the easiest part of the puzzle to solve. Large, elaborate scams today have been built around the premise of tricking users into divulging credit card numbers, account login info, and other sensitive pieces of information by imitating familiar companies claiming to be reaching out for security purposes. Using some particularly difficult to dismiss pop-up ads, sometimes these grifters will even try to get you to call them directly, with warnings of viruses or other such problems blaring at you from an often-legitimate looking error screen. Others will simply email potential victims directly, using stolen accounts disguised with a quick name change or an email account with an address close to a legitimate one. The tactics used and the avenue taken by these scammers is manifold, but generally, there are a few rules you should stick to.
Avoiding Scams
For one, you can almost universally write-off any phone calls from most of these large companies as being illegitimate – they don’t have the time, resources, or incentives to reach out to you regarding something specific to your computer or account. Secondly, always double check the email address (rather than the name attached) or phone number on any of these messages to confirm it is who it claims to be. Oftentimes, the number or address will be completely wrong, or in more sophisticated cases, it may only have a single letter out of place. The contents of the message may also contain spelling or grammar errors, which (generally) large companies do their best to avoid in contacts with customers. Finally, where possible, contact the company / financial institution / individual directly using a method you can verify to be legitimate. Never follow any links from, or call or reply to any phone numbers or email addresses provided in, a message containing any such notices.
No, You Didn’t Buy That $500 Antivirus: The Erroneous Charges Trap
We’ve been seeing a lot of fraud and scammer activity lately, so we wanted to warn about some of the common tricks and traps we’ve seen. “Call Center Scammers” are unfortunately nothing new. Just about everyone, whether they’ve realized it or not, have encountered these types of swindlers in some form or another, including the erroneous charges trap.
For some years now, the most common thread we’ve seen have been tech support scams. In this type of scheme, criminals will try to trick users into handing over control of their computer by pretending to be “support staff” for Microsoft, Apple, Google, or another large-scale tech company. They will do this by either directly calling you (often spoofing a number in your area code so as to not raise suspicion) or by putting a pop-up advertisement out on the internet that will, once stumbled upon, prevent you from closing it and display threatening and official-sounding warnings about your computer, with a phone number to call to “fix” whatever issue the scammers are claiming your computer has. Once they get you on the phone, they will do their best to convince you that your computer is having some sort of issue, and that they are going to fix it for you. No matter what, the most important thing to remember with these is that most of these companies will ever contact you for any reason, let alone a computer issue, and anyone claiming to be calling from them is trying get one over on you.
Which brings us to one of the schemes we have been seeing more recently. An exception to the above rule is a company that does contact you regularly regarding bills – such as an antivirus provider, for example. One of the most common scams we’re seeing now is formatted very much the same way as the previous one, but instead of luring you in with threats of a problem needing to be fixed, they lure you in with the threat of a double-billing or a purchase you didn’t mean to make. These types of scammers will typically disguise themselves as Norton or McAfee and will send out Emails and alerts about large payments made for service that they want you to think you’ve purchased. If you contact them to dispute the charge, they will often indicate that the charge was made in error, and offer to refund you. In order to give you your money back, all they need is your banking information… and you can probably see where this is going. Other times, they won’t directly raise the red flag by asking for this information outright, instead “sending the refund” and making it look like they accidentally gave you too much money. The scammer will then plead with you to send back just the amount they overpaid in the “refund,” implying legal consequences for you, or in really low cases, pretending they’ll be fired if they cannot get the overpayment back. This is all an elaborate ruse to get you to send them money, as you’ll find no such transaction actually went through at the end. Similar scams are also known to take place pretending to be Amazon or the like, those these are often more obvious due to their commonality.
As unfortunate as it is, the best way to stay safe on the internet these days is to just assume anyone trying to contact you unsolicited is suspicious. Many cybercriminals have realized that, as secure as many computer systems have become in recent years, the easiest thing to do now is focus on tricking the person behind the screen.
