Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Help and advice are given on a range of technical issues from computers to everything internet-related.
Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Be The Family Tech Fixer
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One wrong click can turn you into the “family IT department” for the rest of your life, and we’ve both lived it. Greg Rhodes and Adam Littlefield lay out a calmer way to handle those panicked calls about printers, missing emails, new phones, and scary pop-ups. We focus on a simple shift: teach the person in front of you instead of just fixing the problem, so they build confidence and you get fewer repeat emergencies.
We get tactical with what actually works at the keyboard: slow down your directions, ditch the jargon, use visual landmarks, and write a short step list in their own words. We also talk about reducing tech anxiety by simplifying a cluttered desktop, keeping automatic updates turned on, and knowing when it’s time to stop troubleshooting and bring in a pro. If you need quick help, we explain how our free tech support hotline works and what kinds of questions you can solve in minutes without hauling a heavy computer into the store.
Then we go deep on everyday cybersecurity and scam prevention: why password reuse leads to credential stuffing, how a password manager and a strong master passphrase protect your accounts, and why two-factor authentication matters most for your email, bank, and shopping logins. We also cover the shift toward passkeys and hardware security keys, plus a practical checkup tool, Have I Been Pwned, to see whether your email appears in known data breaches. Wrap it up by adding recovery options so you don’t get locked out when you finally secure everything.
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Welcome And Tax-Free Savings
SPEAKER_00Hey there and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580 Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, go ahead and leave an open mic inside the WDBO app. And don't forget to check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop it at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., which means if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, it means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Greg, and thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Again, my name is Adam Littlefield. I'm one of the technicians over at the Refresh Computer Superstore over in Longwood. Before we get into today's show, I want to go over again that we are still within that back to school tax-free holiday. So if you come in, buy a computer today, you can get it tax-free up to $1,500. That's the max value for that tax-free holiday. But it is going until the 20th. So you've got today and a couple days next week to be able to get in and uh kind of get a good system, save on that sales tax. Today we're going to be going over, you know, a bunch of different topics, like we always do on the show. We're going to be going over, you know, some tips and mentions of how to really just be the best family tech expert. You know, if you're if you're a really, really savvy person with tech, you're probably your family's tech support. So we're going to kind of go over that a little bit, how you can help out. We're also going to, you know, talk a little bit more about our help that we can give, our free tech support, hotline, all of that. We're also going to go over some habits that'll actually prevent you yourself from being hacked by somebody that's looking for your money or your information. And
Life As Family Tech Support
SPEAKER_01then we'll be ending off of the show today a couple different ways to figure out how you've actually been compromised, or even if you are compromised yet. So getting into it for this first topic, you know, it's it's something that I'm sure a lot of people listening to the show right now can relate to. And, you know, if you are the most tech savvy person in your family, I want to congratulate you. You pretty much already have a second unpaid job. So true. It's it's, you know, there's a lot of family members that I have specifically that always ask me tech questions. You know, I know it used to be my brother years ago before I really got into this gape. Now it's my my responsibility. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners out there too also kind of are in the same thing. You know, it's it's always kind of a give and take situation. You know, you're the phone call that when a printer isn't working, emails are disappearing, some scary message pops up, you know, you're you're probably that point of contact. If you're if that sounds even just a little bit familiar, this is gonna be a really good segment to listen to because it's you know, if if you've gotten into this before, you know, and sometimes in the end of it, there's a fight going on that nobody's gonna be winning anything out of. Do you experience anything like that, Greg? Are you the tech person for your family?
SPEAKER_00I am definitely the tech person for my family. If my parents get a new phone, I'm the one they call to come help set it up. If they get a new TV, it's how do we get all the channels right so that way it's not talking in Spanish all the time. All those kinds of different things. I'm definitely the uh the guy that's on speed dial for them at the house.
