A Future Without Passwords

“Hackers don’t break in – they sign in.” In 2022, Microsoft tracked 1,287 password attacks every second. That’s more than 111 million per day according to Joy Chik, President of Identity & Network Access at Microsoft.

The ongoing story of online security has been a tradeoff. The more secure your accounts are, the more inconvenient it is to sign in and use them. Strengthening your accounts adds layers of protection, but verifying your identity often involves intricate steps. Industry tech groups have been working to ditch passwords for many years.

What are passkeys? 

Passkeys provide more security and save time. Passkeys allow you to authenticate without having to enter a username or password or provide any additional authentication factor according to Sampath Srinivas, PM Director, Secure Authentication, Google and President, FIDO Alliance. (For a good night’s sleep, we encourage you to read more about the decade of research from the FIDO Alliance and contributing standards and technology members Apple, Microsoft, and Google. https://fidoalliance.org/)

How do passkeys work?  

Currently, we understand passwords and two-step verification, yet passkeys sign you into a website or app on your phone when you simply unlock your phone — your account won’t need a password anymore.

To sign into a website on your computer, you’ll just need your phone nearby and you’ll simply be prompted to unlock it for access. Once you’ve done this, you won’t need your phone again and you can sign in by just unlocking your computer. Even if you lose your phone, your passkeys will securely sync to your new phone from cloud backup, allowing you to pick up right where your old device left off.

Time will tell if this is the beginning of the end of passwords as Apple, Google and Microsoft roll out support for the same passkey standards across all their major platforms.

Give us a call to discuss increasing your security posture and saving your valuable time with password authentication starting with prioritizing your revenue generation applications.

What is SharePoint?

Microsoft SharePoint offers several benefits for businesses, such as advanced collaboration features, document management capabilities, and robust security controls, making it an ideal choice for organizations to effectively manage and share information with colleagues and clients.

SharePoint offers several benefits when it comes to safely and securely sharing sensitive data. It provides robust security features allowing organizations to control access to confidential information. SharePoint allows administrators to set permissions and access levels, ensuring that only authorized individuals can view or modify sensitive data. It also offers encryption capabilities, both at rest and in transit, providing an additional layer of protection for sensitive information.

Furthermore, SharePoint enables users to share documents with the right people while preventing oversharing. It allows for granular permission settings, allowing administrators to define specific access levels for different users or groups. This ensures that individuals only have access to the documents and data that are relevant to their roles and responsibilities. SharePoint also offers features such as version control and audit trails, allowing organizations to track changes made to documents and identify the contributors, enhancing accountability and preventing unauthorized modifications.

Here are some recommended tips for using Microsoft SharePoint effectively. First, it is crucial to properly plan and structure your SharePoint sites and document libraries. This includes organizing documents into logical folders and using metadata to facilitate easy searching and filtering. Second, it is essential to educate users about best practices for sharing and collaboration to avoid unintentional data breaches. Regularly reviewing and updating permissions and access levels is also important to ensure that data remains secure. Finally, implementing regular backups and disaster recovery measures will help safeguard data in case of any unforeseen events or system failures.

On the other hand, OneDrive is purpose-built for individual users, providing personal storage and file access across devices, making it convenient for personal file storage, syncing, and sharing, without the security, collaboration and management features found in SharePoint.

If you’d like to learn more about SharePoint and how it can benefit your organization, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]!

Cloud Computing Platforms

Cloud computing is a way to access computing resources, like servers, storage, databases, networking, and software, over the internet instead of buying or building them on-site. Companies of all sizes are using cloud computing to lower costs, increase agility, and innovate faster. As a managed service provider (MSP), we understand the importance of cloud computing and we are here to help you choose the right cloud computing platform for your business.

We can help you:

• Assess your current IT environment and identify your needs for cloud computing.
• Choose the right cloud computing platform for your business needs.
• Migrate your workloads to the cloud smoothly and efficiently.
• Manage your cloud computing environment, including provisioning resources, monitoring performance, and securing your data.

 

Benefits of Cloud Computing

There are many benefits to using cloud computing, including:

• Scalability: Cloud computing is scalable, so you can easily add or remove resources as needed. This can help you save money on IT costs and avoid overspending.
• Cost-effectiveness: Cloud computing can be cost-effective, especially for businesses that need to access a lot of computing resources. This is because cloud computing providers offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which means you only pay for the resources you use.
• Agility: Cloud computing can help businesses become more agile by providing them with the ability to quickly and easily scale their IT infrastructure up or down as needed. This can help businesses respond quickly to changes in demand or market conditions.
• Security: Cloud computing providers offer a high level of security, which can help businesses protect their data and applications. This is because cloud computing providers have a lot of experience in security and they invest heavily in security measures.
• Innovation: Cloud computing can help businesses innovate faster by providing them with access to a wide range of cloud-based services and tools. This can help businesses develop new products and services more quickly and efficiently.