As computers have grown more secure, it’s become increasingly obvious to security firms and criminals alike that the most vulnerable part of any computer is its user. As a result, clever scams and social engineering schemes have become more and more prominent, displacing much of the “business” that more classical viruses and other malware once exploited. In these last few months in particular, we have seen a major uptick in the frequency and number of schemes criminals have been using to try to part people from their money or account information, but two have stood out above many others.
Types of Attacks
The first and most common scheme we’ve been seeing is a renewed push through phishing attacks. For those that don’t know, a “phishing” attack is, like the sound of the word implies, a clever scheme in which a criminal contacts you in disguise as someone (be it a person, bank, company, etc.) that you trust in order to “catch” information or money from you.
A breakdown of a classic example of one of these is a situation in which, through various means, a criminal learns that you have an account with a particular bank. This criminal then carefully fashions an email that looks a lot like the type of email this bank may send you regularly; they may incorporate imagery, logos, wording or other aspects to complete the illusion. If the scheme is particularly sophisticated or widespread, they may even make a custom email account that strongly resembles the contact account for the bank in question. They then send you an otherwise innocuous looking message, typically a request for you to log in to check your account or reset your password, and a legitimate looking link to do it. Thinking nothing of it, you follow the link, where you are greeted by a perfectly ordinary looking website asking you to sign into your bank account. After that, they’ve got your account info and you are none the wiser.
The latest phishing attacks have grown even more numerous and sophisticated. Rather than targeting bank accounts and the like directly, these scams typically target the email accounts themselves. Since everything is registered through an email account these days, the email can be used to reset passwords for any other accounts you might have, and gaining access to it is tantamount to obtaining a skeleton key for anything registered to it. The most common attacks target Comcast or AOL users with emails seemingly from Comcast or AOL themselves, frequently talking about “upgrading to a new mailbox” or something similar. Using the techniques described above, they then redirect you to a page where you log into your email account through a dummy website that feeds the entered credentials to the attackers. Before you know it, they have covertly set all of your emails to forward to their own accounts, and set up a filter for any new emails to be hidden from your view. This way, they can receive any of the password resets they perform, while you are none the wiser.
The second scheme we’ve been seeing much more of recently hasn’t necessarily grown more complex than previously, but it has become a lot more common. Using strategies similar to the phishing attacks mentioned above, a scammer will attempt to extort money out of you directly. They do this by contacting you, either by phone or email, and impersonating a representative of either one of your financial institutions or a retail store. Once they’ve convinced you of their identity, they claim that you were charged a large sum of money either by accident or without your knowledge, and then either give you the chance to dispute the charge or outright offer to refund you. With the hook out there, you may be tempted to take the bait to “reverse the charges,” however you’ll find no charges were actually incurred. The trick lies in getting you to give them your billing information in an attempt to get a refund for this non-existent charge, after which they use that information to steal money from you directly.
Protecting Yourself
So how do you protect yourself from these attacks? The best way is to be wary of any emails you receive asking for information or for you to sign into something. If you’re concerned about the legitimacy of an email, always check the sender’s address. Typically, the address will very clearly be something random or unrelated to the institution contacting you. In some of the more sophisticated attacks out there, the email address will still be wrong, but it will be cleverly disguised to look legitimate. An example might be, “[email protected]” instead of, “[email protected]”. Did you spot the discrepancy on the first viewing? If you didn’t, that’s understandable – here the word “CORN” takes the place of “COM” at the end. Sometimes it can be difficult to notice, but it’s always going to be a change in the address. Other tips can be bad grammar or misspellings in the body of the email, though those have gotten harder to spot as these schemes have become more carefully assembled. Regardless, whenever there’s any doubt, the best option is to either contact the institution directly (where possible) through a method you know to be legitimate, or do nothing at all. Of course, if you’re ever in a situation like this one and you’re unsure of how to proceed, feel free to contact us here at RGB Computer Solutions.
