Shawn O'Hara: Hello everyone. My guest today is Dean Bennett. He is the founder of Compu-Tek Computer Services, a technology solutions provider, often referred to as IT, which means information technology. He's based here in Victoria. He has over 30 years of experience in computer hardware and software, and is a certified Electronics Engineering Technologist.

Having studied at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology before starting Compu-Tek, Dean owned MTI Computers on Pear Street in Victoria back in the 1990s until 2002. He is recognized for his expertise and trusted service to clients throughout the greater Victoria area. Welcome, Dean.

Dean: Thanks Shawn. How are you doing?

Shawn O'Hara: Good. Tell me a bit more about Compu-Tek. What is it and what do you do?

Dean: Compu-Tek is a company I formed back in 2003 after I sold my computer store. It is primarily focused on business clients, providing service, sales, and consulting in the IT industry. I help business clients set up new systems, networks, Wi-Fi, and backup systems. I also do security consulting for them.

I sell hardware as well. We're an authorized Lenovo and Dell dealer, so I get the good stuff—the business class products, not the kind you find at box stores. This gives clients more peace of mind and usually provides a three-year warranty and up to seven years of updates. Box store computers only last about three years. I have been doing this for a very long time, so I have a lot of experience behind me, and I like to help my clients get out of trouble and make sure their data is safe so their business can run smoothly.

Shawn O'Hara: What is the difference between the box stores, as you mentioned, and what you sell?

Dean: The box stores focus their sales on price and quantity over quality. Business class is the opposite; it is more about quality than quantity. You might see a bigger hard drive at a box store, but those features are not always needed and do not speed anything up. The problem with box store products is that they are usually shipped to a vendor for repair, sometimes to Vancouver or Toronto, so they are not local repairs. That is not good for business because it means downtime.

Box stores usually offer a one-year warranty, which means you get updates for another two years, making it three or four years of firmware updates. These computers are usually used for light-duty use at home. For a business, you are using that computer eight hours a day, five days a week, at least. That is where business class comes in. It is designed to run for a long time and be more durable. Ideally, you change your computers every five years. Business class computers have up to seven years of updates, so you get all the firmware updates to keep your computer secure. It is a combination of software and hardware that keeps your computer safe, running smoothly, and secure.

Shawn O'Hara: I think I got my computer from you three years ago, and it is running 10 plus hours a day. It is quite powerful.

Dean: Five years ago. I think yours is from 2020.

Shawn O'Hara: Or 2020. It was after the lockdown.

Dean: Yeah.

Shawn O'Hara: I know I have been impressed with it. What core values do you bring to Compu-Tek and to your clients?

Dean: My core value is that I would not sell anything I would not buy myself. I make sure our products are tested and proven, and I want to make sure the products have good warranty support behind them. For instance, I have not found Brother printers to be good; there is no phone support anymore, and they are expensive to run. The toner costs two to three times as much as a big Lexmark business class printer.

Giving clients value and integrity is the most important thing to me. I want to be honest with clients and make sure I am doing my best to keep them safe and secure. When I quote a computer, I do not go overboard. I quote what I feel they need, but I try to put in a system that will last at least five years. If you under-scale something, it will lose performance over time, and you will end up with a slower machine before you reach the five-year mark. I want to make sure they get good use out of it for the next five or six years.

Shawn O'Hara: How regulated is your industry? Can people buy from box stores or IT pros? How do they know what they are getting? Is there any government regulator you deal with?

Dean: No, there is no regulation. Anybody can buy hardware anywhere, even from China or Taiwan, or just locally. For example, Lenovo had an issue with China because China was stealing military and company secrets. They stopped manufacturing computers in China for over five years. Most are now made in Mexico and the US because they did not want spyware embedded. There is a higher standard for business class products.

Laptops are tested to military specifications 18 times over, so they are very durable and built to last. Government agencies here use Lenovo ThinkPads because they want durability and long-lasting products. It is pretty much self-regulated, so it is your choice what you want to purchase. For higher-scale cloud monitoring and antivirus software, you have to be an authorized dealer. The same goes for some Microsoft products. You cannot buy that type of coverage at a box store.