 

Choosing the Right Cloud Computing Platform

There are many different cloud computing platforms available, so it is important to choose the right one for your business. The right cloud computing platform for your business will depend on your specific needs and requirements.

Here are some factors to consider when choosing a cloud computing platform:

• Your budget: Cloud computing platforms can vary in price, so it is important to choose a platform that fits your budget.
• Your needs: Cloud computing platforms offer a wide range of features and services, so it is important to choose a platform that meets your specific needs.
• Your security requirements: Cloud computing platforms offer a different level of security, so it is important to choose a platform that meets your security requirements.
• Your data: Cloud computing platforms rarely automatically back up data, so ensure that the provider has a backup solution that can be put in place, or investigate a third-party backup provider.

 

Popular Cloud Computing Platforms

There are many popular cloud computing platforms available, including:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS is the most popular cloud computing platform. It offers a wide range of features and services, and it is a good choice for businesses of all sizes.
• Microsoft Azure: Azure is another popular cloud computing platform. It offers a wide range of features and services, and it is a good choice for businesses that use Microsoft products.
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP): GCP is a cloud computing platform from Google. It offers a wide range of features and services, and it is a good choice for businesses that use Google products.

In conclusion, cloud computing is a powerful tool that can help businesses improve their scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and security. Businesses that adopt cloud computing can gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. As you might imagine, a migration to a cloud hosted platform from an on-premises environment is an involved process with a number of pitfalls. Selecting a technical partner for the migration is almost as important as the selection of the cloud service itself.

If you are considering adopting cloud computing, we encourage you to contact us at [email protected]. We can help you choose the right cloud computing platform for your business and migrate your workloads to the cloud smoothly and efficiently.

The Importance of AI for Business

Building on the success of our April issue, which featured Co-Pilot and Microsoft AI, this month’s newsletter concerns Google’s insights and updates. Get ready for another round of cutting-edge technology and industry trends that will keep you informed and inspired. Stay tuned for the May KTS Newsletter and continue to stay ahead of the curve!

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the world, and businesses are no exception. AI is being used to automate tasks, improve decision-making, and create new products and services. As a result, businesses that embrace AI are poised to gain a competitive advantage.

Here are just a few of the ways that AI is being used by businesses today:

• Automating tasks: AI can be used to automate a wide range of tasks, from customer service to data entry. This frees up employees to focus on more strategic and creative work.
• Improving decision-making: AI can be used to analyze large amounts of data to identify patterns and trends. This information can then be used to make better decisions about everything from product development to marketing campaigns.
• Creating new products and services: AI is being used to create new products and services that were previously impossible. For example, AI-powered chatbots can now provide customer service 24/7, and AI-powered medical devices can now diagnose diseases more accurately than human doctors.

The benefits of AI for businesses are clear. However, there are also some challenges that businesses need to be aware of. One challenge is that AI can be expensive to implement. Another challenge is that AI can be complex to use. Finally, businesses need to be aware of the ethical implications of using AI.

Despite the challenges, the benefits of AI for businesses far outweigh the risks. Businesses that embrace AI are poised to gain a competitive advantage in the years to come.

If you are a business owner, I encourage you to learn more about AI and how it can be used to improve your business. There are many resources available online and in libraries. You can also find AI experts who can help you implement AI in your business.

The future of business is AI. Are you ready to embrace it?

The article above was produced by Google Bard, Google’s answer to ChatGPT, an AI produced by a company called OpenAI. Bard was able to produce that content in under 3 seconds based on the following prompt: “Can you write a short, 250 word newsletter article aimed at business owners about the importance of AI?”

In short, AI is here to stay. One of the ways that KTS is utilizing AI is to keep our clients safe through next-generation Antivirus Products. Next-Gen Antivirus products use AI to detect behavior that looks malicious and stop it at its source.

Make a determination on how best to leverage AI to improve your business’ efficiency, productivity, and security posture and execute on it, before a competitor does exactly that and gains an insurmountable lead.

Kazmarek Technology Solutions is proud to support the exciting growth of the San Diego Life Science  community.

