From Our Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
As you prepare for a new year, add to your list a review of your online accounts and the measures you are taking to keep them secure. What steps can you take to keep yourself safe? We recommend the following for ANY online account security.
If you have any questions about online safety, call, or text, feel free to contact our office via phone 208.288.4345 or email info@integrityidaho.com.
From Our Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
Technology scams are running rampant right now, whether they come by email, phone call, and now text messaging. We have had several customers reach out about texts that look to be from their bank asking to "verify information." Be vigilant when dealing with any communications via phone call, email, or text that regard any exchange of money or "verifying" any account information with a link or number to call.
Our recommendations are as follows:
You can use your cell phone carriers' built-in number blocking on your phone to stop unwanted calls or texts from specific numbers; you can also block offending email addresses in your email account. But with any sort of fraud, scammers often use hundreds of thousands of phone numbers and emails and move very quickly onto the next. This makes permanent blocking hard.
To really have an impact, we recommend reporting the offending communication to the FTC. This can be done online at: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
A few rules of thumb for spam calls, texts, and emails:
If you have any questions about a suspicious email, call, or text, feel free to contact our office via phone 208.288.4345 or email info@integrityidaho.com.
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
(If you own a Mac, this doesn't apply, your OS is updated yearly.)
Many of us have seen the update for Microsoft's newest operating system (OS), Windows 11 come through on our laptop or desktop PC. Some of you have likely had it automatically applied.
If you have NOT seen the update, your computer may be too old to upgrade. This is not a cause for concern!
Anyone can stay safely on Windows 10 until its End of Life (EOL) date of October 14, 2025.
And even then, Microsoft may offer extended support as they have done for all other operating systems before it.
If you have seen the update, have you ignored it? You might be able to upgrade to Windows 11. Most notably, the Windows update icon down by your clock won't go away and now has a blue dot on it (instead of an orange/yellow or red one) like this:
So should you make the jump to upgrade your current PC to Windows 11? What will it do? What will it change? What will it break? Will it affect you much?
The answer is, it depends. Like people on the planet, our computer environments are all different, unique. With each individual and different environment, the answer varies. It is complicated because no 2 environments are the same. But this time, Microsoft has given us tools to check.
We recommend you take the following steps if you are prompted for the upgrade:
(please call or email our office if you have any questions or need assistance doing any of the steps above and pictured below)
Our findings? Most of the PCs that have upgraded from 10 to 11 are working fine without many significant issues; however, if you have older software (QuickBooks and Quicken apply) or older peripherals like printers, wireless mice, keyboards, and speakers, they may not work with Windows 11. We are finding that we have had to reinstall some printer and copier drivers and remap network drives.
If your computer is 2 years or newer, you have current software, you don't mind the change, and/or have the time/patience to learn Windows 11… upgrade.
If you have any hesitations or concerns, please contact us before making the jump. Advances in technology can be both great and frustrating. We are here to help.
Call our office (208-288-4345), or email us (info@integrityidaho.com) if you have any questions or need immediate assistance!
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
A few ideas and some new, some old - tried and true… start 2022 with some new tech practices!
Things to never click:
And take a pause before clicking on things like sponsored articles or ads on Facebook, Instagram, or in news stories, or links in email for a story, cool new gadget, sale, discount, sweepstakes, etc. Is the chain reaction that click is going to cause worth it?
Lastly, sometimes low tech is the best tech. Technology comes with a lot of learning, understanding, and maintenance. Sometimes, just doing things "the old-fashioned" way is the easiest and most secure.
Please call our office (208-288-4345), or email us (info@integrityidaho.com) if you have any questions or need immediate assistance!
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
A constant reminder: people are always wanting to steal your information. Please take a moment to refresh on our best practices:
We recommend you do as many of the following to help safeguard your information:
If you need help with anything listed above, this can be done remotely. Please call our office (208-288-4345), or email us (info@integrityidaho.com) if you have any questions or need immediate assistance!