Shawn O'Hara: And you are authorized?

Dean: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: So is that like quality control or consumer protection?

Dean: Yes. They want to make sure that people selling these products are vetted and know the products, so they give the client the right product and make sure it is implemented properly. For antivirus, these are called endpoint products. They report to an endpoint portal to let someone know the software is being monitored. If something goes wrong, someone is notified by email. Box store antivirus does not do that. You rely on a little icon on your screen to say it is working. They want to make sure their products are being properly used, which is why they have notifications.

Shawn O'Hara: With big box software and antivirus, it depends on people recognizing there is an issue, and often they do not.

Dean: Yes, it happens a lot. People see that it is not working. The same with backup systems. If there are no notifications, people think their computer is backed up, but it might not be. Sometimes it has not worked for months.

Shawn O'Hara: Yeah.

Dean: I just dealt with that recently. I set up backup systems for a client, and Microsoft said to sign into OneDrive. When they did, it broke the backup system I set up because it moved files from the user folders into the OneDrive folder. The backup software was no longer backing up those files. That client signed out of OneDrive months ago and never noticed, so they had zero backup—nothing online, nothing locally. There was only a popup notification, which they ignored. I had to fix that for them. Sync systems are not backup systems; they just sync your data to the cloud. You can recover data from them, but they are limited. Dropbox, for example, has a limitation where if more than 30% of your files are deleted, they are unrecoverable.

Shawn O'Hara: In Dropbox?

Dean: Yes, but with a proper backup system, it is a one-way trip. It goes to the backup and is not meant to be synced somewhere else. It gives different versions of the file, so you can go back six months or a year and recover data.

Shawn O'Hara: What does sync do? You mentioned that sync is unsynchronized.

Dean: Your OneDrive and Dropbox are all synchronized systems. If you delete a file, you can recover it within 30 days, but after that, it is permanently removed. If you accidentally delete your resume and need it six months later, it is gone. With a backup system, the file would still be there unless a large percentage of files are different. Sync systems are convenient if you want to access files on both a desktop and laptop, but if you delete something, after thirty days it is gone.

Shawn O'Hara: Wow. I would be paranoid about what to delete and what not to delete.

Dean: Yes, sometimes you think it is backed up because it is on OneDrive or Google Drive, but not really. The backup systems I use send email notifications when the backup is complete. If the backup fails, you do not get the email, so you know to watch out for that. Sync systems do not do that. You have to pay attention to how the cloud system works. In OneDrive, a green check mark means it is saved locally and in the cloud. If it is a picture of a cloud, it is only saved in the cloud, not locally. If your cloud account is compromised, your data could be gone. I have seen that happen. Two-factor authentication can be hacked, especially text-based ones.

Shawn O'Hara: So with two-factor authentication, they can get into OneDrive?

Dean: If they do not have the Microsoft Authenticator on, they are more likely to get in.

Shawn O'Hara: I use OneDrive, and sometimes when I delete something, it asks if I want to delete it locally or on all devices.

Dean: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: That can make people wonder if they are deleting the right thing.

Dean: Yes, if you delete it locally, it could stay in the cloud, but eventually it will be removed from the cloud.

Shawn O'Hara: So it would be safer to have a professional backup system.

Dean: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: I am just trying to think what...

Dean: Yes, you are basically making a one-way trip. Think of it as a safe in the house. You take a copy of your data, put it in the safe, and close it until the next backup. With synchronization, the safe door is always open, and you are putting data in and out. If you delete it, it could be gone permanently after three days.
Shawn O'Hara: With a good backup, people could even back up their archives and just leave them, knowing they are safe.

Dean: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: What are your thoughts on Kaspersky, since you mentioned not wanting spyware from China?

Dean: Kaspersky is from Russia.

Shawn O'Hara: The founder still lives in Moscow, from what I understand.

Dean: Yes, I would not touch it.

