Tech Talk with Bob: Are you CyberSecure?
You rely on your computer every day to perform multiple tasks; some of which involve transmitting your confidential information over the internet. Online banking, staying in touch with your child’s school, working remotely, paying bills, reviewing the results of your most recent blood test, monitoring and managing your investment accounts, preparing and filing your taxes, even the simple act of ordering a pizza using your credit card. Each of these basic tasks, that most of us do every day is a potential security exploit. I am willing to bet that you are the type of person who is smart enough to wear a seatbelt while driving. That’s because you know that even though you are a safe and considerate driver, you are still at the mercy of the less considerate drivers or those who are not as vigilant
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as you. You know you need to protect yourself while driving and you know that you need to protect yourself while online, navigating your digital world. Now I know you might be thinking, “Bob, I’m pretty sure my computer is safe. We haven’t had any problems. I’ve been using such and such software from the store where I bought the computer,” or “the tech-savvy neighbor kid put something on my computer for me.” If you are doing any of the financial or medical transactions I mentioned earlier, you don’t you want to be “pretty sure” your computer is safe --- you want to be “certain” it is squeaky-clean! Some of my long-time clients who manage online banking and investment accounts that have balances from thousands to millions of dollars were “pretty sure” their computers were safe too. Every one
of these folks was shocked when my cybersecurity team discovered their systems still had security exploits. OK, time for some tough love. If you do anything online of a financial or medical nature, you need to stop procrastinating and be proactive about securing your system. I know that performing deep scans on your computer system is a time-consuming process. Many people do not have the knowledge, resources, and most of all the patience to properly execute a thorough scan. The completion time of these scans have taken a few hours to a few days thanks to the many variables involved: the storage capacity of the hard drive, the number of files on the hard drive, the number of threats discovered on the hard drive, just to name a few. In addition to the automated scans we perform, my team also manually inspects critical areas of your system for threats that are not typically discovered by anti-malware software. A lot of the more popularly known and usually all the FREE anti-malware usually complete their scans in 30 minutes or less, which can be very appealing. No one wants to wait for a long scan. But let’s be realistic, you’re not ordering a pizza; you’re protecting the device that holds the keys to your digital world. My cybersecurity team
performs a through security scan of your computer “so you know for certain” whether your system is clean or not. Since these security scans have taken from hours to days to complete, to be fair, I only charge one hour of bench time to perform these scans. Whether your scan takes a few hours or 30 hours, your only obligation is our onehour bench fee. Once my cybersecurity team completes your scan, I will personally review the results with you. If you require any additional work, I will discuss your options and costs. I want you to have all the facts regarding your computer’s security health so you can make a well-informed decision based on what solution best serves you. In observance of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which happens to be October, I challenge you to “know for certain” whether your computer is in order security-wise. Starting right now and through the end of October I will do a security scan of your computer on my bench for only $99.00. Yes, for less than the cost of a onehour service appointment, my team will assess the security of your computer! Even if you think your computer is secure, I still challenge you to have my team check it. If I find that your system is squeakyclean, YOUR SCAN IS FREE! If we don’t find any potential
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