SPEAKER_01Right. And, you know, there's there's not really a lot of places you can go to get, you know, some personal support that a family member can give you. I know me specifically, it's a lot easier for my parents and my family to trust me, giving me a password or something, their computer to try and fix it rather than a stranger, you know, and that's uh that's a really good thing to have close because it's it's somebody that for a lot of us lived in home with us. It's somebody that we can just ask to come take a quick look.
Teach Don’t Take The Mouse
SPEAKER_01And the goal always, I would say, at least me personally, and what I would suggest to keep yourself in the mindset of is the goal isn't to fix, you know, the one problem in front of you. It's not to find that one email that's missing and to walk away. The I would say the end goal should be getting you know your family member to be a little more confident with using their system, kind of showing them maybe how you're finding it or where you're looking, telling them what you're thinking, you know, kind of give them a little tips and tricks to make them a little more independent with that tech. Those are very different missions, but in the end, it's going to be a lot more helpful to you and your family member to actually help them learn rather than just do it for them. One of those give a man a fish or teach a man a fish kind of situations, right? Exactly. You know, it's you can you can teach a man a fish and he'll fish all day, but if you give a man a fish, he'll he'll never catch himself one.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So hopefully, hopefully this helps you be able to guide those family members to where they're not giving you the call every week for the same issue. Maybe this will help them be able to resolve it on their own.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And you know, it's it's faster in the moment, I would say, to just, you know, grab the mouse, fix it for them in 10 seconds, not saying a word. But in the long run, it's it's gonna be that call two, three times a week sometimes. So
Directions That Actually Stick
SPEAKER_01what I can suggest, and something that I've helped I've had have help so much, is the slowdown. Slow down what you're saying, what steps you're going through. You don't want to fly through eight different things, eight different clicks while they're still stuck on, you know, the second click, trying to remember where you had it. Give the give some directions out loud, you know, say find the blue button near the top, right corner. It's a lot of what I do, you know, over the phone whenever we get our our our calls into our store on our tech support hotline, is I will try to give just very, very easy to follow directions because it's it is simple sometimes as simple as find the blue button near the top and let them go through and do the actions. The muscle memory is what's going to stick a lot more than the knowledge. And I'm sure that, you know, talking about muscle memory, if I were to say right now, if you could just try to remember the pin maybe you put into your computer, a lot of my customers I've had have to have a keyboard in front of them to just muscle memory out the pin rather than being able to say it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I that is that is so real for so many people. I can definitely see that as it's one of those things that you don't that you don't think about it because it's just what your fingers know how to do when it comes to the number pad. Right. When you actually have to like think it out, it just it's just not there.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And it's the same thing kind of goes for passwords too. You know, when you're typing out a password, at some point it does just become muscle memory rather than remembering what your password is. And this is kind of that same, you know, you can kind of apply the same what's what's the word I'm looking for here? The same idea to this is get them to get the muscle memory of doing that action rather than just telling them how to do it as you do it. It's slower, but again, it is worth it. Another thing I would mention too, and this is something I've I've started doing, is writing it down, you know, in in their words, not yours. So for something that they may have to do again and again and again, write write down a numbered list on a note, piece of paper, you know, tape it next to the computer. Heck, if you can even get screenshots showing where everything is, that's that's even better.
SPEAKER_00It's like you said, if it's it's one of those I've I've taken leadership courses, and in those they've told you go ahead and describe how to build a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to someone. Right. And it's it's the little steps that you forget to say, put the certain end of the knife into the peanut butter jar, things like that. That really you automatically assume somebody knows what you're talking about, but they might not because they're not, they don't have the same experiences that you've had when it comes to, in this case, computers, in my case, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And, you know, to apply, I guess, to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich aspect a little bit more, you know, there's certain jargon that you can use with tech that is just not going to apply to some family members. So, you know, trying to say to cut that peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a 45 degree acute angle or something like that, you know, you drop the jargon, make it a little easier just to follow. So instead of saying, you know, open the browser and go to this URL, tell them, you know, double-click the Microsoft Edge icon, click the search bar or the long white bar at the top, and type in. And even tell them, you know, how to spell it out. Because again, sometimes there are websites that are bad websites that are just one letter wrong. It's very simple to accidentally do that. So spell it out, you know, give it to them in their words, their landmarks, and it that they'll your family member is going to find their way through it very easily. It just takes a little bit of that oomph, that that confidence to give them first.