Shawn O'Hara: I have heard some banks and governments will not use it because of that, even though it seems to be a good product.

Dean: Yes. With China, the policy is that if the government asks a company for data, they have to give it to them. I saw a backup system in Taiwan, kind of China, and if the government says, "Give me that data," they have it. You have to be careful where your data is stored. Medical and government policies here require data to be stored in Canada. Microsoft has servers in Canada. There are local companies, like Black Back Place, that are Canadian. I use one out of the States, but they are reliable. You create your own key, and if you do not give them the key, even the FBI cannot get your data.

Shawn O'Hara: Do you see high-speed computers or AI being able to break that at some point?
Dean: They have hit a limitation on how fast they can make chips. The chips are so small now that they are hitting their limit. There are ways to speed things up, like faster RAM and SSD drives, which have made computers much faster. SSDs are almost as fast as RAM now. The only thing that will make things much faster is quantum computing, but there are a lot of issues with error correction. Companies like Google are working on it, but it is a long way off.
Shawn O'Hara: And we will deal with any issues that come from that.

Dean: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: Getting back to regulation and compliance, how can someone tell when they are hiring a company like yours that they are hiring people who are certified and know what they are doing?
Dean: A good thing to do is get references from other companies they have worked for. I am bondable, and I put that on my business cards to show I have never had any criminal activity. It is hard to bond an IT person because it is more material than software. Make sure they have errors and omissions insurance, which I have, in case something goes wrong. If someone has a background in computer science, engineering, or as a technologist, that helps a lot.
When I was in school, we wrote machine code for processors and learned about CPUs and RAM. That background helps me in my business. When people talk about cache and processors, I know how cache works and what types are better for performance. It is always good to ask questions and get references before hiring someone to take over your IT. When you hire someone, they have access to all your data, so you want someone you can trust.
Shawn O'Hara: We can become quite vulnerable.

Dean: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: Now, it's not a regulated industry, but you have certifications as good IT people do. Is there a way that you use that in your marketing or your messaging to put across what makes you different or higher qualified than the people who don't have the certifications?

Dean Bennett: I frequently mention that we're an authorized Lenovo and Dell dealer; you have to be authorized to sell their commercial products. We're also Microsoft authenticated. I start with those two because that's the main computer systems and hardware for servers and for desktops and laptops. We have that authorization through them to sell the products.

Shawn O'Hara: And those are recognized names too—Microsoft and Dell.

Dean Bennett: Yes, very much so.

Shawn O'Hara: That gives a degree of credibility.

Dean Bennett: Yes.

Shawn O'Hara: What are some of the horror stories or situations that you've encountered?

Dean Bennett: I've seen so many come through my way. I've seen some work done by people who are like the backyard mechanic, the backyard tech. When I had my computer store, people would come in saying, "My nephew is so smart on computers," and I would say, "Would you let your nephew work on your Mercedes?" They'd say, "No way." I said, "Do you really want them working on your computer stuff and your business?" I had a lady come in who wanted to make sure her son wasn't getting onto malicious websites and brought the computer in, asking if we could put Net Nanny on it. My tech went through it and found it loaded with viruses and other things. He told her the best thing she could do was put the computer in the same room where she was so she could monitor what he was doing. He said Net Nanny wouldn't help because her son was a hacker and would get around it in five seconds. People assume that just because someone has some knowledge, they're an expert, but it really takes a long time to get that expertise.

Even for myself, I'll tell clients, "I have to research that. I have to look into it," just to be honest with them, because I don't know every single piece of software. I know how to use Excel very well; Word, not so much, but that's not my forte. My forte is maintaining the software, hardware, and systems, getting them going. I've also run into ransomware. Some clients thought the way to service their computers was like calling the fire department—when something happened, they called the IT guy because they had no maintenance done and didn't know what was going on. One client had about six computers in the office. They got hit with ransomware. It was going to cost them $6,000 to get it unlocked, but I told them, "You don't know if they'll unlock it or not." They decided not to pay. I was able to recover their accounting data, but their backup was also encrypted. They had an offsite backup, but it had not been working for a couple of years. Clients who avoid maintenance are the ones who get into the most trouble. I usually recommend my business clients get regular maintenance every three to four months. That way, you make sure those backups and all the systems are working correctly. The one tip I have is you should know how to recover your data. Set a calendar reminder every week or two to check your backup so you can actually recover a file that's been backed up.

