Don’t worry, this isn’t about politics!
A great compact power strip for travel
Travel Solution
There are never enough outlets in airports and hotels. This compact power strip with two USB ports and a wraparound power cord ($18 from Amazon) was the most useful thing I brought on vacation.
My worst mistake of 2018 so far
Wasting an hour of my life watching Pretty Little Liars when I meant to try Big Little Lies. Oops!
Should have checked the Vulture lists.
Apple offers free repairs on some Mac keyboards
Worth checking if yours is one of the affected computers.
Details here.
Extortion, plain and simple
This week, two clients received nasty messages designed to frighten them into paying up: old fashioned extortion in high tech clothes. Both kindly allowed us to share details with you, to help you avoid becoming a victim of similar attacks.
Problem 1
While browsing the web on her Mac, E. encountered this pop-up window. She knew that it was a fake, but there was no obvious way to close the message and escape.
The inescapable pop up scam
Solution 1
There are easy ways to fix a frozen Mac or Mac app; learn how in this quick video on our YouTube channel.
Problem 2
P. received an email threatening to send embarrassing video to all of her contacts unless she sent $1000 in Bitcoin. Normally, she would dismiss the message as obvious fraud, but the writer cited part of her usual password. Scary!
Solution 2
A scan showed no evidence of intrusion and the password was, fortunately, an old one; this client is smart enough to change her passwords periodically. But how did the sender get the password?
Millions of email addresses and passwords have been exposed online; check here if yours have. The extortionist likely picked up her info from one of those breaches. We’ve said it before: this is why it’s essential not to use the same password for multiple accounts, and to change them if you have any reason to suspect they’ve been compromised.