SPEAKER_00And
Make PCs Less Scary
SPEAKER_00speaking of confidence, a lot of this uh when it comes to some of these different generations working on computers, it's really just because they're scared of them. And they might say things like they're not good with computers, but really it's just that they're maybe even afraid that they'll just actually break the machine, you know?
SPEAKER_01Right. And you know, that's that's something I've I hear all the time from my personal family members. I hear it from customers I have come in. They they want to figure out the problem, but they're just they're too scared they're gonna delete the wrong file. And I I'm happy to say at least that Windows has made it easy enough to know if you're deleting a file, you shouldn't. I've had multiple times going to delete some cached file that I know is junk, but it'll pop up and say, Are you sure you want to delete this? This is a system file and may cause instability. It's a very clear message that comes up and it makes me double check a little bit, even myself, because you don't want to delete the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_00And even some of the more important, like actual system files that you really don't want to touch, Windows doesn't even show you those anymore.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Windows doesn't show you them, and the ones that they do show, they're already under names that a lot of computer users already are familiar hearing, like the name System32. That's that's been a very known name all the way back, I believe, to you know, earlier, earliest versions of Windows. And that's where all of the system files are. You know, don't not to go poke around in that. It's a beehive, you don't really want to poke around and hit the wrong thing. And uh you're right, Greg, it is a lot of fear that ends up stopping a lot of a lot of people from actually going through and poking around in settings, trying to figure out, you know, if they accidentally deleted an email. So, you know, kind of just when you're sitting there helping a family member, give them confidence that, you know, you're you're there seeing what they're doing at the time. So that you can guarantee them at least that where they're going isn't gonna cause them any issues. You know, tell them a little bit to explore too. If there's nothing wrong with clicking through stuff in the system, exploring where things are. You know, I have a lot of people scared to even look for their documents folder because they're scared they're gonna open the wrong folder and then suddenly the computer's gonna, you know, turn off or something. Just kind of getting it, you know, simple simplified to them that it's it's not that easy to break. It's not like you look at your car the wrong way and now suddenly it's not gonna turn over. Although sometimes I have I had had those moments. I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of people have also had those moments. So, bigger thing I can also mention is try to simplify their desktop, the computer itself. You know, you don't want 300 icons all over the desktop.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I've seen those.
SPEAKER_01I have to multiple times. Stress inducing. It's it is, and you know, I've seen before that it gets to the point where Windows start stacking icons because there's no room to fit them on the screen. Simplify it down to you know, three or four things they actually use front and center, you know, clear of the rest. Clearing that screen up is gonna help them a lot from opening, you know, the wrong programs. Opening up wrong programs over and over and over will make a computer slow down sometimes. And that'll cause a whole different issue. Right. And biggest thing I'll actually suggest, it's something that you know a lot of users always want to disable. But for your family member, it may be a good thing to keep automatic updates. You know, that's gonna that's gonna make it so they don't have to go in and check the updates in the settings area. They don't have to approve updates to install. There's it takes away all of that anxiety. Just let the system do the automatic updates and then they'll just be prompted to restart. And at that point, you know, the major stuff that might come up with updates, you may be already there, you know, during a visit or something to take care of it for them. It gets rid of the little day-to-day stuff.
Scam Red Flags And Senior Shield
SPEAKER_01The main thing I want to focus on too, because we've had a massive uprising in scams lately, the safety conversation, you know, with the internet. Don't click on any suspicious links, don't call a number, don't buy gift cards, someone connect to your computer. All of that are normal, just red flags, I would say. If you get a if you're tell your family member about if they get a pop-up, telling them to call Microsoft, Google, any of the big tech names, you know, kind of just lay it out for them that, you know, those companies they have millions and millions of customers. They they don't have the manpower to be answering phone calls from that. Get them a little bit into the the mindset about what scams are, teach them about some of the latest scams. Something I would suggest as well, if you are in the state of Florida, there is the operation Senior Shield that is still being ran by the state. If you have access to their email, I would suggest signing them up for that newsletter. You know, I get about an email once a month from them, the Senior Shield operation, that just lays out the newest scams. And right now, it's exactly what we have going on back to school. It's back to school scams.
