CVO Macologists

Stuart Ashenbrenner Apple Technician/Security Researcher December 20, 2016 Back Dat(A) Up Why backing it up ain’t just fo’ da club: how to back data up like a baller If your computer crashed today, or if all of your information got erased now, how upset would you be? That means pictures, documents, videos, music, etc, etc.  If you answered “meh” to the above question, or anything other than “I wouldn’t be,” then it is time to look into getting a backup drive for your information. With how simple Apple makes backing up your information, it will be some of the best money you’ve ever spent since you purchased that Christmas sweater for your dog. There are many different reasons to backup your information, but we’ll touch on three primary reasons. Let’s take a step back - why would you need a copy/backup of your information? Human nature is great start to why we need a backup. We have all spilled drinks, dropped things inadvertently, accidentally deleted someth...

Stuart Ashenbrenner Apple Technician/Security Researcher November 27, 2016 Ransomware Made Easy Stealing for the social engineer Mac’s get viruses. There, I said it. It’s true. Malware, adware, viruses, ransomware, the whole kitchen sink is available to Apple devices. I see it all day, every day. There is your first debunked myth. Recently, I saw a case of what I believe to be the easiest, most simplistic form of ransomware possible, but before we jump into ransomware, I’ll quickly breakdown what ransomware is. Ransomware, which similarly to most security issues is most common on PCs, but is 100% possible on an Apple machine. Ransomware, at its core, is hijacking a person’s computer, encrypting the data, then requiring that person to pay the hacker a specified amount of money to get the encryption key (a code or password) to decrypt the data. This seems like a difficult task from a hacker’s perspective, to hack into someone else’s computer, encrypt all of their d...