Here are 6 ways that Kazmarek can support your San Diego biotech:

Cost Savings

We are professionals who can manage and support the most complex IT and technology environments. Not all life science organizations have the resources to attract or retain skilled professionals, which can lead to a high turnover and increased costs in hiring or training new employees.

Enhanced Security

The volume of cyberattacks continues to rise. Life Science organizations possess sensitive data such as patient information, pipeline research data, and protection of proprietary intellectual property, which are high value targets for cyber criminals.

At Kazmarek Technology Solutions, we can ensure the security of your data and organization through security protocols, defense solutions, security awareness training, and best practices.

Ability to Scale 

Expanding your technology and IT systems in-house can be a daunting and time-consuming task. Any downtime or system failure can be extremely costly not only in terms of lost productivity but also in terms of lost data. At Kazmarek, we have vast experience scaling organizations, and we can provide  support to assist you on this journey.

Improved Efficiency

Our experts at Kazmarek are constantly staying up to date and certified on the latest in cybersecurity, mobile, cloud, email and infrastructure solutions. This makes for improved efficiency when disseminating those technologies throughout your organization.

Focus on Core Business

We have the expertise and passion to support your IT needs, allowing you to focus on your core business. We will eliminate; the amount of time, resources, and attention you spend managing your IT and technology platforms, enabling you to concentrate your energy and money on research and development.

Compliance

At KTS, we are aware of the costly penalties and legal issues if life science organizations don’t comply with the regulations of HIPAA, GDPR, and the FDA. Thus, we try our best to be a diligent partner in meeting these regulations.

Kazmarek Technology Solutions has been serving San Diego for the last 20 years. Kazmarek covers your IT needs so you can focus on growing your science.

For more information on this topic or any other IT related inquiry, please reach out to our team at [email protected] or learn more at www.kazmarek.com.

Coming Soon – Microsoft 365 Copilot

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been all over the news lately with the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022. ChatGPT is an artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by an AI research company called OpenAI. It is based on the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) language model. It uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to text inputs in a conversational manner. Microsoft recently threw their hat into the AI ring with the announcement of Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft 365 Copilot combines the power of OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to “to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet.” We wanted to share a few highlights from Microsoft’s press release on Copilot, a feature that will undoubtedly change the way we work and improve productivity in the workplace.

“Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365 in two ways. It works alongside you, embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more — to unleash creativity, unlock productivity and uplevel skills. Today we’re also announcing an entirely new experience: Business Chat. Business Chat works across the LLM, the Microsoft 365 apps, and your data — your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings and contacts — to do things you’ve never been able to do before. You can give it natural language prompts like “Tell my team how we updated the product strategy,” and it will generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads.

Microsoft 365 Copilot transforms work in three ways:

Unleash creativity. With Copilot in Word, you can jump-start the creative process so you never start with a blank slate again. Copilot gives you a first draft to edit and iterate on — saving hours in writing, sourcing, and editing time. Sometimes Copilot will be right, other times usefully wrong — but it will always put you further ahead. You’re always in control as the author, driving your unique ideas forward, prompting Copilot to shorten, rewrite or give feedback. Copilot in PowerPoint helps you create beautiful presentations with a simple prompt, adding relevant content from a document you made last week or last year. And with Copilot in Excel, you can analyze trends and create professional-looking data visualizations in seconds.

Unlock productivity. We all want to focus on the 20% of our work that really matters, but 80% of our time is consumed with busywork that bogs us down. Copilot lightens the load. From summarizing long email threads to quickly drafting suggested replies, Copilot in Outlook helps you clear your inbox in minutes, not hours. And every meeting is a productive meeting with Copilot in Teams. It can summarize key discussion points — including who said what and where people are aligned and where they disagree — and suggest action items, all in real time during a meeting. And with Copilot in Power Platform, anyone can automate repetitive tasks, create chatbots and go from idea to working app in minutes.

But Copilot doesn’t just supercharge individual productivity. It creates a new knowledge model for every organization — harnessing the massive reservoir of data and insights that lies largely inaccessible and untapped today. Business Chat works across all your business data and apps to surface the information and insights you need from a sea of data — so knowledge flows freely across the organization, saving you valuable time searching for answers. You will be able to access Business Chat from Microsoft 365.com, from Bing when you’re signed in with your work account, or from Teams.

Uplevel skills. Copilot makes you better at what you’re good at and lets you quickly master what you’ve yet to learn. The average person uses only a handful of commands — such as “animate a slide” or “insert a table” — from the thousands available across Microsoft 365. Now, all that rich functionality is unlocked using just natural language. And this is only the beginning.