SPEAKER_00And again, that's a space, a state-sponsored program. So it's coming from an official source as well.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So you're not having to second guess if it's a real person or a good person rather, sending out that information. But, you know, sometimes there is just the moment where it's too far. You know, sometimes something is wrong. It's more than you can fix it, your family member can fix it, trying to explain to them how to fix it. That's the time to call in a pro, you know, like refresh computers, us local in Longwood. We have tons of customers that live close to us that have a lot of problems that their family members will tell them to come to us. And I'll tell you, a lot of times that probably saves a lot of frustration they're gonna have at the next family gathering. It really does. There's no more, there's no passive-aggressive sighing of uh trying to repeat the same thing 10,000 times. You know, we we can go through, we take care of it, and we apply a lot of this every day to the customers that we have come in. So I think we're getting to a uh break here. When we come back, we're gonna be talking uh a little bit about our free tech sport hotline and what refresh computers can do for you.
SPEAKER_00Are you the tech at home? We'd love to hear about your experiences. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can listen to Tech Talk right here on WDBO.
What The Free Hotline Solves
SPEAKER_00Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, a technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. And now, back to Adam.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Greg. And again, thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Um, if you missed anything from our last segment, we talked a lot about how you yourself can actually help out your family with some tech issues that they may have going on. We listed out a bunch of different stuff. That's really, really good information to know. If you missed any of that, go to our website, refreshcomputers.net, click that podcast link in the top right corner. You can listen back to this whole show and tons of our other shows going years back. While you're there, check out our website as well, our inventory. We are still within that tax-free holiday season that's going to be ending on the 20th on Thursday next week. So check out our website. You can get tax-free on any system, up to $1,500. So now's no better of a time to really consider that upgrade. In this segment, I want to talk a little bit about our free tech support hotline. Um, you know, there's tons of companies out there that say, oh yeah, give us a call and we'll help you. And, you know, most of those companies, I can say, from personal experience, do not want to help you over the phone. And that's something that's really different at Refresh Computers. You know, we always talk about our phone number, 407-478-8200. That is our free tech support hotline where we do offer a lot of tech support and advice over the phone. You know, about 10, 15 minute calls we can do, and you get a real local person in Longwood who actually knows what they're talking about, not somebody in a call center. And that hotline follows kind of the same hours as the store hours, is that right? Exactly. 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday. You can give us a call. You'll get connected to any of our technicians that are on the floor. So any of the guys that'll work on your computer if you bring something in, those are the ones that are answering the calls, myself included. I'm one that answers calls, can help through, you know, multiple different things over the phone. This is something that it's it's hard to find now. It's hard to find a place that you can just ask questions to. And the the first thing that you'll probably hear anywhere else is, well, we can help you with that, but you need to pay our support fee of $99.99 a month or something like that. I know there's a lot of larger tech names out there that trying to contact them now, they do charge for support. So having this free tech support hotline, it's really, really good to have. You know, it lets you get those quick questions out there that aren't going to need a whole repair, a whole, the whole nine yards of bringing your computer down, you know, asking if an email is a scam, why your computer is doing something, or what it uh what message could mean, or if you should click something. Those kinds of questions, those are the exact things that we answer every single day. And that's what we talked about in the last uh last segment as well, is a lot of those are, you know, sometimes come from family that you know you yourself could field internally, but you know, sometimes you don't have that family there that can give you that help. And that's where refresh kinds of kind of comes in and fills that void. And I'll tell you what, those two-minute, five-minute phone calls I have, excuse me, they're way better than lugging your computer down to the store. Right. I've had some super heavy computers come into the store for the most simplest fixes. And sometimes they're fixes that we don't even charge for because they are something that it takes us not two minutes to fix. It sometimes takes longer to plug the computer in than it is to actually fix what's going on with it.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say it might take longer for the setup. And it honestly, it might just be simpler to just give that number a call. Again, that's 407-478-8200, just to get a quick idea if it's something that can be done over the phone, because that's not an issue for you guys either, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_01If it's something that you think you might have to bring in to us first, give us a call. We can talk to you over the phone, kind of get the idea of what's going on, and then we can tell you right there, can we help over the phone or if you need to bring it in? Sometimes with helping over the phone, we can also do remote support sessions. Those we do charge for. They're about $50 per 30 minutes, but we can remote into your computer and actually provide a lot of support that, you know, it's almost like we're sitting in front of the computer going through it with you. It's something that we can talk to you on the phone as well. You can click on something, ask us right there and show it. Sometimes that's a lot easier than lugging that, you know, 15, 20 pound computer I've seen before into our store just to ask if an email is real. So again, that number is 407-478-8200. You can call that number all day today. Uh, we close at 7 p.m. So if you have any questions, give us a call. Um, when we come back from this break, we're gonna be talking about you know some habits that are gonna prevent you from being hacked. Keep you safe online.
SPEAKER_00You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.
Password Managers Stop Credential Stuffing
SPEAKER_00Hey there and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes, sitting here with Adam Littlefield from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. Don't forget to check out the website over at RefreshComputers.net, or you can always stop in at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, is three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., which means if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, it means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Greg, and thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers, a filled episode of how you can help your family and who to call when you can't. If you missed any of the segments before now, I would suggest going to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link in the top right corner. That'll give you this episode and years and years of our episodes before this one. Tons of good information there. We talked about tons of different topics over the last years, couple years. It you can actually kind of see how things have progressed as well. I know you can really see the shift of how AI started exploding. And, you know, we also talk a lot about hacks. You know, we make it public information to be known that there are hackers out there, that we try to keep up with the most up-to-date, you know, hacks. And that's what this segment's gonna kind of be about as well. These are some boring habits that a lot of our listeners are gonna think, but these are what gonna are what stop most hackers from getting into your accounts. Having a password manager is something I would suggest majorly, and two-factor authentication. So before we get into it, I'm just gonna go over that really quick. Password manager. That's something that you know you lock down with one super secure password and it stores all of your other passwords. There are a lot of nice password managers out there now that, you know, when you log into an account, they'll offer to save it into their manager. They use encryption, so they can't be easily broken into. They're not saved in plain text like a like a notepad on your desktop would be. And these are these are locked behind a powerful password that you yourself set. So instead of remembering, you know, 20, 30, 50 different passwords, you remember one. The other one I mentioned was two-factor authentication. You know, that's the text message you get with a code to when you're logging into an account or maybe an email. Um, we'll go a little bit over more about two-factor authentication and the levels of it for that as well. But starting with password managers, this is something that I've started suggesting to tons of my customers that come into the store now. The major problem with a lot of hacks these days, you're using the same passwords. Yep. That's what it is. All it takes is one company to get breached, and that the crooks that took your email and password from that company, they could have your password to your bank, your email, your Amazon account. You know, now one leak becomes 10, which can become a hundred. It's it's almost like a like a landslide with that one password being leaked.
SPEAKER_00And again, people think of it as like, well, those companies aren't associated with each other, so that leak won't affect me. Well, that's not exactly how this works. Once they get that username, which is typically an email address and a password, they just try it on everything.Anywhere and anything that they can try that combination on, they will try it. And like you said, if you're using the same password across all of these different platforms, they're gonna get into something.
