PC

[Peter Drouin]

I'm not that good with my laptop. 
Can a scammer get into my pc if I open an Email? 
Can they get everything in it? 
I do not pay bills with my pc. I use the mail.
Is the free malware good to keep out the scammers? 
 Had one block me from the FF, Got it fix with help from a friend.
I get emails for lumber all the time. 
So I ask you all for the dos and don't on the pc.
Ann used to do it all for me. And I cut wood, we made a good team.    
It will be 2 years Dec that she died. :(
I can use all help I can get. Thanks all, Pete

[btulloh]

The emails to watch out for have subjects like "$50 gift card if you complete this Amazon survey".  Or emails from an unknown source with an attachment. In most cases (but not all) you have to click on a link or open attachment to get in trouble. These are phishing scams and can get you in a world of hurt. Some are very clever and subtle and look like they came from a company you are familiar with. It's a jungle out there. Some antivirus packages scan incoming emails, but even that's no guarantee. 

This is a deep subject. Others will have good suggestions and info to post. A lot of organizations like AARP publish a lot of good info to help educate people. Do a little poking around. 

It's not easy staying clear of trouble fron malicious email and websites. If you're not sure about something, don't open it. If you are sure, remain cautious. 

I wish there was an easier answer. 

(And don't give your banking info to the Nigerian Oil Minister.  :D  He's been scamming people for thrty years now.  Used to get faxes from him before email was even a thing.)

[SawyerTed]

It would be worth a few dollars to hire a technician who could help you maintain your computer.  Even a savvy high school or college kid could help you.  Maybe someone at the local library or schools could put you in touch with someone.

I used to supervise school computer technicians and often got people asking where to find help with computers.

[Southside]

I feel for ya Pete. I am a technology Dinosaur.  Made it a point to tell Jeff that when he asked me to become an Admin because I didn't want to hit some wrong button and "Poof" the Forum goes into the abyss.  I rely on my wife when the 'puter don't do what I think it is supposed to do.  

Ted has great advice there, think of it along the lines of calling in a technician to work on your telehandler hydraulics.  Could you figure it out with enough time - of course.  But that is not time well spent, you have better ways to spend your time - sawmill and the hot rod.  Find someone you trust and they can show you the ropes if you want.   

[firefighter ontheside]

As btulloh said, its not the opening of the email that gets ya, its when you click on a link within that email.  If you know the email is bogus, just delete without opening.  If you think it may be ok, open the email and be very careful that you do not click on any link.  You have not won any trips and your friend is not stranded in Africa and asking you to send money.  That was what happened to me.  My email was hacked and they sent emails to all my contacts saying i was stranded abroad and needed money to get home.  I was able to get back in, but when I did the hackers had deleted all my contacts so I could not send emails to tell them I had been hacked.  I never would have thought of that.

[mike_belben]

Let pages fully load before you start clicking things.  Its pretty common for them to have the page jump as it loads so that what you wanted to click moves and behind that is what you shouldnt click but do.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   I got caught a couple years by opening the link that said it was my tracking number from fedEx or UPS. It was in my Spam folder.  I was expecting a shipment and I clicked on the link and got locked out with Ransomware. Of course I did not pay it but I had to reconstruct several months of expenses and income and history from my Credit card statements and check book and such.

    Be especially careful if they list they represent a big well known business but they have a yahoo or gmail address listed instead of the company extension.

    Be sure to keep a good back up on a system not linked to your computer. I keep all my business on scanned files (receipts and such) and excel spreadsheets in folders by year. I back them up to a separate hard drive regularly so if I ever have to reconstruct it will be a much smaller amount/shorter time frame involved.
   

[Peter Drouin]

All good info thanks. Too bad people have to be stealing like that.

[CCCLLC]

Thanks Peter for bringing this up. I'm a "dinosaur" as well. Jeff will agree with me I'm sure. He had to work with me on website, he did great,  me not so much.
 Thanks for answers from others. Very helpful.

[Iwawoodwork]

Peter, when you get one of those screens that says you are locked out and tells you to calll a number or contact #### try pushing the ctrl-Alt-delete buttons all at the same time then release .   See if that will make those lock up ransom screens go away.   That has worked for me for the last 7-8 years.

