Don’t fall for scams!
This month we would like to give you our ever-popular advice on how to avoid having your computer get infected We’ve received SEVERAL calls from our clients in the last weeks telling us how they were receiving scam calls, popups, and emails.
How do you recognize a scam?
The basic rule is: Did you ask for this? If this email, call, or message on your computer is unexpected and scary, STOP. You can always call me to get an answer instead of following along with a potential scam.
If you got an email from an unknown address or sender DO NOT open it. If you get a weird email from someone you know that has attachments or links that you didn’t expect, delete it and let the person know through a different method.
If you load a webpage and suddenly a screen appears telling you you’re infected and you should call this number, STOP. Call me instead and we can figure out how to avoid these kind of things in the future.
I do all that I reasonably can to secure the computers that I work on, but no security is perfect.
Email scams specifically
There’s no foolproof way to determine if an email is a scam, but here are some things to look out for:
Many scam emails would use the name of popular brands you will recognize and their subject lines will have urgent phrases such as your “account has been suspended” or your account had an “unauthorized login attempt”.
Also, don’t believe in “free gifts”, “approved applications”, or people who claim they have a very serious illness and are seeking financial help. Also, since this is tax season, the IRS is not going to be emailing you, so anything from them is a scam.
When in doubt, if you do business with a company being mentioned, you can always contact them through the phone number on a mailed statement, credit card you have, or the phonebook.
Another very common and serious type of virus usually will pretend to be a UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc delivery notification. Be very careful with any email claiming to be about a package delivery, especially do not click any links in such an email, nor open any such attachments.
Also, no one should ever ask for your password to anything over email.
What do I do if I receive one of the above emails?
Mark it as spam/junk or just delete it. Never open it.
Spring cleaning
Maybe I’m jumping the gun on spring cleaning – doesn’t really feel that springy out there, but it’s as good a time as any.
As always, we would like to thank you for trusting our services and letting us solve your computer problems.
Chris Petersen
Watchdog Technology
1-(855)-WATCHTECH
1-(855)-928-2483
chris@watchdogtechnology.com
