A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
I did it again. Sometimes I just can’t keep my mouth shut. The other day, I was at Best Buy waiting in the Geek Squad line. Yes I know. Going to the Geek Squad for a computer repair is kind of like going to Burger King for a steak. It’s not going to happen. Anyway, that’s another story.
There were two ladies in front of me in the line. One of them was carrying a laptop and a copy of Webroot Secure Anywhere. She was telling the other gal how she had called Best Buy. They told her to bring her computer in and they would clean the viruses an reset the password. The second lady told her, “You need to get a Mac. If you’ve got windows then you have a virus.”
That’s when I opened my mouth and asked her why I didn’t have any viruses on any of my four windows computers. She quickly changed the subject and started talking about how she didn’t have to worry about getting hacked. I said, “You obviously haven’t heard about Mat Honan.”
She hadn’t, so I briefly explained to her how Mat Honan’s Apple account was fairly easily hacked. Mat Honan is a writer for Wired magazine. One of his most widely read articles was about how his digital life was ruined by hackers in less than an hour. Hackers got the last four numbers of his credit card from Amazon. (These numbers are available on many web sites. They then called Apple and asked for a password reset using the same numbers for identity verification. After that it was simply a matter of changing passwords on all accounts. Honan then could not access any of his data.
I’m not rehashing this story to trash Apple. My point is that all computers are vulnerable to viruses and/or hackers. It’s almost always because of operator error. I’m knocking on wood as I tell you that I’ve never had any malware problems that shut me down. Over the years, the worst thing that has happened is the root kit I got from a Sony music CD. After all these years, I’m still steaming over that incident and refuse to knowingly purchase any Sony products.
The easiest way to clean viruses and malware from you computer is to not let them install in the first place. It doesn’t make a difference if you’re a Windows or Apple user. Use a good anti-virus program. Read EULAs and all carefully check boxes when you install software. Don’t blindly click on links in e-mail, even if it is from someone you know. Be wary of clicking links in forum posts, especially if the poster is new to the group.
Keep your web browser updated. On sites visit often I sometimes click on a ad, not because I’m interested in buying something, but to send a little cash to the web site owner. Be careful if you do this. Many of these advertisements lead to bad sites. I’ll click an ad for a reputable company much faster than one that tells me I can get rich quickly. It doesn’t really make a difference if you use Windows, Apple, Linux or anything else. It’s almost always the operator that causes problems.
Thanks for reading.