Computer users today need to be vigilant to internet hackers who are out to steal your money and date.
The topic came up with Kahlal “KC” Cunningham of Madison Geeks during a recent Girl Talk broadcast here in Madison.
He offered some good advice on how to protect yourself.
Last time we saw you Kahlal you answered lots of our technology questions, and we’re going to pick your brain because we’ve got more. Kahlal with Madison Geeks thanks for joining us.
Kahlal: Thank you for having me.
Host: We’re going to start with hackers because, Justin Riley was joining us last time for our last discussion and he had this specific question so we’re going to answer it for him, just for you Justin. It’s a great question, why are hackers targeting us? You talked about the differences last time between the types of hacking, but why, what’s the point?
Kahlal: A lot of people will think, you know, ask that question, why am I being targeted? Why Me? It’s my little old machine. Nobody wants to have ah…
Host: Nobody cares about my vacation photos.
Kahlal: Exactly. Ultimately the trick is going to be, you’re not important really to the hacker. Ultimately it comes down to, they’re sowing out marbles and whoever bites is who gets hacked. A lot of times these are automated processes so it’s not necessarily targeting you, but if they get your information, they get your credit card they get your bank information, your email account, then, yeah, of course, they’re going to at that point target you even more if possible.
Host: A good point because I always think about those websites being really safe. And that’s probably true, but you have personal information emailed to you and so even if they just can get into your email you might be in big trouble.
Kahlal: You forget passwords on anything and where does it go? It goes in to your email account.
Host: That’s why I keep every email I’ve ever gotten. Try to find ’em.
Kahlal: So the good news is you’re not necessarily that you’re being targeted, but it’s a threat out there and something to be vigilant about.
Host: Absolutely. Thank you. And I giggled a little because someone might want to find your vacation photos.
Host #2: Not mine, but maybe yours.
Host: I love this question because I have this current situation. I have an HP computer from college which I have AWESOME photos on, probably beautiful works of literature that are forever lost because the computer doesn’t start up anymore! I’m still holding on to this because I can’t just let it go, maybe someday they can bring it back to life. Is this true, does it last forever?
Kahlal: Well, it’s not necessarily lost forever. The machine is a shell. So the machine might be lost forever. But the data inside of it usually is still accessible. So, that’s a big thing. We have a lot of people that have old machines and they are doing whatever they can to band aid it and hold on to it and I finally ask them “What’s the purpose of this?”. And they say, “Well, I have these files that I didn’t download yet off this machine…”, and that’s ultimately it. At that point when I explain that we can just go take the hard drive out and gain access to that information…at that point they are rest assured that “Oh, I don’t have to worry about this old machine anymore.” And the same thing goes for machines that don’t even power on anymore. We can still go into the hard drive itself and extract that information, put it on another computer, another hard drive, flash drive, whatever method you want to have that information move to. We can still get that information, most of the time.
Host: It’s very exciting, so I just bundle it up and bring it in to you.
Kahlal: Exactly!
Host: Awesome! So I bet I’m not the only one who has experienced this. The Windows 10 popup that’s encouraging you to upgrade or update, what do we do about that? Should we do it? Should we not?
Kahlal: Good question. So this is happening to all PC users. Apple users, unless they are using what’s called a Virtual Machine and they are having Windows also on their Mac are not necessarily going to be affected by this…It’s Microsoft’s way of trying to push everybody onto Windows 10. Whether you have Home Edition or Professional Edition, whether you should do it or not is going to depend. If you are ready to take a change and work with a different layout, a different view, then it’s okay to move forward and attempt to change it. But, if you like Windows 7 the way it is, or Windows 8.1 which is what some people are using now, I don’t recommend moving towards trying to change it. Unfortunately, though, Microsoft is trying to push it, so we’re still working on methods that block that update from happening altogether.
Host: Yeah, how do you stop the popups if you don’t want to? I was wondering too, does it matter how old your computer is?
Kahlal: It does. Yup, we have a lot of times where it will come in and Windows 10 will fail because the hard drive is bad or is too slow and it just won’t work at all.
Host: So maybe age of computer matters?
Kahlal: Yes, exactly.
Host: I have another question for you but we’ve run out of time, so I’ll have to ask you next time. We’ll be back with more Girl Talk. We’re heading to the planting shed after this, with Sue, we’re talking spring plants. We’ll be right back.
Kahlal Cunningham of Madison Geeks appeared on a May 2016 Channel 57 WI57 WIFS Madison Girl Talk segment to talk about computer hacking and Windows Updates.