Apps Archives - NuTech Services LLC

Jul, 2020

Protect Your Personal Information when Using FinTech

For decades you had to go into a bank to complete your transactions. Today, you can do most everything you need to do without stepping into one. Between online banking and now FinTech-fueled mobile apps more people than ever are avoiding the bank. In fact, a study from Bank of America found that 62 percent of people are now using some type of digital banking or financial services. Today, we’re going to give you a few ways you can protect yourself when using mobile banking apps.

Data theft is a big deal, but there are ways that you can protect yourself and your money when utilizing this technology. Some are more involved than others, so let’s dive right in.

#1 – Use Official Banking Apps

This might seem like common sense, but there are products out there that aim to simplify your mobile banking experience. If having your account breached and your money or identity stolen sounds simple, I’m selling a round-trip vacation to Mars. Are you interested? The banks know the importance of data and personal security and have rigorously tested to ensure data is encrypted and secure.

#2 – Use Strong Passwords and MFA

Creating a unique and strong password (or passphrase) is essential to protect any account you have. Financial accounts have a direct line to your money, so using upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols in your password will help secure the account. Furthermore, almost every bank, credit card, or other financial application offers two-factor or multi-factor authentication (or authorization). Utilizing this feature will go further to protect your financial accounts.

#3 – Disable Automatic Login

Another piece of common sense that doesn’t always register with users. If you want to keep people from accessing your bank account, ensuring that any automatic login, authentication autofill feature, or anything of the like is disabled is a solid practice. This will keep people out of your personal information if they happen to be using your account or device.

#4 – Only Use Secure Connections

Not all Wi-Fi networks are the same. Some are open to anyone and can be hotbeds for data theft. To ensure that you aren’t just handing over your financial account information to someone on the same network, be sure to only access financial applications on your mobile device using your mobile data or via a trusted and secure Wi-Fi connection.

#5 – Learn to Spot and Eliminate Phishing Attacks

Today isn’t like five years ago where hackers tried to actually hack into a network. Today, most networks come with strong enough encryption to keep them out for a couple of decades. The biggest threat to data security are phishing attacks. Knowing how to spot a phishing attack and how to proceed so you don’t become a victim of one, is going to be crucial for the foreseeable future.

Following these five suggestions is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to learn more about FinTech-targeted crime and how to keep your financial and personal data to yourself, call our IT security professionals at NuTech Services at 810.230.9455 today.

Jan, 2020

Tip of the Week: How to Restore Your Android Apps and Settings

There are a few reasons that you’d need to restore your Android device. Some reasons are good, like you finally got the phone you were given an IOU for over the holidays, and some are bad, like your old phone had just broken. For this week’s tip, we’ll assume it is the first reason, as we go over how you can easily prepare your phone data for migration.

Even if you aren’t planning on replacing your phone soon, it may make sense to pay attention here, as this process will also make it easier to restore your data to a new phone if needed. Either way, this process is much easier if you make some proactive preparations on your current phone.

Enabling the Native Android Backup Capabilities

The first step is to make sure that your current phone has the backup service running. It can be found in your Settings, under System. Tap the Backup option, and check to see that the option to Back up to Google Drive is selected. If it isn’t, do so.

Now you have a copy of your current phone’s configuration to restore from, which you can do from the initial configuration of your new device. If you were using the Google Now or Pixel Launcher, even your backgrounds, icons, and folder structure is saved.

During setup, hit the Let’s Go button that appears at the welcome screen. Tap Copy your data, and connect to Wi-Fi.

Now, you’ll be presented with your restoration options. Since we just went over how to save a backup in the cloud, let go with the option to use A backup from the cloud. You’ll be prompted to sign into your Google account, and to agree to Google’s Terms of Service.

From the list of backup options, select the correct one. You can easily hit Restore to recover all of your previous device’s settings and data, and can select which apps to reinstall via Apps.

As your data is pulled over, you will be guided through the rest of the setup process.

Voila! Your new phone is now equipped with your selected tools and settings, ready for you to jump right back in. For more handy tips, make sure you subscribe to our blog!

Mar, 2018

Are the Apps on Your Device Safe?

It’s difficult to judge whether or not an app can expose your business to risk without first downloading it. Despite their best efforts, Google Play and the iTunes store can’t possibly identify every single malicious application out there. Unfortunately, you’re charged with taking the security of your mobile devices into your own hands, but thanks to Google Play Protect, this responsibility is a bit more mild.

Google Play Protect is a new way to help users protect themselves from dangerous smartphone applications. It’s not necessarily an app on your device, but is instead a feature of the Google Play store itself. It’s found on Google Play Services v.11 or higher. Essentially, Google Play Protect scans your apps in the background and looks for anything sketchy going on behind your back. It can also manually scan your device for threats, as well as improve the detection of harmful apps that haven’t been installed through the Google Play store.

One of the major downfalls of Google Play Protect is that it can’t immediately scan an app that you install. Instead, you have to scan the app before you open it for the first time. We recommend that you always approach any new application with caution long before you download it from the Google Play store.

Even with Google Play Protect handling some of the dirty work behind the scenes to keep your devices safe, there are still measures that you can take to augment its approach. Here are just a few of them.

Only download apps from trustworthy sources: You might run into links that allow you to download an app to your device. By default, your device won’t let you download apps from external sources, and this is for a good reason. There is a greater chance that your organization could run into a malicious app while outside of the Google Play store. To be safe, only trust those that you find in the store itself.
Be wary of app permissions before downloading: Depending on the app you’re downloading, you might find that apps will require permissions to specific information on your device. An easy giveaway that an app isn’t the most secure is when it’s asking for too many permissions than you’re comfortable with. A great example is a flashlight app–why would it need access to your calls or text messages?
Consider Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): If each of your employees has a smartphone, a tablet, and a laptop, that’s three devices per user that are accessing important data. Therefore, it makes sense that in order to minimize risk, you implement some type of BYOD strategy that blacklists apps, remotely wipes compromised devices, and enhances mobile security.

