Rick's Daily Tips

Scam alert: Your email app could be scanning your emails and selling your data!

Posted on February 12, 2020

According to this recent report from the folks at Motherboard, several popular email apps are scanning user emails and then selling the data scraped from those messages to third party companies.

That sold data is then used by the purchasers to bombard the unsuspecting users with SPAM emails and even send physical junk mail to their homes or office mail boxes.

[Read more…]

Scam alert: Avoid the ‘You’re tagged in this video!’ scam on Facebook

Posted on February 5, 2020

It seems like a new scam pops up on Facebook every day, and others seem to come and go in cycles.

Unfortunately, one of the most dangerous Facebook scams you’re likely to encounter is making the rounds yet again.

It’s called the ‘You’re tagged in this video!‘ scam, and although there are several subtle variations of it, they all work something like this:

Someone either makes a post on your timeline or sends you a private message stating that one of your friends has tagged you in a video. Naturally, you’re intrigued as to who the friend is and what the video is about, so you click the link to watch it.

After you click the link to view the video you receive a pop-up message stating that in order to see the video, you’ll need to download a software update or browser extension. Without giving it a second thought, you click the link to complete the download.

Congratulations! Your computer is now infected with one or more viruses, trojans and/or other forms of malware!

As always, the only way to truly protect yourself from falling victim to the criminals who perpetrate these scams is to be diligent and use extreme caution when deciding whether or not to click a link. Here are a few tips: [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I disable a forgotten BIOS password on my old Dell PC?

Posted on February 4, 2020

Question from Charlene R.: I have an old Dell OptiPlex GX280 desktop computer that I used for several years before I bought the one I have now.

I recently found out that I need to copy a couple of very important files off of that computer so I brought it up from the basement and hooked it up.

My problem is it has a BIOS password on it and I can’t remember it!

I tried every possible password I could think of that I’ve used in the past and nothing works.

I REALLY need to get to those files if there’s any way possible. Do you know of a way to disable the BIOS password so the computer will boot up into Windows?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]