How To: Fight Scamming Techniques Hiding In Your New Device

Graduations, Father’s Day, or the need for an upgrade: all reasons why you might find yourself unboxing a new computer soon. But are you ready to be an informed user and escape the traps of marketing as you set up your new computer? “Marketing is a creative function, not technical,” says George Mansour, author of the international best-selling book "Unhackable: Your Online Security Playbook: Recreating Cyber Security in an Unsecure World.”

What does Mansour mean by marketing traps? Look at these three pictures:

See how faint the “Skip” option is to register for McAfee? “They know people are in a rush,” explains Mansour. “Setting up devices correctly is a crucial piece of being unhackable. You should click on the 'skip' instead of where they are trying to grab your attention to click that button. 'Register' is easy to see with bright colors. 'Skip' practically camouflaged.” Mansour recommends Comodo (which also has protection for iOS and Android devices), SUPERAntiSpyware, or MalawareBytes as more effective alternatives to the antivirus software which comes installed on your machine. Often companies pay the manufacturer for their product to be pre-installed.

The two above pictures demonstrate “How companies take advantage of people’s ignorance. They switched the ‘Yes’ and ‘No' buttons around, because most users click the right button by default design to select ‘No’ as an unconscious habit without yielding thinking they are selecting ‘No’ but instead allowing the activity history to be stored. These acts as well as people rushing, impede the user from setting their new device up correctly,” says Mansour.

“The consumer is intimidated into accepting all of that spying and advertising. The consumer has no knowledge and feels lost, which the data companies and [big name tech companies] count on. The data companies trick the users into believing that they must allow all access to everything because it is necessary for the computer to run correctly and also the user will miss out on something! So the user just allows them to install spyware and track trends to try to sell something,” he continues.

Mansour emphasizes that if you do not pay for a product, you/your data is the product. In lieu of using cloud-based storage such as iCloud or DropBox, he recommends using encrypted thumb drives such as SanDisk’s iExpand for smartphone backup and Kingston’s IronKey or iStorage datAshur general business or school backup.

Check out George Mansour's website, Linkedin, Amazon author page, or Medium for more of his information on cyber security. Also, see previous articles “Unhackable: How To Control Email & Password Technology,” “Four Internet Safety Tools For You To Stay Safe On The Web,” and “George Mansour Wants to Help You Become ‘Unhackable.’”

It’s very important to ask yourself: "what data content do I want to be hackable and what should be classified as unhackable?" It all begins by setting up your standards above all else. "That’s how you can start your journey towards designing a unhackable lifestyle, where your technology and user techniques become a true partnership, a mindfulness intervention for today’s uncertain times," concludes Mansour.