Good morning everybody!

I was on with Ken and Matt. We had a good discussion about The Iowa Caucus app fiasco, Business Email Compromise, and Deep Fakes what it is, who is at risk and what we can do about it. I went into detail about Passwords and Password Managers and even two-factor authentication and why you need to use them. So here we go with Ken and Matt.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit – CraigPeterson.com

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig
The problem we see this daily when I get notices from the FBI. It all boils down to personal hygiene, just keeping your data reasonably safe on your part.

Craig
Hi, everybody, Craig Peterson here. It is Wednesday morning, and that means I was, of course, on with Ken and Matt. We had quite a little discussion because I had provided them with eight different articles. All of them were about major security problems this week. That’s why we got into precisely what you can do to get yourself to the 95 percentile when it comes to keeping your account safe online. So here we go with Ken and Matt.

Ken
It’s time to talk to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us now. As always, at this time, to talk about what’s happening in the world of technology. Craig, How are you this morning?

Craig
Hi gentlemen, good morning. How about those Iowa caucuses? Did they try out the app beforehand?

Ken
Of course, that is an app that I think Hillary controlled.

Craig
Yes, the rumors are flying because in fact and ex-staffers of Hillary Clinton,

Matt
yes, yes.

Craig
So um, you have, I mean, story after story after story about this thing about Pegasus, and then you have this travel act coming online in the gap. Microsoft Excel security alert.

Matt,
Should we just stop using computers completely?

Craig
Oh, man. Well, good. You know it. I have thought about this a lot. What do we do? I think we’ve got an enormous problem. Here because it’s almost like overload, right? Where every week there’s new, there are new hits on us. Got Evil Corp. I don’t know, did you watch it? Where’s it called with Malik Mr. Robot? With one Malik, right or Yeah, that’s the guy’s name, an actor.

Ken
Anyways, or do you know?

Matt
What is it? Rami Malik’s

Craig
Rami. Oh, Robbie, man, I thought the first name was Malik. Oh, yeah. Rami Oh, yes, yes. Joe, he’s in this. He’s a hacker right. He’s all in his head. Weird things are happening, but he’s battling Evil Corp., And there’s an evil corporation in the news. And it’s using Microsoft Excel to deliver this payload this nasty thing. So what are people supposed to do can and it’s, are we getting burned out? Just like Nancy Pelosi rips up the speech and you just roll your eyes because it’s yet another partisan thing. It is, however, another week with more hacks. But what I think it boils down to isn’t just not using computers first of all use them safely. You know the stuff I would say your mother told you, but of course, she did. Because this is this has been many years in the coming. But the stuff you know, to use different passwords on different websites. Use a password manager like one password or LastPass the necessary things, and it’s like you don’t want to get coronavirus while swash your hands and don’t cut your face and conference knees into your elbow. Basic stuff, and you know what the problem can we see real, and I see this every day I’m getting notices from the FBI, but it all boils down to personal Hi Jean, just keeping your data reasonably safe on your part. You know, use a few different email addresses. Don’t always use the same learn, have a Google address, but have a couple of others as well. Don’t use your business computer for personal things. Don’t think of VPN is going to save you because of VPN does minimal things and can make your business network even less safe. Yes, I said it less reliable using the VPN. And what we see this week too, is a vast right. You know, my opinion about antivirus software? Yeah, it is zero percent effective against modern attacks zero percent. And a vast came out this week. And it turns out, and they were selling arrows. Everything you were doing online everything to the highest bidder millions of dollars, so you searched on Google thoroughly, Avast sold it to whoever wanted to pay for it. You went to a porn site Avast told them, anybody, who pays for it all about it. You did anything on your web browser, anything on your computer because remember your antivirus software has access to everything on your computer, have vastly sold that information. So I’ve said forever. And Matt, I heard you chime in there. But how many times have you even said we are the product when it comes to sites like Facebook? Correct?

Ken
Yes. Anytime is the answer to your question.

Craig
Yeah, exactly. And what we’re talking about here is free VPN. And free. Free websites aren’t free Avast. Where’s anti-malware software is not free. So This is stuff I, you know, can I think we’ve mentioned a million times, and I keep, I hate to flog a dead horse, right.

Matt
We like horses.

