We get asked a lot, “What makes you different from <the other guys>?”

The truth is that there are lots of things that make us different, but they boil down to four categories:

TOOLS

I used to change my own oil in my car.  I still could, but it takes me at least an hour and probably more when you factor in borrowing my neighbor’s ramps, figuring out where I left the tools, buying the right filter, cleaning up afterwards, etc.   What takes me an hour of work the guys at the quick lube place can do in 10 minutes. Why? Because they’re setup to do it – they have the tools and the supplies to get it done faster and better than I can do myself.

At Clever Techs we spend thousands of dollars every year on improving our tools.  It’s no surprise that we get customers referred to us by Verizon and Best Buy and other IT companies because they know we have cutting edge tools that can do the job when others can’t.

Investing in tools is also a way to save our customers money – if one of our techs can do a job in 30 minutes that might take 3 hours for someone else, we can charge less than our competition, do a better job for our clients, and make a good profit for ourselves.

Having the best tools to support our business customers and our walk-in clients is an important part of our philosophy.

TALENT

Tools don’t work by themselves – you need some talented people to know what tools to use and to take care of our clients, and I’m proud to say that the team at Clever Techs is the best I’ve ever worked with.

Technical talent is great but what really matters is a passion for taking care of customers, to make sure that we’re doing the right thing (see “Trust” below).

Our team is up to 8 now: Nick, Jim, Kevin, Scott, Jennifer, Aaron, Sylvia, and me (Chip).  We’re not perfect, but we’re constantly improving.

TRUST

You can have smart people and great tools, but in this business if you aren’t doing what’s right for your customers you won’t be in business long.

Technology is intimidating and confusing to many people, which is why the fake phone calls from “Microsoft support” fool so many people into paying strangers to do who-knows-what to their computers. Therefore earning and keeping our client’s trust is paramount.

If something isn’t worth fixing, or if there’s a better way to do what you’re trying to do, we’ll tell you.  To do our job we sometimes need access to our client’s passwords and sensitive information, and we have very strict policies controlling who within our organization can access that information.  All remote access is logged and monitored.

I listed it third but really I would rank Trust as the most important thing we do.

TRAINING

25 years ago when I was getting started, technology seemed to change every year.  Today it seems to change every week!  Literally – for example, we were creating a training course for Microsoft’s Office 365, and we were filming on Saturdays in February and March.  On three different Saturdays we had to redo training because of major improvements Microsoft had made in the product in between filming days.

At CT-Anderson we have an unfair advantage over every other IT company in the world when it comes to training, because we share our office space with Bigger Brains, a company that makes award-winning online training classes.

All our techs have access to over 60 Bigger Brains training courses, but we also send techs out to other training events as well.  Just a few weeks ago Scott and I spent a day at the Microsoft Atlanta office getting trained on Office 365 and related technologies, and last October I was able to spend several days at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond getting educated on their upcoming solutions.

 

We know you have lots of choices when it comes to a technology partner for your business or for your home.  We believe our focus on Tools, Talent, Trust, and Training makes us the best choice.

 

I always hesitate to write about the “scary” aspects of technology.  Some people are already too scared of technology, but usually in the “That’s why I refused to do online banking” wrong way.  For most people though, stories about the bad things that can happen are too easily dismissed as “Well, that’ll never happen to me.”

But I have to share four stories of people right here in Anderson, SC who have lost hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of $$ from online con artists and hackers.  I want you to know what’s out there so you can keep these evil, evil people from hurting you or your business.

Story #1: Meet The New Boss

In late November a local small business owner needed to wire $50,000 to a vendor.  He emailed the same local banker he used all the time, and she sent over the appropriate forms which he filled out and returned.  The problem was the banker needed a verbal authorization but the small business owner was stuck in jury duty and could only respond via email.   They sent wire transfers all the time, surely this one time the bank could make an exception?

The banker agreed to bend the rules and release the $50,000.  But, right before she pushed whatever button would send the funds along, she decided to call the business to double-check that everything was correct.  Good thing she did – the REAL business owner was there and was COMPLETELY unaware all this was happening.  Turns out hackers had gained access to his gmail account and setup rules so that any correspondence with the bank was shifted to a different email that they controlled, so they were able to use the owner’s email without him ever knowing about it.

Sound like a pretty unusual situation?  Sadly, it’s not as rare as you think.  We hear about this sort of thing happening to local businesses several times a year.  Just today a client forwarded us an email from their business owner asking him to send a wire transfer –  in this case the hackers knew the business owner’s name, knew who inside the company could send wire transfers, and they had registered a whole set of fake email addresses using a small, almost unnoticeable typo in the company’s name.  (The one thing they hadn’t counted on in this case was that the owner didn’t use email).

Story #2: Staying Offline Isn’t Safer

Last summer we got contacted by a local auto dealership with an unusual and frustrating situation – a steady stream of customers had begun showing up at their car lot demanding the cars they had purchased from the company’s website.

These frustrated customers were confused when the dealership owner told them he didn’t have a website.  “Of course you do” they’d say, and show it to him – yep, there was a website with his company name and address.  It had a local number, but that wasn’t the real number.