[Jim_Rogers]

I have an antivirus program in my desktop computer that updates definitions every time I turn it on. My computer guy installed it and it is a free version.
I have a malware program that runs a check every time I turn on the computer and checks for things.
I have a spyware program that runs a check every day at lunchtime when I'm out to lunch and removes anything that it thinks is spyware. Runs every day and updates itself with all the new know stuff out there.
On my computer, when you move your mouse arrow over a link it will display the link address in the lower left corner of my screen. Most of the time these are not from the people that they say they are from. As mentioned don't click on any links.
My malware program and spyware program are a paid yearly subscription, but I feel that is the cost of doing internet business, which I do a lot of with the tool selling business.
Good advice about finding someone to set you up with help with your computer.
Good luck,
Jim Rogers

[Sedgehammer]

We have norton on everything, but no one opens attachments whence they know not where it came from. Haven't had an issue and it's cabbage well worth eating.

[21incher]

Peter check with your internet supplier, they may provide some protection. Spectrum gives me the complete McAfee package free for up to 7 PC's. It's easy to install and updates automatically. I also use those cheap USB drives to keep everything backed up offline should there be a problem. Also find that gmail does a great job weeding out known spam and I leave the emails online so they can always be accessed by another PC should mine get hacked. Best if you find someone to help you get started.

[Peter Drouin]

This is great, I now know about some things to ask for and get pro help.

[Tacotodd]

Don't feel bad Peter, I'm technologically challenged as well. Heck, I've just now figured out how to take pictures from my smartalec phone! And I've not had the patience to learn to post them here or even to send pics to my friends in messages from my phone directly to them! One day, I might but I just trudge along. In fact, I just recently "graduated" from reliable flip phones; and this IS my home computer. 

You'll get there, I have faith in you!!!😃

[Ianab]

but no one opens attachments whence they know not where it came from. Haven't had an issue and it's cabbage well worth eating

Good advice. 

In years gone by there were security flaws in products like Outlook that would allow a "script" in an email to run simply by previewing it in the default view screen. Obviously this was a serious bug as you could be infected with malware simply by opening your email. There are also "drive by" web page exploits that can load malware on your machine simply by viewing a web page. Fortunately these get fixed as they are discovered, and are pretty rare these days. Hence why you should install system updates, they are there to hopefully fix things. 

So the criminals now rely more on "Social Engineering". Fooling users into opening an attachment (that then infects your machine), or sending you to fake web page where they ask for personal details (or fool you into downloading something dodgy) 

So the best defence is a good bit of paranoia about opening attachments, or following links in an Email. If you don't know if an email is legit, contact the company directly via THEIR web page / email / phone. NOT the contact details that are in the suspect email. They will tell you if you actually have a package waiting for delivery, or your credit card is overdue, or more likely that it's a scam and to just delete it. 

Windows 10 has somewhat better security then previous versions, like asking before letting unknown programs run, having a basic antivirus system built in. This enables by default if you don't have some other  recognised AV program, and is generally "good enough". The user is usually the weakest link when they are fooled into clicking on things they shouldn't.  

[clearcut]

For folks that do not want to deal with the miscreants of the internet, consider a Chromebook. 

Security is built in by design - Google makes it difficult to run malicious software. Backups to Google Drive are automatic whenever the Chromebook is connected. System software is updated regularly. If you do happen to click on a malicious link, Google will usually show you a big red NOPE button.

Good practice suggests that you have an independent on-site backup. A flash drive works well for this.

A very decent Chromebook can be bought for under $500. Many old desktops laptops can be converted to the Chrome OS using CloudReady. That conversion can be a bit of a technological challenge.

[Ianab]

For folks that do not want to deal with the miscreants of the internet, consider a Chromebook. 

Yes, that's an option. There is a reason they are popular in schools (not just the cost), but mostly they are difficult for the kids to mess them up by installing rogue software / visiting suspect web pages etc. So it is a good option for the less tech savvy. 

But they may not stop an unsuspecting victim going to a fake web page and giving away details like bank accounts. Hence you still need to take some care. 

My personal choice for the less savvy user is to give them an older repurposed PC or laptop that's running Linux Mint. Looks enough like Windows that they don't get lost, and in fact you can set it up that it would be hard to tell at a glance that it wasn't Windows. Then you give them Chrome / Firefox web browser, fully supported and no different from Windows version. If they somehow break that, it's takes about 10 mins to nuke and restore a clean machine, but I haven't had anyone (except me) break one yet. Well the MIL broke hers, but that was with a cup of coffee, so that doesn't count. 

Setting up an old PC with Linux is going to be easier than getting it running Chrome. There are a couple of things like making a setup DVD or USB, then getting the machine to boot off that. Computer techie 101 stuff. But after that it's basically just click on OK a few times and it's working.  

[Peter Drouin]

I did have a grandson install crome for me years ago.