Having a backup of your computer is always important because, sooner or later, your device will fail. This is a lesson many computer users learn too late – only after they’ve lost something do they ever realize the vulnerability of their information, or the extent of what they can lose. However, not all backup programs are created equal; some programs back up specific files and folders you point out, while others back up any files they can reach. Some require manual input on your part, while others work automatically on a schedule. Either way, it can sometimes be hard to tell if you have everything, and if the backup is even consistently up to date. If your hard drive were to fail tomorrow, you may have some or all of your files – but what about your programs, your accounts, and all of the other little details and settings you’ve changed? Do you still have that disk for that copy of Microsoft Word? What about the license for that old copy of Photoshop? Will you remember how your contacts and email accounts in Outlook were organized? When you’ve only got one life raft, it’s very good to know that there aren’t any holes in it. Here at RGB, there’s really only one tool that we put our complete faith into: a program called Macrium Reflect.
Macrium Reflect is a backup program that doesn’t just back up your files elsewhere, it backs up everything that makes your computer yours. From the user accounts with the data in their folders, to the programs you have installed, to the operating system itself, Macrium creates what’s known as an “Image” – an exact copy of the computer’s storage. With a level of detail like this, a Macrium Reflect image can be used to restore everything on your computer to the exact way it was at the time the backup was made.
Being able to restore everything as needed prevents a lot of hassle and heartache for when things eventually go wrong, and Macrium has some built-in tools designed specifically to counteract common situations. When failures do occur, they often happen without warning. People aren’t perfect; even those who have a habit of backing up their computers manually might not do so consistently or often enough. Scheduling backups to occur automatically can be very useful for this exact reason, and Macrium notifies you whenever a backup is about to occur, while keeping logs of its activity so you can always know how up-to-date your backup is. Aside from hardware failures, dangerous viruses have picked up on the idea that a person’s data is valuable in its own right, and have been making a habit of taking people’s files and holding them hostage recently, as well. These “Cryptoviruses,” a type of Ransomware, are known to scramble your files, locking them and demanding hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the key. For these situations, Macrium Reflect has a feature called “Image Guardian,” which puts a lock of its own on your backup images, making it so they cannot be scrambled in the event you’re afflicted by one of these threats. Even internally, whenever we are making some changes that carry risk, we make an image first – so if something goes wrong, it can be perfectly and completely undone.
While restoring your computer to its original state in the event of a failure is helpful, what if your computer is utterly destroyed? From liquid damage to drops and electrical problems, sometimes a computer cannot be effectively salvaged or repaired. For these situations, Macrium has a few more tricks up its sleeve. For one, any image can be mounted on any other computer running even the free version of Macrium, allowing you access to the contents of that backup, including any files or folders you had at the time. If you need the data while you’re still between computers, you can get any of it out just as if you were plugged into the broken computer. For those running the Professional versions of Windows, Macrium can even get your image up and running in what is known as a “Virtual Machine.” This program functions like a simulation of your broken computer, letting you run the programs installed on it and see it as it was when it was still functional, all inside of a window like any other piece of software. Macrium’s images and redeployment features work in such a way that, with the right skills, they can even be restored to a new computer completely different in shape, size, make, or model from the original computer. This can save enormous amounts of time, allowing you to get everything to exactly how it was previously – without having to spend countless hours reinstalling all of your software and setting everything back up again in just the right configuration.
It’s important to remember that data loss is never a question of if, but when. Not letting yourself be just another cautionary tale requires preparation, and Macrium can help ensure you’re ready when the unexpected happens.
Just about anyone can tell you that sharing your WiFi with people you don’t trust is a bad idea. Besides being able to access the devices on your network without your knowledge, someone unscrupulous could use your internet connection to perform illegal acts such as piracy. As such, it can be unsettling to find out when companies share your WiFi network without your knowledge – and that’s just what Amazon has done with one of its newer features for Alexa-enabled Echo devices and certain Ring camera products. Amazon Sidewalk is a feature that, in the event of an internet outage at a neighbor’s house, allows their Amazon products to tap into the connections of other Amazon devices in your or any other neighbor’s homes. While the intent of this feature isn’t malicious, it still could present a security risk – not to mention the fact that it automatically opts users in until they specifically choose to opt out. For more information, as well as instructions to opt out of this feature, take a look at the following article: Amazon Sidewalk and How to Opt Out
We’ve all been here before: We run into a problem, technical or otherwise, and we’re unsure how to proceed, so what do we do? We search the internet for answers. In our search, we come across a number of results that look promising – some of them may even fit the bill exactly, and we think we have our answer. But one thing many people come across, sometimes without even knowing it, is a false search result – a listing that’s either mostly unrelated to what you’re actually searching for, or worse, a listing that is meant to deceive you into believing it’s what you’re searching for, with malicious intent. So, how can we know when we come across deceptive search results?