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
We all are familiar with that random email from a weird sender that makes it into your inbox, that phishing attempt on your non-existent Dropbox account, a message to verify your Apple ID, or even emails you may have subscribed to that are just plain annoying… how do you get it to stop? Unfortunately, email spam is almost more common than legitimate messages it seems.
How you handle email messages is super important. Email servers like Gmail, Office 365, Yahoo!, etc. and mail programs on both computers and phones like Outlook, Thunderbird, Microsoft Mail app, etc. are heuristic and learn how you handle email. The trick is staying on top of it and being consistent. Simply deleting messages does not help.
Our best practices for messages that are spam and junk?
If you need help with anything listed above, this can be done remotely. Please call our office (208-288-4345), or email us (info@integrityidaho.com) if you have any questions or need immediate assistance!
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
A spoofed profile is where a scammer copies your profile and pretends to be you. The scammers use the information that the original profile makes public. This includes profile pictures, location(s), and biography information, so they are very convincing. Oftentimes, these spoofed profiles send out another friend request to people on copied profile's friends list. While more and more people are becoming aware that this is an issue when they get a second friend request from someone they are already friends with, many people still don't know what is happening (no, their friend has not been "hacked" i.e someone has gained unauthorized access to the account) or what to do about the profile, and there are many people who still will add the fake profile and further perpetuate this activity.
Besides it being annoying, what damage does this cause?
Once a spoofed profile is created, the creator will add friends listed on the original profile, send messages that ask for money… or worse, send videos and/or clickable content via messenger or page posts that contain phishing sites, adware, malware, or viruses when clicked.
How do you prevent this from happening?
Make your friends list viewable to "Friends only" or better yet, "Only me". These settings can be accessed both on the computer and in the Facebook app on phones. Simply view your profile, then go to Settings and Privacy, then under Audience and Visibility, "How People Find and Contact You". Select "Who can see your friends list", and select Friends or Only me. Setting it to "Only me" is the only sure-fire way to make it so people cannot use your friends list to create fake profiles and spam your friends, colleagues, and clients who may be friends on your page.
It's already happened to you. Now what?
Have your friends report the spoofed profile as soon as possible. All you or they have to do is go to the scammer's duplicate Facebook page and click on the three dots. Select "Find Support or Report Profile" and then "Pretending to Be Someone." You will then be asked who they are pretending to be. If it's a friend, you'll report which friend it is and then confirm your submission. Facebook will then review your report and notify you of the outcome. The process is pretty quick and painless.
Next, take steps to secure your public information. And it wouldn't hurt to complete Facebook's privacy checkup, and lock down your privacy settings which includes not allowing people to post anything on your page without your review.
Any of these things can be done remotely. Please call or email our office if you have any questions or need immediate assistance!
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
Unfortunately, accidents are all too common, we click on things we shouldn't, hardware fails… it happens to the best of us. This short, but important checklist outlines things you can do to help mitigate the damage in the case of a technology emergency:
If you have any questions about updates, pop-ups, emails, or need a clean-up, this can be done remotely. Please contact our office via phone at 208.288.4345 or email info@integrityidaho.com if you need immediate assistance.
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
We have seen an unprecedented rise in spam email, spoofing and phishing attacks are on the rise as well. Unfortunately we see these continuing and increasing into the future.
Here are a few best practices and tips keep it to a minimum:
As always you can send questionable emails to us for evaluation. Send them to info@integrityidaho.net. However, as most of these emails are spam, they do get caught in our spam and junk filters. If you do not receive a response, please call our office at 208.288.4345 and check to make sure we have received it.
From Your Friends at Integrity Computer Consulting and Repair
During this time people are conducting a lot of business via email, spending money online, and trying to find information online. Please be vigilant when opening emails, browsing the internet, downloading free software or games, and clicking on links in email and on the internet.
If you have any questions about updates, pop-ups, emails, or need a clean-up, this can be done remotely. Please contact our office via phone at 208.288.4345 or email info@integrityidaho.com if you need immediate assistance.