SPEAKER_01And that's that's a good point, Greg. It's it's so common now for this kind of breach to happen that there's a name for it called credential stuffing. It's the number one way that you know regular users, myself included, can get hacked. They're using the same credentials everywhere, the same email, the same password. And a lot of crooks that grab that information from one site, they'll try it over thousands of them because they know that they can find, if they can find even just one site that's got a that uses that same information, they may be able to get into so much more. So the biggest thing I can stress using a password manager is going to be your best bet because those actually now offer to generate randomized passwords. So you're not having to, you know, use the same password with slight altercations, you know, maybe an exclamation point at the end, different capitalization. It's so much more than that. I know more than half of my passwords now are just a garbled mess of letters and numbers and symbols. Right. That's all it is. And my password manager even lets me dictate how long I can make the passwords. So for my Google account, for example, I think I said 128 characters or something like that. It that'll never be broken into. It's just not possible. The biggest thing I can say with a password manager, though, is password managers are locked with a password. Right. So you have to set a master password. And I cannot stress it enough. You have to make that master password the strongest password that you can possibly imagine. What I personally have done is with my master password, it's not just a word, it's a phrase, a very long run-on sentence. And that's how I can remember it just as easy. And, you know, talking in one of our earlier segments, we talked a lot about muscle memory. I can't tell you what that sentence is anymore, Greg, but I can sure tell you my fingers can figure it out on the keyboard, no problem. So then you're protected from your own hacking as well. Exactly. Another rule with password managers as well, a lot of them do have automatic locks that you can do. So, say you're not accessing your passwords in that password manager for eight hours, it will automatically lock itself. So you have to put in your master password again to get back into your password manager. That basically just secures it. So, say your computer were to be stolen or something. You know, not every user keeps a password on their computer, but making sure that your password manager locks itself is going to make sure that nobody can get those passwords super easily. You know, it's again, these are encrypted in these password managers. I even had a time where I forgot my master password with my password manager, they had to delete my whole account. Yeah. They had no way to reset the password. They said that I just had to delete it and start anew. So the fact that these companies that run these password managers can't get into it. Good point. It's it's encrypted, it's it's unbreachable. Another suggestion that I mentioned having two-factor authentication is going to save so much headache. I know it's annoying that when you go to log into your bank account or Google, you have to wait for that text message with that code to put it in. But I promise you, that is one of the major things that stops 99% of accounts from getting hacked. The moment somebody gets your email and password, put it into an account, and they see, oh, we've uh we've sent a code to this number on file, and it's maybe the last two they'll show of that phone number, that that makes these people panic immediately. Because now not only can they not get into your account, they've now accidentally sent you a in an inadvertent message that your account's trying to be logged into.
SPEAKER_00Just so you know, you've been hacked. That's what it that's exactly what that message means. I've gotten that before for usually just random accounts, and you're like, no, I did not try and log back into that today. Let me go ahead and change my password. And you can also, they also give you the option to usually notify if it's a bank or somebody like that. Hey, this person, I I didn't try to do this. Somebody else is trying to access my account.
SPEAKER_01Right. And you know, you don't even have to set this up for every single account. Set it up for the ones that are vital. The main artery accounts is what I'll call them. You know, your email, your bank account, main shopping accounts like Amazon or eBay accounts, those are major, major targets for a lot of these breaches of information. And as long as you've got two-factor at least set up on those, you're gonna protect yourself from years of headache. You mean I don't need to set it up for my Club Penguin account? Well, if you want to set it up for that, I'm I'm not gonna stop you. Okay. So again, setting up
Two-Factor Passkeys And Email Lockdown
SPEAKER_01two-factor authentication, I cannot stress enough how important that is. There are even now versions of two-factor authentication that are hardware authenticators. So, for example, I've talked on the on our show before how I have a physical USB key that I plug into my computer for two-factor authentication. For me, it's easier because I just plug it in, I tap a sensor on it, and that tells the computer, you know, hey, this is this person, they have their authenticated key, let it through. Problem with that is if I physically lose that key, I'm out of luck.
