Tech support scams are only too common, as blending phishing with social engineering has proven to be an effective means of scamming users. Today, our tip will cover how to recognize some of these scams so that they may be avoided… but first, it is important to recognize that scams like these are a serious problem everywhere, and not just for those targeted.

An Issue Around The World
These scams target users all over the world, although the impact is most clearly felt by users in China, India, and the United States. Regardless, other regions are also subjected to tech support scams - and India gets hit with a double-whammy.

The service-and-support-rep-in-India stereotype has its roots in a truly unfortunate reality. The level of competition in the job market is astronomical in India, especially for the generation that should be entering the workforce right about now. For example, a state-owned bank received over one and a half million applications for just one and a half thousand job openings. This job shortage affects even those with high qualifications. Someone could have a Master’s degree in business administration and have to fight for a position as a street sweeper.

Circumstances like these make any job opportunity to inherently be too good to pass up, even if your work comes at the expense of others.

Indian call centers use these circumstances to their advantage, using a secretive and convoluted process to hire those young people in search of a job, often not even revealing the identity of their employer. Applicants are often charged money for their attendance at interviews and job trainings, only being given a start date if they are accepted.

Many of these positions, however, are not the customer support jobs that were expected. Instead of providing customer service, these recruits are used as the initiators of a scam. They call their target and deliver the scam’s pitch, whatever it may be, and send their newly terrified connection to a senior scamming employee who ends the scam. These workers are soon stuck in an unenviable position: their pay is usually terrible and the emotional burden significant, yet there aren’t really any other avenues to make money in the overburdened job market.

As a result, it isn’t long before these scammers, themselves exploited, embrace their position and apply themselves to exploiting others simply to fulfill their need to survive.

Spotting Scams
Unfortunately, even if you feel for the person on the other end of a scam call, you need to protect yourself and your business from their influence. To do so, you need to be able to identify these scams. Below are a few tips for doing so:

• Who’s On the Line? - Basic rule of thumb: if you get a call from someone claiming to be from “Microsoft” or any other technology brand, it’s almost a sure bet that they aren’t. These organizations aren’t in the habit of reaching out to people first, despite what your (potentially spoofed) caller ID might tell you.
• Not Something You Want Linked to You - Scammers are also fond of using links, sharing them in an email to send the user to a website that displays plenty of falsified pop-up warnings. These links shouldn’t be clicked, and if you do inadvertently or are presented with a pop-up alert message, restart your computer. Other scammers will use search engines against their victims, using sponsored ads to target those looking for help by appearing at the top of results pages. While Google has put the kibosh on Remote Support IT advertisements, these links should still be avoided as they haven’t stopped everything.
• Keep Control - Many scammers will pose as an IT resource and request remote access to a computer. Unless you know for a fact that someone from a third party is completely trustworthy, never surrender your computer to anyone. Doing so could easily allow a scammer to steal your data, or do something worse.

The Easiest Way to Avoid Scams
If you just so happen to have a trusted IT resource on your side, you won’t have to worry about scams like these - after all, you can have your provider check any claims and thereby protect your business from fraudsters. Patriot Tech Services Inc. can be that trusted IT provider for you. Give us a call at 877-874-4629 to learn more, and in the meantime, tell us about any scams you’ve spotted in the comments!

How to Approach Your IT Spending
It might seem like IT is simply another cost of doing business, but we urge you to resist the temptation to lump it in with resources like electricity and air conditioning. Instead, you should consider how your technology (and its current state of being) affect your organization in the grand scheme of things. If your technology doesn’t work properly, your employee morale could suffer, as well as productivity slowing to a halt. Your income could be affected as well, creating a major issue for your business.

An IT budget needs to take a lot of information into account. There are countless costs that can be associated with information technology, and that’s without mentioning what it takes to train your staff to actually take advantage of these solutions. The right IT budget will also include even minor inconveniences that come from setbacks you could potentially increase. For example, are you paying too much for a multifaceted solution when in reality you only need one of its features? Are you throwing away money on unused solutions that could be better spent elsewhere within your organization? Even if you have technology solutions for your business, they are only as effective as the way you’re using them.