Does your business need a way to ensure mobile security? NuTech Services can hook you up with a great mobile device strategy that can help your organization minimize risk. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Nov, 2017

Tip of the Week: Seven Extensions to Add to Chrome

Google Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world, and for good reason. The browser has many useful features, largely due to the user’s ability to install ‘extensions’–applications that add to the browser’s functionality or the user’s experience. Once an extension is added to the browser’s toolbar, it is ready for the user to use whenever they need.

Here are a few examples of Chrome extensions that offer a user a useful function.

Select and Speak (SpeakIt!)
By leveraging the human-quality text-to-speech abilities of iSpeech, Select and Speak (SpeakIt!) can read out any text that has been selected in the browser. The user can select a language from a considerable list and adjust the voice and speed of the program to make the best use of the reader for their needs. However, this extension is clearly annotated as being for personal use, so make sure to contact the developer to obtain a license to use it in any other fashion.

Download Select and Speak (SpeakIt!) here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/select-and-speak-text-to/gfjopfpjmkcfgjpogepmdjmcnihfpokn?hl=en

Readism
It isn’t uncommon for many jobs to require an employee to read articles online. It also isn’t uncommon for a user to suddenly realize that the article they’ve committed to reading is considerably longer than first estimated. Readism takes the guesswork out of the user’s hands by scanning a page for content and delivering an estimated reading time.

Download Readism here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/readism-article-reading-t/bmiolhceebkeljaikojgcoeefblcihje

Honey
How often do you do your shopping online? If you’re like many people, it’s fairly frequently. Honey gives you an added bonus as you shop online by providing you with coupon codes for the site you’re browsing. Honey currently supports retail sites in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and India, plus global websites–and more websites are always being added to their databases. For the avid online shopper, Honey helps keep money in your pocket and the balance on your credit card down.

Download Honey here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj?hl=en-US

Unshorten.Link
Shortened URLs can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they make it more convenient to browse the Internet, but they can also be used to hide URLs that could put you and your system at risk. This extension, as its name states, will un-shorten shortened URLs and check them for malware, giving you a clearer picture of exactly where the link will send you. This extension even removes known tracking cookies from the URL, keeping you that much safer.

Download Unshorten.Link here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unshortenlink/gbobdaaeaihkghbokihkofcbndhmbdpd

ColorZilla
ColorZilla is a comprehensive tool for analyzing the color of web content, giving you the code for the precise shade and hue you find. With a color picker, eyedropper and gradient generator included in the same tool, ColorZilla gives you a clearer view of what you’re looking at, without taking up too many of your resources.

Download ColorZilla here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/colorzilla/bhlhnicpbhignbdhedgjhgdocnmhomnp?hl=en

SessionBuddy
As a session and bookmark manager, SessionBuddy helps to avoid browser clutter and frees up your computer’s memory. By saving open tabs, this extension allows you to restore your tabs after a crash or unexpected shutdown.

Download SessionBuddy here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko?hl=en

MightyText – SMS from PC & Text from Computer
This extension effectively turns your Chrome browser into another means of sending SMS and MMS messages. Any messages and texts you send will still be transmitted using your phone, and therefore, its number. What makes this extension different is the fact that you can still use your smartphone to text as well.

Download MightyText – SMS from PC & Text from Computer here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mightytext-sms-from-pc-te/dkfhfaphfkopdgpbfkebjfcblcafcmpi?hl=en

Google Chrome is constantly improving with each new extension that is added to help its users. Which extensions do you feel are most valuable? Which ones should have made our list? Leave a comment to let us know!

Sep, 2016

Tip of the Week: Use Android Doze to Help Save Battery Power

How often have you grumbled as you’ve reached for a charger at 2 in the afternoon as your smartphone clings to its last moments of life? If you’re anything like the typical user, quite often, but Android has attempted to reduce that number with the Android Doze feature.

Doze accomplishes this by disabling an application feature known as a wakelock. These wakelocks keep the device from entering its energy-conserving deep sleep mode, as deep sleep can interfere with some applications and functions.

While wakelock was originally intended to allow fitness trackers and similar applications to continue functioning with the screen deactivated, app developers began to apply wakelock to all of their applications, whether they needed it or not. This is precisely the reason that many apps are notorious for being battery-killers–we’re looking at you, Facebook.

So, the useful functionality of wakelock was spoiled by these app developers, essentially eliminating the power-saving capabilities of deep sleep mode. However, the implementation of Doze looks to fix all of that. By disabling wakelocks and network access after the phone hasn’t been used in a while, Doze prevents applications from pointlessly draining energy while still allowing these apps to update during periodic “maintenance windows.”

Android has even enabled users to customize their Doze settings, so that a user can dictate which apps are affected by the feature. To access this customization:

Open Settings.
Navigate to Battery.
Select Battery optimization from the Menu button.
Select All apps from the top-of-screen drop-down menu.

Doze will automatically set almost all of your applications to optimize your battery by default. If there is an app, however, that you need to have connected, you can always switch the setting to Don’t optimize for that app in particular.

Doze even has third-party apps designed to customize its functionality even further. With apps like Doze Settings Editor, a user is able to set Doze to turn off when a phone moves a certain distance–but only if the phone is running Android Marshmallow.

With all of this additional battery life available, do you think you’ll ever have to worry about missing an important call or notification? Let us know in the comments.