Shawn O'Hara: What's a good way for people or a business, or even at home, because a lot of people use OneDrive if they've got a Microsoft subscription or Google Drive—how does that work? Or they'll just work straight off OneDrive all the time. Is that a good, reliable backup system?

Dean Bennett: Those are not backup systems. Those are sync systems. If you delete your information, it becomes deleted everywhere. With OneDrive, it's 30 days—after you delete it, within 30 days it's permanently gone. I had a client with a MacBook who started cleaning up his MacBook and accidentally removed a bunch of data off his Dropbox. With Dropbox, if you remove more than 30% of your data, you can't recover it. A true backup system is a one-way trip. It goes to the cloud and is backed up. It keeps different versions of that file and retains them, so you can go back even six months and get a previous version. It doesn't delete old backups until those backups become more than typically 30% different. A true backup system is more like a one-way system. I always recommend people keep their data in three places: on the computer, a local backup (like an external network storage drive or server), and offsite too.

So, an offsite location, but an actual backup. I don't consider these sync systems a backup. The other thing is, if OneDrive is connected to your email address and your email gets hacked, theoretically, it could allow people to get access to that data. Then your data is gone or changed.

Shawn O'Hara: Would having it in the cloud like that protect it from ransomware?

Dean Bennett: They do advertise ransomware protection with OneDrive now. They say they protect it, but things are constantly changing. I still recommend a proper backup system rather than just a cloud sync system to keep your data safe. It gives you an alternative if something goes wrong and you can't access the cloud system—you've got it in another place. Don't put all your eggs in one basket; don't put all your data just in the cloud.

Shawn O'Hara: So, if somebody has it on their computer and that gets infected or they get ransomware or a virus, and then they've got a backup in their home or office, whether that's a unit or just a hard drive, and then if it's in the cloud, in an actual backup, is that protected in the cloud?

Dean Bennett: Generally, they are, because there are previous versions. If the current version is infected, they can go back to the last version and pull it back again. With my business clients, like those with servers, they have hard drives. I physically swap out every day, so they take the hard drive out and take it home. This way, it's a complete offsite backup. They'd be behind only one day if they got encrypted. Even with network storage drives, you can still do a backup of that storage drive and take it away.

Shawn O'Hara: When we get a new computer, it can take about a day or so to upload our software and configure everything. Is there a way to do that any faster? If something happens to our computer and we've got everything backed up, we might lose a day of work, but we also lose a day or two reconfiguring the new hardware. Is there a way around that?

Dean Bennett: Yes. There is what's called an image backup. It's built into Windows 10 and 11—it's actually called the Windows 7 backup system because they're still using the old one, but it does an exact copy of the entire computer. You have all the settings and software. Preparing a new computer can take a day or two because you have to install Windows, updates, drivers, set up email, printers, and all that software. I use certain software that does what's called a bare metal restore. Let's say you buy a Dell computer and do an image backup, and the Dell fails, but the only thing available is Lenovo. It strips out all the Dell drivers and allows you to restore to the Lenovo, then you just update the drivers for the Lenovo. That's one of the reasons for onsite backup—its main function is to do a backup of the computer system. From that point, it only backs up changed files, so the entire system is backed up fully. Mac computers do the same thing with Time Machine, but there's less control. It only backs up to two weeks, and when it fills up, it wipes out older backups up to only two weeks back.

Shawn O'Hara: Often people are concerned with costs. Can you give some rough idea what they'd be looking at to set up onsite and offsite?