Craig
But we just have to be more careful. And I bring these things up every week to try and just try and drive the point home. We got to be more cautious because now we’re seeing warnings coming out again from the FBI about these deep fakes, which we’ve talked about before. And I don’t remember I know I had this in my stack of stuff last year, last quarter last year. Still, there was a company that had been bought by a German company. The CFO got a call from his boss over in the German company, telling him to wire funds over to the German company, right? He provided him all the information. He’d met this guy in Germany before he talked to him on the phone. He got the instructions, and he did it. It is a form of deep fakes that get used in these business scams. Where it sounds like the CEO. It is not just an email that comes from the CEO’s hacked mailbox. It sounds like the CEO in the video, and now we see where it looks like it too. They can’t do that live yet, but it’s coming. So everybody listening takes a few of just a few minutes a day and start going in changing your account password just the simplest thing you can do it are either you guys using password managers right now.

Matt
Frankly, No, I’m not.

Ken
I don’t know I like to discount all the advice given to me by Craig Peterson. I have not really no. Okay, right now, go online, sorry, something comes up on my computer say do you want me to save this password? I suppose that’s not a password manager, right? You’re right, man, because it’s your browser giving your password to Google. I trust them.

Craig
Go to one password dot com right now. The digit one password.com. Check it out. I want you to do this. What does it do? What it does is it ties into your browser, so it can fill out the form for you when that browser is asking you to log in. It provides the latest newest technology that’s coming out that’s replacing passwords slowly but surely. And it will generate passwords for you to share passwords, multi-word passwords, so one password calm now what I love about it is it works for me. It works for my family, and it works for my business, so it has multiple vaults that you can share. Because here’s your next problem. What do I do? In the past, my problem was remembering the password, and once I remember it, then it changes.

Craig
Yes, you remember one password, and that’s the one password. Now you can I have before you go any further corrections?

Ken
Can I ask one question, though, using a service like that the one password, if you will, what is protecting those institutions from hacking and all of your passwords getting stolen? I mean, how does that not occur at some point when some enterprise with hacker decides that they’d like to have your access to everything you own?

Craig
Well, one password does not keep any of your passwords unencrypted. And it uses a high level like Pentagon plus level security for all your passwords, so they never leave your computer in what’s called cleartext. So there is no way for one password to get Adam last passes the other one to look at Last pass, they have a cheaper version. That’s quite good as well. But hopefully, that answers your question. They never get your passwords. They’re only on your local computer. You can share them between all of your computers using like iCloud or Dropbox or many other things. But they are always heavily encrypted, which is phenomenal. It is one of the simplest and best things you can do. Because having a complex password that’s different on every site number by complex, I don’t mean upper-lower digits, special characters, or anything I mean like a 20-30 character long password which LastPass will generate for you so well one password. Having a password like that makes it almost impossible for the bad guys to break into your town. They’re not even going to bother while they might be Try, right, but it’ll take some more than 100 years to crack your passwords. And they’re only stored in your machine, and encrypted, it is easy to use. And with your MacBook Pro that you have can, you can use one password. And when you go to a website, you can say, Okay, give me give him to give that site my login to one password. And with your MacBook Pro, it’ll do the fingerprint if you wanted to, instead of you having to type in your one password. There are some helpful integrations, and it’s going to work on your smartphones. It’s available for Android and Windows as well as Macs and iOS. But guys, you know, this is something you have to do. So I’m going to next week. I’m going to ask you whether or not you had it, and you got it done.

Matt
So what’s the name of this thing again?

Craig
The one I like best is one password is just the digit one password pa ss w or d dot com

Ken
Come on, you don’t use that one point, to be honest with you.

Craig
The other one, I like his last pass, you’ll find it lastpass.com. But I prefer one password personally. So get it done to change one or two passwords. The way I started doing this years ago when I started using password managers as to when I went to a site to type in my password, I type it in, and I’d immediately go into one password and create a new password for that site. And then, once you’ve done that, start using two-factor authentication. And one password has that built-in as well. Where it generates a code. Have you seen these little things before where every 30 seconds the code changes, you know? So it’ll let you do that, if you o do those two things, you’re almost wholly guaranteed never get hacked. It’s that simple. Two-factor authentication, one password with a different password for Every site and I only have to remember one password.

Ken
Yes, exactly. Okay, peace.

Matt
So Well, I think I’d add that one, check.

Ken
Anyway, that is your update, ladies gentlemen from Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us every Wednesday at this time to go over what’s happening in the world of technology. We appreciate it. As always, Craig and we will talk to you again next week.

Craig
Gentlemen, take care. Bye-bye.

Matt
Excellent. All right. Well, why don’t we go back into the newsroom?

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