There is a sickly feeling that comes over you when you go to open an

important file and the computer says “File Not Found”. “It was just there yesterday!” You yell frantically at the machine but that cold metal box has no empathy for your loss. “Ah ha!” you think, as you reach for your flash drive that has a copy of that precious file. Let’s go through the steps to have this copy and never experience that sickly sinking feeling again.

The only safe way to keep copies of your data is to make multiple copies across multiple devices. You want to have your most important files in at least two different spots, maybe one on your computer and another on a flash drive or even another computer. If you make multiple copies and just keep them on the same device then you aren’t really covered if there is a hardware failure.

For this example, let’s say we need to back up our Word document file called “Ancestry.docx”. There is a myriad of ways to go about this but here are two of the simplest ways.  The first step is just making regular manual copies of the file to another device. Now for a second device to store the document you can use a flash drive, external hard drive, or even another computer. In my humble opinion, the easiest way to back up a document would to just be to email it to myself after every time I update it. This keeps it on the server that hosts my email and therefore I can get it on any computer, at any time and access that email. Our second manual option for one of the external media devices is to plug that device in to your computer. Once there you should get a pop-up message asking if you want to view the files on that media device.  Select yes. You can then see everything on that device and you can right-click on “Ancestry.docx” in your Documents folder and select “Copy”. Now go back to that external media device and right-click anywhere inside of that folder and select “paste”. Voila! Backup completed and Ancestry.docx is saved again!  Confused about right-click, flash drives or copy-paste?  Keep reading…

We have a second option to back up our important file, but this time we can set it to go automatically! We can use a backup program to automatically backup our files to external media whenever we want to schedule it! This process is a little more complicated and if it is something of interest and importance, then give us a call at Eagle Technology Solutions. Any of our qualified technicians can help you out!
Call or email at 785.628.1330 techs@eaglerescue.net

Over the past week a malicious virus was discovered on point-of-sale

machines at more than 160 Applebee’s locations. This virus has exposed credit card information from unknowing diners. In Kansas, three of the restaurants have been identified to have been infected, Topeka, Emporia, and Manhattan.

The dates on which the stores were hit vary, but the majority were found to have occurred in November 2017, and several throughout December and January. All things considered RMH, who owns the restaurants, responded quickly and contained the malware by early February. RMH was able to enlist the help of several cyber security forensic firms and reported the issue right away.

POS malware is becoming more and more prevalent for all retailers and medical industry businesses. Already in January, Forever 21 revealed that their POS machines had been infected for almost eight months in its stores before being discovered.

RMH and the other companies strongly urge customers to monitor their bank accounts at this point. RMH acknowledges that the ultimate safeguard against this kind of malware must come from the retailers themselves.

All-in-all you really need to monitor your credit cards and bank accounts regularly if you use debit/credit cards on a regular basis. RMH responded promptly and extremely well to this issue but you never know what business is currently infected and businesses often don’t have any clue. Be wary and be cautious as malicious entities can be everywhere.  If you have any questions or concerns on possible malware or scams give us at ETS a call at 785.628.1330 and we will help you out!