....Unless normal users start seeing through these obvious scams, the problem will go on most likely. People really need to become more scam resistant when using a computer. After 10 plus years of doing this, I'm still surprised how many people still trust all emails, click on ads, download scamware, talk with "Microsoft" in India while giving all credit info....and many of these users are successful people in every day life, but when it comes to online activity, they have the brains of a child.
We can blog about it, mention it in despatches, newsletter it, do our utmost to inform our clients and potential clients of the perils of all of this. But it still makes me disbelieve the amount of clients who either 'forget', or thought, Oh, I wonder what'll happen if I press 'this'.
Oh, see nothings happened. The warnings have all been false.. I'll just carry on as normal. Unbeknown to them, their data in the background is being encrypted.
I am constantly getting calls from clients who have been the victim of the scammers. I blogged about it again today. Just hang up, is my motto. But do they?
Like preaching about backups. They just never learn.
Case in point. An accountant client of mine. Brought in his laptop the other day. Hard drive failing. He was agonising over his data.
Surely, says I, you have a backup of it?
Erm No.
Well why not?
Just never got round to it. Thought I'd be ok, as the drive was only replaced last year.
Hmm.. ok, so as an accountant, do you tell your clients to backup their data each day/week?
Oh, yes, I make it a point of telling them to do so. Else we don't work with them. (Fair comment says I).
So why the heck do you not follow your own advice then?. (Only I didn't say 'heck'. I was pretty peeved with this guy.
to be told, fair comment. Organise some costings for a good backup solution for me.
So I'm working on a Nas box, 2 bay, with 2 x 2tb wd red's in it. I'm also attempting to get him some form of online backup. He's going to pay a pretty penny for it, but its going to be far cheaper overall, than all
his clients lost data. And explaining to them, how he lost their data.
Btw, the end of this story, is that I just about managed to backup some 300Gb of sage data, and his personal files. Thankfully he was lucky on this occasion.
I just don't want him, or anyone else thinking we have pulled a miracle out of the bag this time, and next time we can do the same thing. As it may not happen.
