WyzGuys Tech Talk

This post is the result of having read an Ars Technica post commenting on an article in The Scientific Method  that reported on a study undertaken by the British banking industry.  They were looking at the cost of installing security systems relative to the costs of letting the bank robbers just take the money.  Basically, which costs more – security systems or the actual thefts?  It turns out that in England the average back robbery nets about $31,000.   ...

I am a regular reader of the Sophos blog because they have so many great articles on computer security.  They recently delved into how to tell if your password is strong enough, and at the end of it all, it really boils down to length – the longer your password, the more secure it is likely to be.  I have been exchanging my 7 and 8 character passwords for new ones that are at least 14 characters long, ...

Here’s a dieting twist – top off your 600 calorie balanced breakfast with a piece of cake.  This came from today’s TechDirt Daily and reports on the finding of an Israeli medical researchers who found that people who ate cake for breakfast actually lost 40 pounds more than people who didn’t, and kept the weight off longer, too.  Evidently, if you are going to indulge, doing so in the morning when your metabolism is at its ...

Comcast users are receiving realistic looking but fraudulent emails about the “Constant Guard” security service, that is designed to trick them into clicking on a TinyURL link that takes them to a fake replica Xfinity login page.  If you have received this email, hopefully you deleted it, but if you signed in to the fake page, get into your Xfinity account and change your password.  The stolen credentials could be used to hijack your email account or other Comcast Xfinity ...

The number is not a typo.  30 million computers were hijacked and controlled by 143 servers.  This cybercrime feat was engineered by Georg Avanesov, a Russian citizen of Armenia descent.  He was earning about $125,000 a month renting out time on his botnet to spammers, malware distributors, and fake antivirus scams.  They were even involved in several denial-of-service attacks.  At one time it was responsible for sending out 3 billion infected spam email messages a day.  Some of his hijacked ...

Today I got to deliver the bad news to another client.  Brand new laptop with an unbootable drive, and I have been trying unsuccessfully all weekend to recover useful data from the failed hard drive.  No luck.  I called the client, who burst into tears when I asked if she had a backup of her files.  No she did not have a backup.

Personally, I hate these calls.  Considering how much of our work, life, and money is tied to these ...

Watch out if you get a call from Visa Fraud and Security, it might be a scam.  This was sent to me by my friend and BNI buddy, Michael Chinn of Heartland Payment Systems.

Here is a heads up for everyone regarding the latest in VISA scams. This is happening in the Midwest right now and moving fast. This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the information, except the one piece they want.. The callers do not ...

There has been a lot of activity by malware (malicious software) writers lately centered around the Mac platform.  I have been saying for years that Macs were no more secure than PCs, it was just that there was little interest in the malware community in writing for a platform that represented a three percent share of the market.  Bigger target over on the Windows side.  With the huge success of the iPhone and iPad product lines, that lack of interest ...

This does not mean  you get to drive your car in reverse.  That WOULD be an April Fool’s joke.  Evidently someone in the IT world decided that April Fool’s Day was a great time to remind people about the New Year’s Resolution that they haven’t completed yet – that is to be backing up their irreplaceable photos, and other important data files.

If you are still waiting, or thinking about it, or decided to do it and haven’t, then please contact ...