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Bob YoungToday a repeat client contacted me via text messaging (RCS). It was in the last half of a Friday afternoon. I was sitting at my desk doing paperwork. I texted back, “I can help you right now, if that works for you.” Their reply was, “Now would be great.” I called them, then connected remotely to their MacBook Air, and took care of the issue. And a little before 5pm, I emailed them the invoice. The paperwork can wait. Speed matters.<a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/CallMeIfYouNeedMe" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CallMeIfYouNeedMe</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/FIFONetworks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#FIFONetworks</a><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/TechSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TechSupport</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/HelpDesk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HelpDesk</a>

Bob Young“If you have turned on two-step verification and cannot access any of the alternate methods to get a verification, we cannot help you, sorry.” (Source: support(.)microsoft(.)com)Yesterday I tried to assist a client with Microsoft account recovery. This client had enabled 2FA/MFA on the account using the Microsoft Authenticator app. Then, the phone with the Authenticator app broke.There was no alternate 2-factor authentication enabled. No alternate email, no option for SMS (text messaging) verification, no Yubikey. When the client initially set up 2FA with the Authenticator app, they were offered the option to save recovery codes, but didn’t write them down.The client is highly educated. If you blame the client, I will block you, because you’re a jerk.Microsoft, and other companies, need to do a much better job of ensuring workable account recovery options are not just available, but actually enabled.This is a paid annual account. By default, Microsoft works hard at making sure at sign-up that you enable auto-renewal. Do you see the problem? The client can’t access the account, and will have to cancel the credit card to avoid continued payments.THE LESSON It’s up to you to make sure you have alternate account recovery mechanisms in place. The cloud service companies will not help you. They are not your friend. They don’t even make it easy to contact them to discuss account problems.If you’re not comfortable setting up secondary account recovery options, I can help. Do it now, before your phone breaks.<a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/CallMeIfYouNeedMe" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CallMeIfYouNeedMe</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/FIFONetworks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#FIFONetworks</a><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/AccountRecovery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AccountRecovery</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/TechSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TechSupport</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a>

Bob Young“It’s spooky to watch your computer doing things when you’re not touching it. It’s hard to let someone have remote control of your computer.”I was talking to a client in Colorado yesterday. He was recalling the first time he let me work on his computer remotely from my office here in Seattle.It does take a certain amount of trust. And right now, I’ll be the one to warn you not to let a complete stranger on the Internet have remote access to your computer! Word-of-mouth advertising and referrals mean a lot.<a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/CallMeIfYouNeedMe" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CallMeIfYouNeedMe</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/FIFONetworks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#FIFONetworks</a><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/HelpDesk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HelpDesk</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/TechSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TechSupport</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a>

Kevin Karhan :verified:<a href="https://mastodontech.de/@nsysteme" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@nsysteme</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@expertenkommision_cyberunfall" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@expertenkommision_cyberunfall</a> <a href="https://social.tchncs.de/@gborn" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@gborn</a> ich kann aus Erfahrung <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Dayon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Dayon</a> empfehlen.<ul><li>Ist die einzig "noob-freundliche" & <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/OpenSource" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#OpenSource</a> - lizensierte <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a> - Lösung die ich kenne, weil's as "Reverse-Server" arbeitet und nur jener Support-Rechner eingerichtet sein muss...</li></ul><a href="https://retgal.github.io/Dayon/quickstart.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://retgal.github.io/Dayon/quickstart.html</a>

Kevin Karhan :verified:<a href="https://chaos.social/@Natanox" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@Natanox</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@djvdq" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@djvdq</a> I do agree in that regard as in that a lot of <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/FLOSS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#FLOSS</a> doesn't do good <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/UI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#UI</a> & <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/UX" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#UX</a> but I've yet to see an issue that wasn't already covered well-enough (even for <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/GnuPG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#GnuPG</a> / <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/GPG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#GPG</a> there's <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Kleopatra" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Kleopatra</a> as a nice <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/GUI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#GUI</a>!) to the point that even on <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Windows" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Windows</a> or <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/macOS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#macOS</a> you'd have to use a <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/CLI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CLI</a> tool for that...<ul><li>Cuz 99,999% of what "<a href="https://infosec.space/tags/TechIlliterates" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TechIlliterates</a>" and "<a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Normies" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Normies</a>" want is to get their basic stuff done and working.</li></ul>In fact, they don't give a s**t about tje underlying OS. Most don't even care if they use <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Firefox" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Firefox</a> or <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Chrome" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Chrome</a> and <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Google" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Google</a> or <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/DuckDuckGo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#DuckDuckGo</a>.<ul><li>All they want is get shit done! And these.folks are eadily helped with a hands-on on a good <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Linux" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Linux</a> dostro and maybe preinstalling some <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a> tool like <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Dayon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Dayon</a> where one can help them if there ever was a need to do anything...</li></ul>

Kevin Karhan :verified:Kinda nice to see <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/AnyDesk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AnyDesk</a> actually do something against <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/Scammers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Scammers</a> abusing their <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a> tool... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUHFpfVPUYc" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUHFpfVPUYc</a>

Wayne DixonDoing Remote Support from a MacI switched the app that I am using for remote support after some issues with the previous product<a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Screens" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Screens</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/RemoteSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RemoteSupport</a> <a href="https://www.waynedixon.com/2024/04/05/doing-remote-support-from-a-mac" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.waynedixon.com/2024/04/05/doing-remote-support-from-a-mac</a>

Bob YoungHDMI woes... This week one of my clients complained that their second monitor on their laptop was blinking on and off. Periodically for no obvious reason the screen would go black, and then a moment later it would come back on. Sometimes it did it maybe once in an hour, and other times it would happen every few seconds. I went to their office and observed the problem. They had a 3 meter (about 10 feet) HDMI cable from some unknown manufacturer. I replaced it with a 2 meter cable rated for 8K video. I checked back with them a couple of days later, and the problem hasn't reoccurred. This is not to say they had an 8K monitor, or that the HDMI port on their laptop was capable of 8K. The point is that cable quality matters, and cable length matters. Longer cables introduce more signal attenuation, and inferior cables cause both attenuation and waveform distortion. The newer 8K HDMI cables are backward compatible with (almost) all earlier iterations of HDMI, so that’s all I carry.TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: It’s highly unlikely that a faulty HDMI cable will result in a poor quality display. The display is either there, or it’s not. In this client’s situation, the signal was borderline. It was either just above minimum (voltage) signal level, or it was at the BER (bit error rate) threshold, and when the signal didn’t meet minimum requirements the monitor simply went blank. So, if an HDMI-connected display is intermittent or constantly black, it’s a good idea to check the cable.<a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/callmeifyouneedme" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#callmeifyouneedme</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/fifonetworks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fifonetworks</a><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/helpdesk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#helpdesk</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/techsupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#techsupport</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/remotesupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#remotesupport</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/hdmi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hdmi</a>

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