Yes, this is another tedious IT Nomination, but one that really frustrates the hell out of me.
As you may know, I work in IT (self-employed), and over the last 24 months I’ve been rushed off my feet with new customers asking for help building their home-office IT setup. And even though I spend hours doing precisely this, along with providing them with e-guides & PDF docs on what you should and shouldn’t do, time and again I see the same people coming back to me a few days or weeks down the line to say that:-
- my hard drive has failed and I’ve lost everything. What should I do?
- I have a virus, and I’ve lost everything. What should I do?
- I dropped my laptop, and its beyond repair. What should I do?
- I think my login has been hacked, and now I can’t access my machine. What should I do?
Well, if you’d read my detailed FAQs in my Help Guide right from the off, you would know exactly what to do. Here’s just a few for starters….
- Always install an antivirus/antimalware application, and keep them updated (free ones are just as good as paid)
- Always use Two-Factor-Authentication (2FA) for important accounts/apps (especially on routers). Or at the very least a complex password/passphrase (with hint)
- Always install the latest Windows x, Apple iOS, Android & Linux updates when they become available (Although with Windows 10, best put them on pause for 7 days given how shite they are at fixing things)
- Never switch off local firewalls, especially when using your machine/tablet in a public Wi-Fi hotspot, or for device tethering.
- Always activate syncing between trusted devices so that if your primary device becomes unavailable your synced data should be available on your secondary one.
- Never enable Remote Desktop Protocol by default
- Never have too many Administrator Accounts on one device
- Always user a password manager with online/offline access (LastPass, NordPass, BitWarden, Keepass, ZohoVault – are all free apps)
- Always activate & encrypt backups, either locally to an external drive/flash drive, or to the Cloud (Google Drive, offers 15Gb for free, which is a good starting point)
All of the recommendations listed above I put into practice when I set their computers up in the first place. All they have to do is maintain each one by simply following the e-guide instructions.
Why people choose not to take on board such important advice is beyond me. They seem to think “Oh it will never happen to me, so I don’t need to bother with extra login authentication or backups. Far too nerdy, and I don’t have time anyway blah blah blah”
But when it does happen to them they’re almost on the verge of crying over the phone with their “I’ve lost everything” bollocks.
Personally, I don’t mind because its more cash for me (Just under £6k in Jan from domestic customers alone, £3k for Feb, and £3.5k for March so far). But it really isn’t rocket science to set these things up and maintain them, if only people would allocate some time and do it!
Nominated by: Technocunt