Burnt Orange Solutions IT Expert Tip of the month – Passwords and Pop-ups
Saskatoon IT Tips – Passwords and Pop-ups
Our Trusted Saskatoon IT Tips are from the Trusted professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions. We promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to us. We pride ourselves on ensuring our clients understand their IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. In our latest tip blog, we discuss passwords and pop-ups.
Saskatoon IT Security Tip #1 – Use Strong Passwords!
Thanks to powerful brute-force-attack software readily available online, hackers can try tens of millions of possible password combinations per second. For example, hacking software can guess a five-character password in under three hours. If you only use lowercase letters, it’s 11.9 seconds.
You KNOW you need to have a better password than “password” or “letmein” if you have any hope of keeping hackers out of your PC; but what does a “strong” password mean?
Saskatoon IT Security Tip #2 – Don’t Fall for Scam Pop-ups!
You’re working at your computer when all of the sudden – BAM! – you get a pop-up notification that your PC is infected with a virus and you must “click here” to run a scan or install antivirus. It will likely look something like the photo on the right.
This is a common scareware tactic used by hackers to get you to click and download a virus. (You should know we would NEVER deliver that type of pop-up to you!)
Often it will appear to be a system alert or a Microsoft operating system alert. Regardless of how legitimate it looks, NEVER click on the site or the pop-up and if it offers you a phone number to call, this is also a money making scam.
The safest thing to do is close your browser; do not click on the X, “Close” or “Cancel” button in the pop-up or on the site because clicking on anything on the page or pop-up will trigger a virus download. If that won’t work, bring up your task manager (hold Control + Alt + Delete on a PC and Command + Option + Esc to “Force Quit” on a Mac) and close the web browser or application where it appeared. Next, notify your IT department that this has happened, so they can double-check with a legitimate scan if your computer was infected.
Want a Head Start on Securing Your Business?
We hope this article gave you some insight into passwords and pop-ups that you can use to make your business more secure.
If you want to do more to protect yourself and your business, our ‘7 Security Requirements You Need To Now’ document is a good place to start. Download the document to see our top 7 steps any business can take to improve their IT security. If you’re ready to take your security to the next level, contact the Trusted IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions and take IT worries off your plate.
Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:
- Managed Networks
- Backup and Recovery
- Data and Network Security
- Hosted Services
- Telephone Systems
- Secure WiFi Networks
“IT Support You Can Trust and Understand”