March 2009 Newsletter

Safe Computing

Password Concerns Answered – With the rise of security concerns in the world of computing, we receive lots of questions about establishing a truly secure password. Secure passwords are easy to create; the issue is remembering them. If you want to create passwords you can remember, but that are still relatively secure, try using combinations of initials, birth years, street addresses or information from your youth. For example, one of my passwords is the street address of the home I grew up in; I also have used the phone number from that same home. If I were to create a password today, I might use jsm10kep22. These are the initials of me and my wife interspersed into our street number. If you do not mind writing down your passwords, you can have a website such as PassPub.com create one for you. This site generates any length of password you request and since all the generated passwords are totally random, these passwords are the safest you can have. Just remember to write down the password you generate!

Bad Phishermen – Phishing emails are the latest trend in Identity Theft. The bad guys are getting extremely creative in designing emails that can trick you into providing information that can lead to identity theft. In a recent example, the user received an email allegedly from Hotmail. Hotmail says that due to unexpectedly high traffic, they are screening accounts to weed out old accounts, accounts not being used. The email claimed that to continue using their email account, the Hotmail user needed to use a link in the email to access a screen where private information is requested. But this information will be used for the purpose of identity theft, not to maintain any email account. Please know that your email provider, whether Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo or whomever, will NEVER ask you for private information via an email. In fact, they will never ask for that type of information over the phone. How will you recognize a legitimate contact from a company, bank or email provider? The contact will always direct you to the organization’s website or to call the organization at their normal business phone number. A valid contact from any responsible business will NEVER ask you to click on a link within the email or call a phone number listed in the email. (Special thanks to Jane Grad at Presbyterian Homes for providing us with this real-life example of a phishing email.)

MCT is Going Green – In an effort to be environmentally conscious, we are going to email as much of our customer communication as we possibly can. This will include the newsletters and invoices to begin with. If you would like to help us go green, please email us at info@mct-tech.com with your preferred email address. We will automatically add you to our newly created email database. But this program is voluntary: if you would prefer to continue receiving information from us via the Post Office, you need do nothing.

We’re celebrating our first anniversary on Maple Avenue, and you are invited to the party! For the entire month of March, just mention this newsletter and receive 25% off any In-Shop service. Now for those pesky limitations: cannot be combined with any other offers; valid on up to two hours per visit; valid on any number of visits during March, 2009. Offer expires at close of business on March 31, 2009.