In both cases, many of these results can appear near the top of the lists for a number of reasons. One of the most common reasons is a practice carried on almost universally, and that is to offer higher search placement to people or companies willing to pay for it – this way, the search engine can make money and the company buying the advertising gets seen by more people who might be looking for something relevant to their services or products.The danger comes when more objective search terms get bought out by illegitimate sources, and seek to mislead people into paying for service from them that might otherwise be better or outright free from the real source. One of the biggest cases of this is in searches for a tech company’s support. Whether it be a major manufacturer like HP, Dell, or Apple, or a software developer like Adobe, Intuit, or Microsoft, many of these illegitimate companies and results are tailor-made to target people looking for help from these sources.
Below is such an example of several advertised results coming up before the “real” or “intended” listing.
As you can see, the real “Microsoft Support” shows up in fifth place in these results. In the case of any major search engine, some of these advertisers can be very dangerous. Some of the above results, for example, could be tech support scammers the same as the types who have plagued users with unsolicited calls for years. Unfortunately, if you don’t know as much, there’s a good chance you’ll run into them or those like them eventually.
Usually, the best way to handle such searches is to look for signifiers that certain results may be advertised. For many search engines, advertised results will often have a small icon underneath them that says either “Ad” or “Sponsored”. Even if it isn’t necessarily a sponsored listing, there’s always a chance it could be dangerous – so if you’re looking for support from a company, it’s usually best to go straight to the company’s website. Paying attention to the actual address below the listing’s title can save you a good deal of confusion. In the case above, the only Microsoft websites are the ones with the green address listed as “support.microsoft.com”. Keep this in mind when you’re searching.
Around this time last year, we addressed a very common trend that we were seeing involving popups and scareware hijacking people’s computers while they were browsing the internet. These popups, such as the ones below, are a facade meant to convince you that your computer is either infected by a virus or at risk of serious damage. Their main goal is to get you to either download a program that will then ACTUALLY infect your computer, or call a “Support Number” wherein a call center operator will then remotely access your computer and either lock it down and hold it for ransom or “Fix the problem” and then charge you several hundred dollars for the “Service”.
Some of the most common offenders’ designs.
Seemingly innocuous messages warning of viruses.
Imitation virus scanners claiming the presence of a number of threats.
Loud colors and bold warning messages.
We get calls every week from people encountering this issue, and the prevalence of these sorts of problems has only increased over time. They affect nearly every class of user across every platform; from Windows to Mac OS, iPhone to Android, no one that browses the internet is immune to this sort of encounter.
So what can we do about it?
Unfortunately, not much – many of these people are far outside U.S. Jurisdiction for legal action, and the diversity, profitability, and widespread nature of these types of scams make them very popular and difficult to decisively put down. As a result, the best type of security against such attacks are awareness and user preparedness. Everyone knows someone who has been assailed in such a way, so it should be important to remember how to get out of such a trap.
We won’t go through the tells that will allow you to identify such a scam as we did last time, but instead leave it at thus: ANY pop up you get while browsing the internet warning of critical errors or viruses, and telling you to download something or call someone should be looked at with extreme skepticism. As far as incoming calls go, remember this: no brand or company will ever call you – this goes for all types of phone scams going today; neither Microsoft nor Apple, Windows nor Mac, Dell, HP, or anyone else has the type of information to know you may have a virus or the capacity to be receiving errors. Additionally, they do not have the type of manpower (or even the necessary information in many cases) to cold call their customers, nor do they have any desire to do so.
There are, importantly, a few methods of escaping these popups, which are important to go over again.