Dean Bennett: Offsite backup, one of the companies I use, is about $120 a year for five terabytes of backup. That's a one-way trip for the offsite. For onsite, a small business with three to five users, up to maybe 20 users, can use a network storage drive. The cost is probably around $1,000 to $1,200 for the network storage, giving you about four terabytes of data to back up multiple machines. You can go bigger, up to 16 terabyte drives. It has dual mirrored hard drives in case one fails. For small home users, a two-terabyte external USB drive works, but only certain brands work well with image recovery. Lower-cost ones may not work, but you can use them. Just unplug them and store them in a safe place, especially if you go away somewhere.

Shawn O'Hara: So, what happens if somebody does get hacked? Let's get into compliance and regulation issues. If a company has a privacy breach and some information is out there, what do you do and what can you advise them to do?

Dean Bennett: They're supposed to report to CRA that they've been compromised. They also have to tell all their clients that their information has been compromised. Even if the hackers say, "If you pay us, we won't share it," they do anyway. You definitely want to inform your clients so they can get monitoring software like LifeLock to make sure their data isn't being used for making credentials or artificial documents. They should probably be changing passwords on their accounts, especially banking accounts, to keep people out. It's sad, but surveys show that 70% of companies that have total data loss go out of business within a year. Too often, people have all their data with no backup, especially on laptops. Not all data is stored in the cloud, either—only a portion of it.

Shawn O'Hara: Laptops are so easy to lose or have taken.

Dean Bennett: Yes, definitely. For a business client, I always say get a desktop. The laptop is your portable one, but don't rely strictly on your laptop alone. You can get dock stations, which are convenient and lower costs, but you might get stolen or drop it. If you can afford to be down for a day or two to get everything back up and running, sure. But if you can't, the laptop should be a spare tool. Desktops are friendlier, lower cost, and you can get nice-sized monitors. It's a nicer system if you don't need portability.

Shawn O'Hara: That's quite the statistic of how many go out of business within a year.

Dean Bennett: Yes. If you've lost all your data, you have to rebuild your business from scratch because all your contacts are gone. If you don't have that data, it's a problem. If a company gets hacked or compromised, it can be quite an embarrassment, and the trust from clients would be a lot less. They may switch to another company and not feel confident anymore. It's risky to allow that to happen. The biggest thing is getting tight security, which involves getting a commercial antivirus. Commercial antivirus is not one you buy at a box store or a free one. Commercial antivirus has what's called endpoint, which reports to a cloud portal to let you know there's an issue. If you get a small local antivirus, it just puts a red X on it, and if staff ignore it, they could get compromised. With an endpoint system, it reports to the cloud. The one I am authorized to sell and use is Symantec Endpoint, which is used by major governments and industries in North America. They also used to have Norton, but Norton was sold to LifeLock. They still use the same database, but that's for the consumer one. If people don't want to get into the endpoint one, Norton is what I recommend for home users because the endpoint takes setup and is licensed per station.

Shawn O'Hara: So, for a smaller or home user, Norton would be better.

Dean Bennett: Yes, Norton would be better for that. But for business, I would definitely go with Symantec Endpoint. It's very locked down. If you try to run an unknown application, it blocks it right away, and you have to go back in and allow it. It's like routers—Shaw and Telus routers, the old Telus routers, have firewalls turned off by default. The Shaw ones are pretty open. The reason is they want people to be able to game and do things easily. When you get into Sophos, the bigger firewalls, everything is locked down right away. If you want to do something, you have to unlock it. It gives more protection. The higher-end Sophos Extreme will filter content going through and block malicious web pages. The two biggest areas of protection are getting maintenance and getting a firewall in place—a commercial firewall or better than the modems they supply—and getting a commercial antivirus.

Shawn O'Hara: So, going out, investigating, or contacting you, you would set all of that up and make the best recommendations as the route to go.

Dean Bennett: Yes, and it's not that expensive. It's about $40 a month per client for Symantec Endpoint for an entire year. When you look at the cost versus trying to recover your data, it's way cheaper to go for commercial antivirus and firewalls. Sophos can get expensive, but they're high quality with good support. You can get basic firewalls from $100 and up that are better than what Shaw and Telus modems offer.