SPEAKER_00Right. And there are outside of what you use it for, I know you use it as your main authenticator, there are also certain programs that I use for audio editing and things like that that specifically require it's called ILOC. Yeah. And those are a has to be plugged into whichever kind of computer or PC that I'm using to be able to access already downloaded programs. Right. So again, it's keeping people from being able to steal your items as well.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And that's, you know, we're starting to get into this uh motion now where we're starting to migrate towards pass keys rather than two-factor authentication. Pass keys are still a form of two-factor authentication. They're not like the codes that are sent by email or text message. These physical keys that, you know, you're talking about, Greg, and I'm talking about, these are physical pass keys. These aren't ones that are saved in the browser or saved to your computer's hardware. These are actual physical keys that if they're not present, the computer knows, do not let this account log in. And I can't tell you how many headaches that saved me now on a lot of my accounts because, you know, Greg, I've had multiple emails before come in saying, Hey, you know, did you try to log in? You know, we noticed you tried to log in but did not uh finish your two-factor authentication. I know exactly right then. Oh.
SPEAKER_00Someone is trying to use all of your Burger King rewards points. Exactly. So you need to log, you need to confirm before we allow them to get all these whoppers.
SPEAKER_01You need to lock those down before they get that free food, exactly. And, you know, I talking about all of this information that can be stolen, the crown jewel of it all is your email account. You know, if somebody can get your email and get into that account, they know the password for that. That gives them the power to start resetting passwords on all other accounts. They can look through your email to see, you know, what companies are regularly sending you emails to try to find what accounts you may have set up. Once they get into that account, it's I don't want to say it's game over, but it's basically you've handed them the keys to the the whole the whole car. So keeping your email locked down, that's gonna that's gonna save you a lot of time. Again, with these physical keys, that's gonna be the best thing to keep your email locked down. So if somebody gets your email and your password to that account, they have to have a physical key that they they can't duplicate. Two-factor authentication on anything, even if it's just a text message for your email. I I'm suggesting that right now because I think I had uh, what was it, a couple weeks ago, I actually had a customer come in playing a game of cat and mouse with somebody that had actually hacked into his Gmail account. And it was back and forth me logging them out, changing a password, as they logged me out to change the password back and forth, back and forth. Probably, you know, 15-20 minutes of that. And that was somebody that was overseas doing that. That would have been totally saved had that person just had two-factor authentication set up. We did eventually get that set up, I will say that. We did eventually get it stopped, but you know, it would have stopped that little game of cat and mouse. A quick word as well, because again, I did mention two-factor authentication codes are going away. The text message one specifically and emails. We kind of have talked in previous shows about how we are starting to see now phone numbers spoofing, where some scammers can actually spoof your phone number to get your authentication codes. Pass keys are gonna be the newer and safer way, I would say, to keep all of your accounts locked down. It's just every day, everything keeps evolving, you know? And even just maybe coming, like I can say coming in Thursday. I'm normally off Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the store. Coming in Thursday, I hear all about new pop-up scams all of a sudden that are coming up. The last day I was in was Monday. Not a peep about them at that point. It's it's snap of the fingers like that, very quick. And, you know, a lot of this can also be compromised just from yourself, just from not knowing, you know, what you're putting your information into. A lot of uh scam sites now that are maybe one letter off on spelling when you go to that URL, mimic the site that you're trying to go to. So trying to go to, you know, sign into your Gmail account, they'll look exactly the same. Ask for your email and password, you put them in and you know they're right. It'll pop up saying that it's incorrect. Well, unfortunately, it's that easy. You've just given your information over to somebody now. Right. Those people that run those sites, they run them specifically to fish for that information from you. Because it's, you know, it is easy sometimes to put in, you know, gmail.com and you you put one letter wrong. You know, instead of Gmail, you put G M-A-I-I, you know, something like that. It's it's that easy. So keeping up with this is gonna be the best bet to keep yourself safe, keep your family members safe as well. If you have any family members you can think of right now, I'm sure at least one listener out there has a family member in mind, walk them through setting up two-factor authentication. Heck, set it up for them, tell them how it works because you are gonna save your family member and yourself a lot of headache down the road. Um, we're going to another break here, but after that, we're gonna be uh going over some tips of how you can find if your passwords or your accounts have been breached.