Method one is available to most users running a third-party internet browser; if you are running Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera Chromium, the option to “prevent this page from creating additional dialogues” will be available as a little checkbox at the bottom of the notification that seems to keep opening no matter how many times you close it. Checking it and acknowledging or closing the notification one more time will prevent it from appearing again, allowing you to simply close the page normally.
Method two is available to all users, but requires you forcefully close the process of your internet browser which, if you keep multiple pages open at a time, can cause you to lose whatever you are doing on the other tabs of your web browser. On your keyboard, pressing CTRL, Alt, and Delete (DEL) at the same time on a Windows PC will allow you to open the task manager. From there, simply choosing your internet browser and clicking on “End Task” will force it to close, allowing you to simply reopen it and continue working.
For Mac users, pressing the key combination of Command, Option, and Escape (esc) allows you to activate the equivalent function, “Force Quit”. From that windows, simply selecting the program you wish to close and clicking “Force Quit” will accomplish the same result.
Method three should only be used as a last resort. It’s simple to execute, but it can potentially cause problems if you perform it while your computer is updating or installing something, and can at least cause you to lose data if you are editing documents or files that haven’t been recently saved. In this case, simply holding down the power button on either a Mac or PC will force it to shut down, and the problem should be gone upon restarting it and logging back in.
Now in some cases, especially those in which you may have inadvertently installed something, you might be afflicted with something known as a “Browser Hijacker“, or “Scareware“. These pieces of software are some of the more extreme measures such call center scammers have been using in recent years, and they usually have the effect of forcing the error message or popup to appear every time you start the computer or open your web browser. If this happens, or you have questions or concerns about such pop ups, it is usually recommended that you consult your local technician.
If you’ve ever thrown away or recycled an old computer, there’s a good chance you have unwittingly put your personal information at risk.
Unfortunately, in this age of digital credentials and identity theft, criminals are always on the prowl searching for more convenient ways of obtaining the information on their next victim. This problem has worsened over time, of course, as a result of the more numerous and diverse methods of spending money and saving information, especially financial information, online. From online banking to online shopping, birthdays to credit card numbers, the computers of today store more of, well, you, than ever before.
In many cases, the threat of identity theft comes from online, in the form of phishing websites, trojan horses, or company breaches. However, what many don’t seem to realize is that the computer itself often saves information to its hard drive over the course of its life, some of which can be used for nefarious purposes if discovered. Many such perpetrators will actually go digging through dumps, scrap yards, or take-it-or-leave-it areas looking for old computers and their hard drives to try and acquire this information, and an alarming number of these types are quite successful at accomplishing this goal.
So, when recycling or disposing of a computer, one of the most important steps you can take to make sure you don’t fall victim to this type of scheme is to make sure that there is nothing left to retrieve. Contrary to popular belief, files are not actually deleted when they are “deleted”. Most are still perfectly retrievable with the right tools, and only through more advanced methods can data be permanently erased. However, most perfect drive wipes take a while, and involve steps that would not be so simple. As a result, the best way is usually a more direct approach.
Damaging the drive physically can be much more effective than deleting the files virtually. Anyone who has ever lost data from dropping a laptop can vouch for just how complicated or expensive it can be to try and retrieve data from a drive that suffered a thud or ding. Ergo, something like a sledgehammer impact would obliterate the disk inside, making the data completely irretrievable. In fact, damaging the disk in any way can have the same result. Most of the time, a less messy alternative can be to drill a hole through the drive.
Whatever the case may be, so long as the drive is no longer functioning when you’re through, it should be safe to dispose of.
If you’re unsure of how to do this, or would feel more comfortable, contact us at RGB Computer Solutions or your local IT.
Damaging the drive physically can be much more effective than deleting the files virtually. Anyone who has ever lost data from dropping a laptop can vouch for just how complicated or expensive it can be to try and retrieve data from a drive that suffered a thud or ding. Ergo, something like a sledgehammer impact would obliterate the disk inside, making the data completely irretrievable. In fact, damaging the disk in any way can have the same result. Most of the time, a less messy alternative can be to drill a hole through the drive.