Shawn O'Hara: What size of company do you tend to work with, or industry? Do you have any specialty?

Dean Bennett: Generally, five users and up. I deal with nonprofits, accounting offices, lawyers, hotels, automotive, construction—basically a lot of business clients, anywhere from five to 50 employees.

Shawn O'Hara: How about password security? In the old days, we used to tell people not to write the password on a note and stick it on the computer. But sometimes, especially if people have a home office, that almost seems safer than using the same password on multiple sites or a weak password wallet.

Dean Bennett: The best password you can use is one you can't remember. Many people say, "I can't remember that," and that's a good password. Don't use whole names, like your dog's name or your address. One of the biggest mentalities I find, especially in Victoria, is, "Oh, we're a small business, who's going to care about us?" It doesn't matter if you get a virus or get hacked—you're done. They don't care who you are. You can maybe put passwords on a spreadsheet, encrypt it, and print it off for yourself. People ask me about password managers all the time. One of the big ones, LastPass, had their code compromised and stolen—not the passwords, but the code, which means they could get access later. I'm not keen on password managers, especially if they're online, because anyone in the world can get access.

Another point is about emails. You should have two-factor authentication on any email you use. If you can't add it, change your email system. Shaw email, for example, has no two-factor authentication. Websites that host email often don't have two-factor either. Office 365 has two-factor authentication and lets you see login attempts. Security is very important. OneDrive uses your email address, so you need two-factor authentication for OneDrive. Dropbox and others have some two-factor authentication, so make sure it's enabled. I like Office 365 because it uses Microsoft Authenticator. If someone gets your password, it immediately sends a notification to your authenticator app. For text messages, those can be hacked, so Microsoft has talked about disabling text messages, but hasn't done it yet.

Shawn O'Hara: So, the Authenticator app is more secure.

Dean Bennett: It is more secure because you know immediately if someone is trying to access your account.

Shawn O'Hara: What about getting prompted in the browsers? Edge and Chrome will prompt to save a password within there. How are those?

Dean Bennett: You can do it. Many people use it. Just make sure your Gmail has a really good password and authentication is enabled. Using Google Authenticator is one way to go because it generates a code every 30 seconds. Make sure your passwords are complex—10 to 12 characters, uppercase, lowercase, special characters. Don't use your name or a whole name. If you use a word, break it up and throw different characters inside. If you can't remember it, it's a great password.

Shawn O'Hara: And don't follow a set pattern either, because people will have one they think is complex, but they follow the same pattern from site to site.

Dean Bennett: Yes, and once a hacker gets in, they'll try variations of your password to get to other locations. Once they figure out the pattern, that's it.

Dean Bennett: There was just an article about the Colonial Pipeline attack, a big US oil company that got ransomware. They got attacked through an older VPN access, probably through someone's laptop. They were able to access the internal network and hack the system. It was a big one—about a $10 million ransom. It shut down the entire pipeline and caused chaos and oil prices to rise in the US. People like to access work through a VPN, which is great, but don't let it memorize your VPN password. If a laptop gets stolen and they hack your login password, then they have VPN access. Always make that password something separate you have to enter each time. Make sure you have a good VPN. The Microsoft VPN is weak; there are stronger systems. Think of the worst-case scenario and protect from there. If you get a laptop, assume it could be stolen.

It's happened before. Make sure if they get access, they can't get to your internal work network. Lenovo has software called Absolute Tracker, which installs on the laptop and goes into the BIOS. If someone steals the laptop and wipes out the operating system, it reinstalls itself and transmits the location so you can recover it. It's not a big cost, but it is a way to track and recover the laptop. A good laptop can be $1,500 to $2,000.

Shawn O'Hara: Worst case is also the phone. If we've got a password on there, we get texts, authenticators, and potentially a password wallet.