Copilot will fundamentally change how people work with AI and how AI works with people. As with any new pattern of work, there’s a learning curve — but those who embrace this new way of working will quickly gain an edge.”

There is no firm release date set for when Microsoft 365 Copilot will be available, but Microsoft is currently testing the feature with 20 customers, including 8 in Fortune 500 enterprises. It is estimated that the feature will be more broadly available in the coming months. The full announcement from Microsoft can be found here. We will be sure to share more details about this exciting new feature as more details become available! As always, feel free to reach out to our engineering team at [email protected] for more information on this topic.

Source: Microsoft

Cyber Insurance 101

It is no secret that the number of cyber attacks and data breaches have increased significantly over the last decade. Data from Chubb, a well known cyber insurance carrier, suggests that cyber incidents have increased over 435% in the last 10 years. Many businesses utilize cyber insurance policies as one way to manage their risk. Strong cyber security measures along with a robust cyber insurance policy can help a business to reduce financial risks associated with cyber-attacks.

Before diving into specific details surrounding a cyber policy, it is important to understand the exposures that a business faces with regards to cyber risk. These risks can organized into three different categories:

1. Third Party Liability Costs: Businesses have a legal and financial responsibility to keep certain types of data secure. This could include personally identifiable information of employees, customers or vendors and can even included confidential business information from the same sources. If a data breach exposes that information, the business could be found liable and will be faced with damages owed.
2. First Party Costs: From the moment a suspected breach occurs, a business will start incurring costs. Costs associated with a breach can include the cost to bring in a forensic team to determine if a breach even did occur and whether data was compromised, costs to notify affected individuals, costs to monitor credit of those individuals, etc. One often overlooked potential cost is the affect a breach will have on your business if it cannot operate normally. Many attacks result in critical operating systems, networks and data being deemed unusable. There are costs associated with rebuilding that data/network as well as potential lost revenue while you are unable to operate at normal level, or at all.
3. Cyber Crime Costs: The number of cyber crime attacks have greatly increased over the last few years. Ransomware, funds transfer fraud, and social engineering losses are just a few examples. These attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated and target all different levels within the organization.

Cyber insurance policies can protect businesses from all three of these risk categories, but it is extremely important to have an understanding of the policy form you choose to buy. Coverage can vary greatly between carriers and forms. Limited coverage can be found as an endorsement to a property/liability policy (not recommended) while stand alone polices offer anywhere between five to 15 insuring agreements. Along with providing coverages to address the issues above, many also come with additional offerings such as public relations costs, breach coaches, and preventative risk management strategies.

The cost of these policies will vary based on industry, revenue, and cyber security controls in place. The focus on controls has become increasingly important in the last three years. A business used to be able to get a policy offering broad coverages without having to provide much information on controls in place. That is no longer the case and businesses are now faced with lengthy, detailed applications to describe their current cyber security posture. Most cyber insurance carriers are going to want to see numerous controls including Multi Factor Authentication (MFA), End Point Detection (EDR), and that offsite immutable back ups are in place before offering significant coverage. For those also wanting cyber crime coverage, employee training is a must.

The current threat landscape makes a well thought-out and properly executed Cyber Security program, including Cyber Insurance, absolutely imperative. This helps ensure that your business and its assets are protected from the panoply of bad actors online. We also recommend contacting your IT provider prior to selecting your Cyber Insurance policy – our network of partners and trusted advisors can help to ensure the provider you select is the best fit for your business and that claims are paid in a timely fashion should you need to make use of the policy. For more information on this topic or any other IT related inquiry, please reach out to our team at [email protected].

Article written by Natalie Sherod, Risk Advisor at Cavignac

Issue No. 126February 2023

The Danger of Uncontrolled BYOD

Many of our readers are familiar with the ongoing debate in Washington regarding whether the US Government should ban the popular social media app TikTok. Today we wanted to discuss a brief overview of that controversy, and why it is indicative of larger issues that any business owner should pay keen attention.

TikTok was originally released in 2016, and has steadily grown in popularity since. On its face, the app is similar in many ways to other social media apps of the recent past – it allows users to post short, time limited videos to be viewed by other users of the application. The main difference between TikTok and other popular social media apps is that it was made by ByteDance, a company based in China. Without getting into the larger geopolitical reasons behind their concern, the federal government, specifically the US Congress, has recently begun holding hearings to try to determine whether the app should be banned nationwide. The administration has already banned the app on government owned devices in use by federal government employees via executive order. The main cause for concern is that the app could be used by the Chinese government to both extract personal data on American users and potentially influence them via algorithmic video selection. Effectively, the US Congress is concerned that TikTok may be used to gather data on American citizens that could in turn be used to influence them in untold ways: spreading propaganda, influencing elections, steering them towards particular products, etc.