Overall, you should consider your IT budget an investment. Some of it might be seen as a business expense, but overall, much of the spending will be dedicated to eliminating waste and unnecessary expenses. No matter how you see it, your IT should be used to put your business in a positive financial situation.

Encouraging Financial Wellbeing with an IT Budget
If you don’t know how to proceed with developing an IT budget, we’ve put together a list of topics to consider:

• Have a set budget for your IT: If you’re going to implement solutions, you should have a set budget for your IT that cannot be exceeded so as to preserve funds for other endeavors. Invest in business-enhancing solutions: Whether it’s boosting productivity or protecting against threats, you’re trying to improve your organization. Your IT budget should be dedicated to preserving this status-quo.
• Don’t shoot from the hip: If you’re not investing in IT properly, you could wind up in a nasty situation where your IT spending is actually holding you back. You should invest funds to where they need to go, but most importantly where they can make you more money.

Does your business need help with managing an IT budget? Patriot Tech Services Inc. can help. To learn more, reach out to us at 877-874-4629.

The first cameras offered for mobile phones were handheld cameras that had a wire to connect the phone and the camera. When the SCH-V200 was first made available, it changed the way people thought about their phones. Even though the photo quality left a lot to be desired, and you needed to hook the phone up to a computer to get the photos off your phone, it started a trend that has changed the way people express themselves. It was also one of the first signals that the information age was in full swing. Today, we’ll take a look at the history of the phone-based camera and how it has facilitated many of the major shifts in mobile computing.

Early Smartphones
As was already mentioned the first phone that offered an onboard camera was the Samsung SCH-V200, but it didn’t take long before the innovation of the phone that allowed users to access and send pictures from their phone. That technology was improving for a couple of years when in the mid-2000s the first smartphones were released. The original iPhone, and HTC’s first smartphone, the T-Mobile G1 both sported rear-facing cameras; and, even though none of the reviews made reference to this particular feature, it became evident pretty fast that the applications that could be presented on a computer (with a camera) that fit in someone’s pocket would be one to move the needle.

Newer Smartphones
A few years later, the first front-facing camera was introduced, making it simpler to take your own picture. Called “selfies”, they introduced a capability to share experiences like never before. With the expansion of Internet connectivity and with the introduction of the social media website the smartphone camera became a major feature.

As the smartphone continued its development the options that helped the camera to be more a feature than just an option started becoming evident. The LED flash, now standard on most mobile devices became a big hit as snapping photos in low light was often difficult without proper lighting. The software that ran the camera hardware got much better with autofocus, video capture, and optical image stabilization. Options like these were made possible by the uptick in processing power of the chipsets on these devices.

Social Media and Application Development
The importance of the smartphone camera was limited for much of the first few generations of smartphones. Even the addition of the front-facing camera wasn’t enough to make a device’s camera a major selling point. This all changed seemingly overnight with the ability to capture high definition video. This feature, combined with the development and innovation of the social network (specifically YouTube), made having a camera on you at all times a selling point for the phone consumer.

Nowadays, there are dozens of social networks and social media apps that require the use of powerful front and rear-facing cameras. There are 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. As a result, some pretty spectacular (and bizarre) things have been captured using smartphones over the past 10 or so years. In fact, an award-winning, feature-length film called Tangerine was shot using only an iPhone.

Camera Saving Stagnating Mobile Market
For the past several years, the processing power and application development that once drove the smartphone market has stagnated somewhat. In fact, it seems as if manufacturing smartphones is only profitable for Samsung and Apple. The cameras on new devices, however, are better than ever. Today, some high-end phones are being built with dual-lens cameras. This provides the user with more options in which to capture the world around them. Other new features include:

• Wide aperture - By allowing in more light, photos are more accurate.
• High dynamic range - Providing all types of capture quality settings, HDR essentially composites several shots into one for the best image quality.
• Burst mode - Allows the user to set the number of photos they want to take so they can choose the best one. Works great for objects in motion.
• Portrait mode - Provides a sharp foreground photo with a blurred background, providing enhanced depth of field.

With cameras improving all the time, the smartphone has become a virtual mobile studio. Are you proficient with your smartphone’s camera? Leave your personal tips and tricks in the comments below and check back here for more great technology information.