SPEAKER_00You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.
Find Breaches With Have I Been Pwned
SPEAKER_00Hey there and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes, sitting here with Adam Littlefield, a technician from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. And don't forget to check out the website over at refreshcomputers.net. And now, back to Adam.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Greg. And again, thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers, a I believe 26-year-old Orlando company in Central Florida. In this segment, we're gonna be going over how you yourself can actually figure out if you've been breached. But before we get into that, I just want to make one more mention. We are getting to the end of that tax-free holiday season. Um, I believe that's gonna be ending on the 20th on Thursday. So if you have any need to replace your computer or you know, you know somebody that needs to, has kids, any of that, come to our store or check out our website, refreshcomputers.net. Any any computers, components, anything like that is gonna be tax-free up to $1,500. So, you know, cables for monitors, monitors themselves, anything computer related, it's gonna be underneath that tax-free holiday season. So, in this segment, I'm gonna go over a quick website that you yourself can use to see if you've been breached and how to lock down some of those accounts. There's a free, trusted website that I use myself and Dave has used. I believe, Greg, you've even used it before. I know we've mentioned it on the show before. It's a website, have I been pwned? That's have I been PWNED.com. All you need to do is go to that website, put in your email address, and it's gonna tell you every known data breach that your email has shown up in. And it doesn't have to just be your email address, it could be a family member's email address, it could be you know your friend's email address, anybody's email that you know, you can put it in there and figure out if it's been breached. This is an eye-opening thing. I myself have gone onto this before. Before I was with a password manager, and I cannot tell you the same password I used over and over and over, like going through high school and my early adult years. I would be ashamed now if my password still looked like that. Anything that that website flags, you know, go to that website, change that password, don't reuse it anywhere else. This website is free and it's safe. It doesn't ask for any of this information. It it just tells you if you've been breached or if there has been a company that has been breached. I know for me specifically, they it does list, I believe, a couple different companies where the breach actually originated from and just seeing what password that was using already tells me, hey, I need to go through and change, you know, two, three other passwords because of this. If you are breached on that website, if it lists your email as breached, go through, change any of the uh passwords, and again, go through on any of the accounts, see if they support two-factor authentication, pass keys, anything like that, and switch it on. You know, it it'll it'll it'll walk you through linking it to your phone if you're doing it on your mobile phone. Takes only 10 or 15 minutes tops, and you know, it's gonna be the most important thing I think that you could do this weekend to just put a deadbolt on all of your accounts today. Know if there is a problem in your accounts before it pops up. Now, I me personally, I always like to be ahead of it. I don't want to see my my checking account go negative because I was I just neglected that password check. I know specifically for you, Greg, we've talked before a little bit about this website. How many uh breaches do you remember for your email? I just pulled it up actually.
SPEAKER_00Okay. We're talking about it. And I used one of my older email addresses, ones that I've had for a very long time. And it just came up with 12 different breaches associated with that one email address. Wow. Dating all the way back to 2012. So it gives you details and information dating all the way back to that time frame. Now, of course, I've probably changed passwords and adjusted to two-factor authentication and all those kinds of different fun things since then. But it really does give you a really good breakdown as to where your email address that had been used and the details behind that data breach and what was actually shared.
SPEAKER_01So Right and you know that that website again, that's have I been poned, PWNED.com. It's a really good website just to just to get the idea of
Recovery Info And Final Reminders
SPEAKER_01if your information is out there. Um, I believe we're getting to the end of our show now. Before we get into that, I'm gonna mention one more thing. Adding recovery to your account will be the best thing you can do. A phone number or a secondary recovery email, just in case you lock yourself out. It's gonna be nice to have that there. And let me tell you, it does happen. It does happen getting locked out of your own account. So we're getting to the end of our show now. Again, we have that tax free holiday season going on until uh the 20th on Thursday. We'll be getting back to you guys again tomorrow with another episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. My name has been Adam Littlefield, and I'll be speaking to you again tomorrow.
