#fifonetworks

Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 27, 2026

Over the weekend a man in Oregon called for tech support (I’m in Washington). “Bob, I can’t get my printer to work.” I connected remotely to his computer while we talked on the phone. He’s running Windows 11 Home, 25H2. I opened “Printers & Scanners” to see what’s up. He has one printer, and it had an error message. I started from the beginning: downloaded and installed the current driver package directly from the HP website, power cycled the printer, and rebooted the computer. I tested printing from “Printers & Scanners” with the normal test page, then tested from Microsoft Word – oops! – it’s coming up in fax mode! I set the printer as default and tested again. Then I asked the client to try printing something, whatever it was that he couldn’t print before he called me. He opened Outlook, opened an attachment, and printed it. Success. You see, a lot of this isn’t hard. They just need a friend. He’s a residential client. I looked in my records, and he’s been a client since May of 2019. This was the eighth invoice in seven years. The last invoice before this was in October, 2024 – 21 months ago! But he remembers me, and when he does need help, I get the call. THE LESSON Repeat business matters. But you also need to have a large, dynamic, growing customer base, because everyone doesn’t need your help every month. Does this seem insecure? Never knowing if, or when, a client will call back? No. It’s not insecure at all, if you build your client base. The beauty of this business model is that no one person can ever fire you. No one can take away your income. You’ve got to do the work, though, of providing consistently good service, and always be marketing. Continually be about the business of nurturing and growing your customer base. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #RemoteSupport #TechSupport #HelpDesk

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 20, 2026

A man passed away recently. He had eight different email addresses, including a couple that belonged to his wife before she died in 2019. His family is paying me to close down his social media presence and close out the email accounts. I just closed an AOL email account that he opened in the 1990s. A couple of the other old emails (anyone remember Juno?) had no MFA, and the passwords consisted only of uppercase and lowercase letters. These old email addresses are a spammer’s dream. Easy to crack into, well established addresses, and the deceased person won’t complain or tighten security. If you have a loved one who passed away, make some decisions about their email addresses. Add MFA that you control if you’re going to keep the email active. And when it’s time, close the account. I know that’s a big emotional step. It seems so final. On the other hand, your loved one probably doesn’t want their old email address used for cybercrime. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #RemoteSupport #TechSupport #HelpDesk

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jul 02, 2026

A couple of weeks ago a new small business client signed up for firewall monitoring service. After I got set up with remote access, I started poking around and discovered that they were paying for licenses for features that had never been enabled. I didn’t cost them any more money – I just had to flip the toggles on the dashboard and activate the features. Then, for a couple of those features, there were some choices to be made and settings to adjust to refine the operation. THE LESSON Buying hardware or software to protect your system is only the first step. That hardware appliance or app has to be configured correctly in order to do its job correctly. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422 #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 25, 2026

“Bob, one of my employees can send email from his iPhone, but he’s not receiving any emails.” Well, that’s backwards – usually I see problems the other way around; they can receive, but not send. I tried working with him on a phone call yesterday morning, but when you can’t see the screen, tech support is more difficult. The client’s main business location is in a town less than an hour from my office, so I went to their location after lunch to work on it in person. Oh, so many details were left out! It turned out that he wasn’t receiving emails on his iPhone, his iPad, or his laptop – but he could send from the phone and the laptop. And... the problem started in March, and was continuous from then until now! Okay. First things first. Let’s log into Outlook on the web and see whether that works. I’m starting to have a hunch that I’ve seen this problem before, with other clients. Outlook on the web looks the same. So I went into the Rules settings, and there was the culprit. The rule was named “....” That’s it, the only rule, and the rule name was just four dots. I clicked the drop-down arrow to expand the rule. And the rule said, on incoming mail, move it to the Deleted Items folder and mark it as read! So he was receiving email all along, he just didn’t know it. I looked in the Deleted Items folder, and there were more than 1,300 messages, including my two test emails from earlier in the day. I moved everything back to the Inbox. Here’s what happened. In March someone had started sending email pretending to be this employee. He changed his email password, and the outbound spam stopped. That’s all the company did. They thought the problem was solved. Well, that locked the cybercriminal out, but it didn’t delete the rule that the cybercriminal had created to cover their activity. That rule didn’t get deleted until yesterday, June 24. THE LESSON If you believe your email has been compromised, after securing your account, log into each device, and especially the web instance, and look for rules you didn’t create. If a device was compromised, the malicious rule may be in Outlook’s rules on the device. This scenario can also happen in other email apps, like Thunderbird, and in other web-based email accounts, like Gmail. Whether it’s web-based or app-based, look for rules or filters that you were unaware of, and delete them. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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Bob Young @fifonetworks@infosec.exchange · Jun 27, 2026

“Bob, my printer quality is low. Please come fix it.” I drove to the client’s office. It’s a small business, about a dozen employees. The VP fills multiple rolls, something that you’ll understand if you’re in a small business yourself. She’s Head of HR, and also Senior Accountant. When I got there, she said, “I can’t print the employee insurance cards. Look at this mess. They’re illegible.” Thanks, Delta Dental, for issuing insurance “cards” as PDF files where the text on the back of the cards is in about 3-point font. Love you for that. Anyway, to start, the black toner on the laser printer was out. She replaced it with a toner cartridge that was OPEN, out of its wrapper, laying on a counter. When the first cartridge was installed, the printer had a “low toner” message. With the replacement cartridge, the one that was already open, it showed zero black toner. Now it wouldn’t print the insurance cards at all. She looked around and found a box with new toner cartridges in it. All four: black, magenta, cyan, yellow. The box still had the form fitting Styrofoam package filler, and each toner cartridge was sealed in plastic. I thought, “Now we’re getting somewhere!” But no. No, we were not getting closer to a solution. We put the new black toner cartridge in the printer, closed the top, and the LCD screen said, “Insert the black toner cartridge.” It didn’t even recognize it. Can you guess now? They bought a box of off-brand of toner cartridges to save money. I said, “Okay, there’s nothing more to do here until you get good toner cartridges. I recommend sticking with the manufacturer’s cartridges for the most reliable print quality.” The VP said, “Those cost too much! I’m not paying for those cartridges!” So I didn’t fix the company’s printer problem, and I’m fine with that. I correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed an effective cure. There comes a point when you can’t blame your problems on Tech Support. You have to own your decisions. It’s your responsibility when you decide that you won’t take action, or won’t spend money on proper repairs. THIRTY MINUTES LATER... While I was working on a different problem for one of the other people, about thirty minutes later the VP came out of her office and said, “I just ordered two brand-name black toner cartridges. They’ll be here Monday.” She just had to mull it over for awhile, I guess, and wrap her head around the idea that quality is worth paying for, if it brings the desired results. THE LESSON It’s not always about fixing the technology. Sometimes, it’s about fixing the decision maker. #CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks +1 206-465-2422 #email #TechSupport #HelpDesk Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

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