Turns out some clever folks in another state had setup this website and a internet-based phone number to take calls (but they only answered the phone for out-of-state callers, since local callers would discover their scam too easily).  They advertised collectible cars with prices that were a little too low, but not so low that it looked like a scam.  Still, some people would get suspicious and call other dealers in Anderson to make sure the website was legit.  I assume the calls went like “Hey do you know XYZ cars?” “Oh sure, they’ve been around a long time”, and then the person would feel more comfortable wiring a very large deposit (which they would never see again).

The only good news for our auto-dealer client was they didn’t directly lose any money from this scam.  They did lose a lot of time talking to very angry “customers”, and in dealing with law enforcement, and potentially getting sued from the folks who did lose money though.

Story #3: Microsoft Comes Calling

Like every other scam, the “Microsoft” tech support scam is all about money.  It either starts with a random phone call (usually from “Microsoft”, sometimes from “Windows” or from some generic support name), OR from a virus on your computer that pops up a message asking you to call a support number.

Actually “asking you” is not the right term.  “Trying to scare you into calling” is more accurate.  They usually mention some serious problem they have detected and that your computer is running slowly and that you must call to get it fixed. (See the video above for typical examples).

If a person calls, and gives them control of their computer…. then all bets are off.  They may infect the machine, they may demand a payment to “fix” problems they describe as critical issues (but which are mostly or entirely made up).  They may erase or encrypt your files and demand a ransom.

At least 2 or 3 times every single week we have people drop off computers at our service center for repair after they’ve been “fixed” or infected or hacked by these scammers.  Unfortunately most of the time they have already paid hundreds of $$ to the scammers.

PLEASE don’t fall for these folks – remember that we fix ANY computer problems here for $89, and even the most expensive places like Office Depot or Best Buy are still under $200 most of the time.  We’ve seen customers who have paid up to $1000 for these “repairs”.

Story #4: The Return of Crypto

Since the early 2000’s computer viruses and malware have been about making money.  By planting infections on your computer they can do things like sending spam from your computer or using your computer to attack other computers.

Most of the malware infections we see do these things, but the payoff is pretty low, maybe a few pennies a day for each infection.  Still, well written viruses can infect hundreds of thousands of computers, so it adds up.

In 2013 though a Russian hacker named Evgeniy Bogachev changed the rules when he invented Cryptolocker, the first widespread ransomware virus which used encryption.  Cryptolocker worked like this:

• Infect a PC
• Begin encrypting all the files, photos, and data on the PC.  Encryption is like a combination lock – if you don’t know the combination, you’ll never be able to access your data or photos ever again.
• When encryption is complete, halt the computer and demand a ransom in untraceable funds.

The original Cryptolocker was destroyed thanks to a multinational effort lead by the US Department of Justice and Microsoft, however the creator is still freely living a luxurious life with the estimated $3 million he collected in 2013 and 2014 from his victims.

Unfortunately the idea lives on – just last week you may have seen in the news that a hospital in California had to pay $17,000 to get their patient data un-encrypted.  Here in SC a school system had to pay $8500 to unlock 24 infected servers for their elementary schools.

Keeping your virus protection, malware protection, and security patches up to date can help, but it’s not enough.  Many of these “ransom” infections start from an email attachment opened by someone in the organization, something that’s usually disguised as a bill or invoice or legal notice or fax – anything to get people’s attention in the hopes they’ll double-click to see what it is.  Once they do, it’s hard to stop.

What Can You Do?

1. Keep your software up to date
2. Use good quality anti-virus and anti-malware programs, and keep them updated daily. (Even though they can’t prevent these problems, it’s still a good start).
3. Change your passwords regularly, and use two-factor authentication for important accounts such as banking and email.  Write down your passwords in our handy password keeper to keep them safe.
4. Educate your team – make sure everyone knows not to click on any attachments they aren’t sure about.
5. Backup your data!  The only surefire solution to ransomware is having a safe, offline backup copy of everything that is important.
6. Make sure you have a website, and make sure your hosting provider is scanning it for malware as well.  (We spent 2 weeks recently cleaning infections off of a client’s website)

What Clever Techs is Doing

We have already been working aggressively to secure our clients, including changing our updated protection software last year and adding DNS filtering to most of our contract clients.

For 2016 we have already invested over $2000 in advanced security assessment tools and ransomware prevention kits.  Starting next week we’ll begin scheduling network and security assessments for our small business clients (if you’d like to get your business on the list let us know).

We’ve also started a partnership with a company called Ninjio which provides weekly training videos for everyone inside a business, to educate them on what they can do to reduce the risk of cybersecurity issues within the organization.  For more information about getting access to Ninjio, contact us.

Finally, if you or anyone in your organization receives an email or a phone call that you aren’t sure about – especially if it wants you to open an attachment or call “Support” – send it to support@ct-anderson.com.  Even if you aren’t on a service contract with us we’re still happy to take a look at it for you free of charge and let you know if it’s legitimate or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come visit us in our new, much larger location at 1520 E. Greenville St, Suite D.

It’s just 1/4 mile from our old location in the Windsor Place (old Winn-Dixie) shopping center, next to Sonic and Badcock Furniture.

We’re still settling into the new location but look for a formal Grand Opening coming in January!

(Our phone numbers and emails all stay the same. )

We hope you can come and join us for Anderson’s Shrimp & Grits Cookoff, today at the Civic Center between 4pm and 8pm!

Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/727010977421244/

 

Plus we’ll have some fun giveaways at the Clever Techs booth, including sweets from our friends at The Sweetery and these fun gizmos: