Coastal PC Support

04/19/2025

I did work for Mr. Floyd for 26 years but the first thing I remember in this time is how he sent me a very personal hand written note when my father passed. He was a brilliant mind and a force of nature but so able to see people in the most human of terms when it mattered most. I had the utmost respect for him and he will always be "Mr. Floyd" to me. My deepest sympathy to Linda, Terry, Brad, Blake and Ford.

Share memories & support the family

05/23/2023

Artificial Intelligence is already being used by hackers to mimic your voice combined with misuse of other technology that allows them to spoof your phone number.

So imagine you get a phone call from your boss asking you to read off sensitive information that he/she urgently needs. Or a call from a family member in distress and seemingly in danger.

You recognize the voice and the number matches too. But...the call is being generated by AI and sent from an app designed to spoof the real phone number. How would you possibly know?

The scary answer is you probably wouldn't, just like virtually all of the people who are victims of this type of high-tech assault. What's the defense?

If you plan ahead and educate your work team -- and your family -- a secret "safe" word would be a good low-tech solution to a serious high-tech problem. Just make sure your safe word is truly safe and not something that can be obtained via online search.

You can read more about this by visiting this site: https://bit.ly/3q1HVaw

05/10/2023

Phishing Scam Email from Someone You Know

Many people assume that an email is safe if it comes from someone they know. That's a dangerous assumption. The most lethal emails we see clients open did, in fact, come from someone they knew. That's part of the vicious cycle of phishing emails. They steal your email password and then try to do the same to everyone you've ever sent an email to. It's not unusual to see a successful phishing scam circulate for weeks among local law firms. But you can learn to spot the tell-tale signs of a phishing scam which arrives in your inbox as something shared from a friend or associate.

Look for anything unusual in the format or wording of an email. Does it look like emails you have previously received from this person. Is the wording or punctuation off. Was the email addressed to you or does the "To" field show an address other than yours. Phishing emails commonly show up as links to popular services like SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Docusign, etc...Although these are valuable services when used legitimately, they're also very often abused for ill.

Ask yourself the most common sense question of all: "Why did they share this with me?" If you're being sent a file you didn't request you need to treat it very carefully. You may have just stepped into a minefield so stop and think before your next step. The old saying "curiosity killed the cat" can also translate to "curiosity allowed ransomware to kidnap all of my company's files and shutdown our office." One extra mouse click is all it takes. Remember that it phishing scams the ultimate prize is your password. NEVER EVER NEVER give up your password unless you're 100% certain it's required. 99.9% of the time, a request for your password will be a scam.

We filter our client's emails for spam and phishing scams and have additional security safety nets for the few that sneak through. We also plea with our clients to forward anything suspicious to us for inspection if they have any doubt. But ultimately the user is the last line of defense. Arm yourself with knowledge and a good suspicious set of eyes.

In the provided screenshots the phishing email showed up to our client from someone they do business with. It was posing as a shared file sent via Microsoft's SharePoint service. It uses several masking techniques to evade security but ultimately lands on the phishing scam website and asks for your email address and then your password.

05/05/2023

Urgent Apple iPhone/iPad Security Update:

This is an urgent update from Apple and should be installed ASAP. This is the first update Apple has released under their new "Rapid Security Response" initiative. It's particularly urgent on iPhones given the increase in the number of spam text messages that link to malicious websites determined to exploit devices that are missing the latest updates.

04/25/2023

Scammers are using the legitimate Intuit Quickbooks payment service to collect money for products and services that were never ordered or delivered. At least a small percentage of people fall for this scam without ever realizing it while the scammers happily collect their money.

In the provided screenshots, the scammer also utilizes Intuit's payment system to generate the email which gives it more legitimacy and makes it less likely to be blocked as spam. And the email is blanketed with the Intuit Quickbooks logo, again to give it more legitimacy.

An overworked accounting person or office manager could easily click right through and make payment on this bogus service. The Intuit Quickbooks invoice and payment service is a great tool for many small businesses. But like all things Internet related, it can just as easily be abused for ill-gotten gains. Keep a close watch and confirm any suspect product or service before you pay.

04/21/2023

Perhaps the most common current scam is the fake invoice email (or sometimes text). There are thousands of variations but all claim to be confirming some product or service that you didn't buy. Each one will reference a phone number for you to call if you have any questions about your "order." That's where the scam actually begins because if you make the mistake of calling the number - or replying to the email - the scammer will attempt to con you into either giving them remote access to your PC (under the pretense of crediting your "purchase") or they'll attempt to direct you to a malicious website (again, under the pretense of a credit or refund).

We've seen examples claiming the purchase of virtually every type of product or service including one recent one for several g***k handguns. Most people's gut instinct is to reply to the email or call the phone number because they're concerned they've been charged wrongly. But we've yet to see an example where an actual charge existed. It's all part of the con to lure you into responding.

