Education

 In recent months, we have noticed an increase in internet based fraud and scams. Over the past decade, viruses and spyware have evolved from mere annoyances to tolls hackers use to steal your identity and money. As Information Technologists, we understand what issues to avoid and realize that the average person knows little to nothing on how to protect themselves and their assets.

As such, we have developed this page to give you some pointers and our professional advice on what behaviors to avoid, so you can enjoy the vastness of the internet; safely and confidently. We are confident that an educated person will not fall for the crap that is all over the web these days and in our own industry. Sadly, there are just enough dishonest or just plain moronic people that know enough about technology to use it to make money by capitalizing on the ignorance of the masses; to make our entire industry look bad and make people not trust the legitimate Information Technologists that have dedicated their entire lives to helping others. Please review this content and do not be one of the many that fall for this crap.

1. Use common sense and if you do not have any, then by all means ask someone that does before installing software off the web, opening e-mails with attachments, opening/forwarding forwarded e-mails, clicking links in e-mails, etc. What is wrong with opening forwarded e-mails? By doing so, you are letting your computer have intimate relations with the computer they were sent from, all the computers before that one and so on. 90% of the population, in our experience, has out of date Security software, free security software or nothing at all. Would you just go sleeping around with everyone you met on the street and not even use any kind of protection; not knowing what if they use protection? Of course not, so why would you do the same with your computer?

2. Do not allow anyone beside yourself to use your computer system via a user account that has Administrative Rights. Create a Limited User account for them and do not let them talk you into installing any software without you really knowing what it is and you are absolutely positive it is OK.

3. Password Protect your user account using: Uppercase, Lowercase, numbers and perhaps symbols. Make it at least 8 characters long. for every character you use, the complexity gets multiplied at a rate of 256 to the power of how many characters you use. 8 Characters is 256 times more complex than a 7 character password.

4. We highly discourage the viewing of Porn on the web, unless you are going to one of the few porn sites that are free from malicious code. This is the #1 way to get hacked, viruses, spyware and get your identity stolen. Enterprises have STRICT policies regarding the viewing of porn on company systems due to the ramifications on many levels, not just damage to the corporate network, but also sexual harassment. It only takes 1 employee viewing 1 porn site to bring an entire corporate network to its knees and severely threaten the security of employee personnel records (SSN, DOB, etc.). Use the muscle between your ears before the one in your forearm!

5. Educate your employees, develop a comprehensive policy regarding the use of work computers and have strict repercussions for unauthorized use.

6. Have SOLID, not free, Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware/Anti-Malware software on your computer system. If you are a home user, it is advisable to purchase an Internet Security Suite. We have used F-Secure for almost a decade now, have recommended it to our clients, friends and family and have less than 5% get infections of any kind! You would pay less for a car if it came with FREE rope instead of seat belts in it would you? Then why would you try to pinch pennies on Security Software that will not provide you with the best protection? F-Secure only costs $60 for their Internet Security Suite and that license covers 3 machines. 1 Virus can cost you well over $135 (we only charge $135 max. for any virus issues), some of our competitors charge as much as $300. So is free really free?

7. BEFORE you click a link in an e-mail, hover your mouse over the link and look in the lower left corner of your browser/email application. If the text has any numbers in the beginning that are an IP Address (204.56.19.87) followed by text; you are going to be taken to a Hackers website running on their machine. The page you would see will often look identical to the real website, but it is not. These are called Phishing e-mails and are the #1 way people are getting their identity stolen these days.

8. If you did NOT play the African, Russian, or whatever country Lottery, then you did NOT win any money. Common sense REALLY comes in handy on this one!

9. NO rich Billionaire died without having a trust, not a will, but a trust stating EXACTLY how their estate is to be disbursed in the event of their death. I have yet to see a stupid wealthy person....... Oh yeah, Common sense really helps here as well.

10. Do not download FREE music, do ANY type of file sharing or any type of free software unless you know for 100% certainty it is from a legitimate source. This is the #2 way hackers get access to your system and steal your identity. The repairs as a result of this type of issue are usually over $135 ($135 maximum from us), and can cost $300+ from some competitors. Is that music really free after all?

11. A note to employees: Your employer keeps YOUR personal information on the corporate servers; so if you cause the network security to become compromised, your identity may get stolen. They also keep information about customers, business files and other information that if compromised, could mean that you are looking for a new job.

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed the information contained on this page and that our sense of humor is non offensive to you. We genuinely want to help protect people, even if they are not clients of ours, prevent the negative results of poor internet usage. Thank you for taking the time to read this content and for visiting our site.