Dean Bennett: You want a good passcode—six digits is usually good. Don't use the swipe method because someone can see the fingerprint marks. Most authenticators, like Microsoft Authenticator, require your fingerprint or passcode to open. Make sure it's enabled. Google Authenticator and Microsoft should use your fingerprint to log in, because that's hard to duplicate. Face recognition has gotten better, but in the past, there were hacks where someone who looked similar could get in. Now, they look for things like blinking so you can't just hold a photo up to it.

Shawn O'Hara: It's all scary stuff.

Dean Bennett: The one thing I recommend to keep people safe is if you get an email, your bank or the government will not email you. If you get one and think it's legit, do not click on the links. Go to your web browser and type the address in. That way, you can see the address in the bar. For example, go to tdbank.com and log in from there. Don't click on links in emails. It may seem convenient, but it can also download a virus to your computer. Viruses can come in the form of JPEG files, videos, Word or Excel files. That's why you want good antivirus protection. Free antivirus doesn't work. Nobody works for free. Some free ones require you to upgrade to get extra features. Just don't use a free one.

Shawn O'Hara: If they do click on the link or go to a regular email, hackers will make a site identical to the real one. People type in their username and password, it fails, and they try again. What's actually happened is they've been brought to the correct site, but the password they put in has been tracked. Now, the hackers can log in, and people think they're fine. They should probably change that password right away.

Dean Bennett: Yes, definitely change the password right away, but people aren't paying attention to the web link. That happened in the States to a lot of US and Canadian banks. They copied all their login pages. People clicked the link, and the password was sent to the hackers, who then logged into the bank account and drained it. One guy in the US lost over $100,000, and his bank wouldn't cover it. Now, a lot of banks have two-factor authentication. Make sure it's enabled. Don't click the link—go to the actual site. I heard of a company here in town where a supplier got hacked. They got an invoice that looked legit, with what they had purchased. The email had a link to pay, and their person paid $30,000. Then, they got a call from the company asking why they hadn't paid. What happened was the supplier got hacked, and the hackers created a website and email with one character different, tricking them into paying the wrong account. The whole thing seemed legit. I prefer e-transfers, but some companies don't like them. Always pay attention to what you're logging into. Norton has a Chrome extension that will block malicious websites if they find them. That's the paid version of Norton.

Shawn O'Hara: So, a duplicated site, they would catch that ideally.

Dean Bennett: They might or might not. Malicious websites try to download software in the background, so a duplicate site might not be detected.

For security, my take is to stay with commercial, business-class computers. Consumer computers have a one-year warranty and updates for one to two years. Commercial ones have up to a five-year warranty and up to seven years of updates. You'll get a longer lifespan and more reliability. They come with Windows Pro, which has more security. You pay for what you get. If you want quality and reliability, business class is the way to go. I focus mostly on businesses, but I sell commercial ones to homeowners too, because they want reliability. It's a little more investment, but if it lasts twice as long, it's paid for.

Shawn O'Hara: There's an old expression: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. With computer security, that's true. They are out to get you whether you're paranoid or not.

Dean Bennett: Just because you're in a small town in Victoria doesn't mean you'll get ignored. It can happen to anyone. I've helped several people with ransomware attacks here. With webmail, anyone in the world can go to webmail, throw passwords at it until they get in. For other accounts, like QuickBooks Online, download a backup of your documents just in case the account gets compromised. I haven't heard of it yet, but with IT, it's backup, backup, backup.

Shawn O'Hara: That's a good one. How can people get ahold of you?

Dean Bennett: They can go to my website, compu-tek.ca, and contact me directly from there. I'm also on LinkedIn and have a Facebook page, but the website is the best form of contact. They can also see suggestions on office setup and examples of projects I've done for networks and clients, as well as the types of hardware we sell.

Shawn O'Hara: Great. Thank you. My guest today has been Dean Bennett of Compu-Tek Computer Services here in Victoria. Thank you so much for joining me today, Dean.

Dean Bennett: You're welcome, Shawn, anytime. I was very glad to do this.

Shawn O'Hara: That’s a wrap.

Links

• Compu-Tek Computer Services