We advise our clients to monitor their credit cards and accounts to make sure no actual charge exists but to NOT engage with the scammer in any way. No email reply or phone call. Either is a waste of time that at best will result in further aggravation or at worst lead to a successful scam.

04/14/2023

The Internal Revenue Service wrapped up the annual Dirty Dozen list of tax scams for 2023 with a reminder for taxpayers, businesses and tax professionals to watch out for these schemes throughout the year, not just during tax season.

Many of these schemes peak during filing season as people prepare their tax returns. In reality, these scams can occur throughout the year as fraudsters look for ways to steal money, personal information, data and more.

Phishing and smishing:
Taxpayers and tax professionals should be alert to fake communications from those posing as legitimate organizations in the tax and financial community, including the IRS and the states. These messages arrive in the form of an unsolicited text (smishing) or email (phishing) to lure unsuspecting victims to provide valuable personal and financial information that can lead to identity theft. The IRS initiates most contacts through regular mail and will never initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text or social media regarding a bill or tax refund.

Online account help from third-party scammers Swindlers:
These types of scams pose as a "helpful" third party and offer to help create a taxpayer's IRS Online Account at IRS.gov. In reality, no help is needed. The online account provides taxpayers with valuable tax information. But third parties making these offers will try to steal a taxpayer's personal information this way. Taxpayers can and should establish their own online account through IRS.gov.

If you are looking to protect your data and information, Coastal PC Support employs a number of protective measures to protect our clients from these scams. If you have any concerns or questions please let us know.

04/11/2023

Office 365 Common Phishing Scam:

Phishing scams very often imitate legitimate Microsoft Office365 email notifications.

The Scam email uses a deceptive “From” name (“Quarantine Timer” in our example) but note the "From" email address is definitely not from Microsoft and is almost always sent from another account that fell victim to the same scam. Many of these scams claim your password is expiring or to be holding “important” emails in an effort to lure you into taking the next step in the phishing process.

Clicking any link in the email sends you to the phishing site where the scammer hopes you’ll enter your email password.

Notice the scam email is designed to automatically include your actual email address on the phishing site, leaving you to only enter your password. Like many phishing sites, it accurately mimics the Microsoft website with the logos and sign in page. If you're not paying attention to the address bar, it would be easy to get fooled. Legitimate Microsoft login sites only begin with https://login.microsoftonline.com

If you’ve fallen to one of these scams, time is of the utmost importance, in a race to reset the password and secure the account before the scammer can do their damage.

Coastal PC Support employs a number of protective measures to protect our clients from these scams. If you have any concerns or questions please let us know.

04/07/2023

Coastal PC Support is your local Managed IT service provider.

Installing and maintaining professional IT systems throughout the Grand Strand since 2004 – providing businesses with reliable and comprehensive technical support.

Coastal PC Support is your local Managed IT service provider. Providing professional managed IT services throughout the Grand Strand since 2004, we offer bus...

03/24/2023

One of the most common scams we run into with our clients involves the fake virus/security warnings. Whatever you do, do NOT call the number as it will allow the "scammers" to hack into your system and steal your data. Unplugging your computer might cause some other issues.

How to resolve it is in 3 easy steps:
1. Press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys
2. In the task manager, click the "Processes" tab
3. Right click each internet browser and choose "End task"

When the fake warning goes away, you closed the right tab. Once you open a browser, it will then ask if you want to restore your tabs, click no.

If you are unsure about your IT security, be sure to contact us and we will gladly assist you!

03/24/2023

Welcome to Our Social Media Channel!

Coastal PC Support has been Installing and Maintaining professional IT Systems throughout the Grand Strand since 2004. We strive to provide businesses with reliable and comprehensive technical support. In other words, we make technology work for you!

As we christen our social media platforms with this first post we’d also like to take a moment to state our purpose here. We want our social media to be useful and we’ll heavily concentrate on security awareness & training and general technology education for our customer base. We’ll include urgent security bulletins, helpful tips, tech news we think you’ll find relevant and an occasional product review.

We’d encourage you to like, follow and engage with us and share with anyone else you think might also find it useful. Please feel free to let us know what you like and anything you think we can do better.

03/22/2023

We have a brand new website! :-D

Please check it out! We hope you like it as much as we do!

Helping business owners with the computer systems, networks, cybersecurity, data management, and the maintenance they need. We enjoy using our expertise to ensure our clients have smooth-running and well-maintained business systems.

Special thanks goes out to GINGALLEY Web Design & Promotions for the awesome new logo design and modern new website!

Thank you for visiting our website! The Coastal PC Support website enables our visitors to learn more about us and our professional services. It can help those find what they’ve been searching for in reliable managed IT services, network security, infrastructure management, and technical support ....