While passing judgement on the veracity of these claims is outside the scope of this discussion, they are illustrative of something that all business owners should be concerned about: the prevalence of end-user-owned devices inside a corporate network. Although TikTok is perhaps the highest profile example, the profusion of devices owned by employees that interact with the corporate network has grown exponentially in recent years. Cell phones, tablets, and smart watches all interact with the corporate network on a daily basis. Each of these devices represents a potential intrusion point. Malware on a mobile device can be used to extract data from that device, or from the network it is connected to. Mobile devices can also be utilized as infection vectors—installed malware may lie dormant on the device itself, only ‘activating’ once connected to a corporate network where it in turn wreaks havoc.

What then should a business do to guard against intrusions of this type? There are multiple means available – the simplest and most draconian is simply disallowing mobile device connections to a corporate network. Allowing these devices onto the network is sometimes referred to as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Many companies restrict their BYOD policy for this reason. Other methods include network segmentation, the usage of Mobile Device Management solutions, and conditional access policies that restrict the type of data available to employee devices. These restrictions and policies all require experienced IT professionals to implement and maintain. For more information on these or other IT related matters, please contact your IT services provider.

Article written by KTS Operations Manager, Tristan Collopy

Issue No. 125January 2023

2023 New Year’s Resolutions – IT Style!

 

As 2022 finally transitions to the rear-view mirror and we begin 2023, many of you may have committed to New Year’s resolutions in hope of self-improvement or breaking bad habits. While you work towards improving your mental and physical health, its also worth turning your attention towards your digital well-being. With that in mind, below we’ve identified some key areas that might be worth of 2023 cleanup, IT style. We hope you’ll find these tips helpful and easy to work into your routine!

1. Start with Unsubscribe – throughout the year we find ourselves on any number of marketing emails. The New Year is a great opportunity for cleaning out your Inbox! Most marketing messages include a link to unsubscribe. In fact, this is how I typically clean up my subscriptions, by searching for the word unsubscribe in my inbox. If all the messages you find come back as unread, that might be a good indicator that you can safely hit that ‘unsubscribe’ button. Of course, you’d never do that to us though, right?
2. Screentime Schmeantime – this might be an area that doesn’t strictly fall under the IT umbrella, but paying attention to the amount of screentime you engage in on a daily basis is a great first step towards improving your online well-being. Many of you may have heard the phrase ‘doom-scrolling’ that was seemingly coined during the pandemic—social media algorithms are specifically designed to capture your attention in order to serve you ads. Content that is shocking, angering, or divisive in some way has proven to be well-suited for this task, but can have a deleterious effect on your mental and physical well-being. Be intentional about how much time you spend scrolling through a news or social media feed. If you feel its excessive, think about cutting back, or cordoning that time off to only a specific timeslot in the day.
3. Computers Need Housekeeping Too – silly though it may sound, your computer can definitely benefit from the occasional house cleaning, physically and digitally. Physically cleaning your computer is fairly straightforward, and usually just focuses on removing dust from around fans and heatsinks to help ensure your computer cools itself effectively. On the digital side, empty your recycle bin, run a cleanup operation on the hard disk, and make sure your computer is current on updates. If all these options have been exhausted and performance is still lacking, consider using a third party tool like CCleaner. Although it has paid features, those that are freely accessible go a long way towards improving your computer’s performance. A word of caution – Ccleaner is neither fool-proof nor ‘one-size-fits-all.’ Make sure you understand the implications of any cleanup operation a third party tool wants to perform, and make sure you have a good backup prior to performing them. Speaking of backups…
4. SET UP A BACKUP – look, I’m sorry for shouting, but this is one of those critically important things that so often gets overlooked. All of us have critical data on our computers, whether those are photos of your nephew’s neighbor’s new puppy, or a solid rough draft of the next Great American Novel™, its crucial that these files are backed up to a different location than just your computer. There are many services you can use to back your computer up to cloud-based infrastructure. The benefit of these are that maintenance of physical media isn’t your concern, so you don’t have to worry about a hard drive failure or losing backup media. On the other hand, having a physical copy of your data stored locally (in your house, office, etc.) ensure that the data isn’t transmitted somewhere you’d rather it not be sent, and that any restoration of the data will only be limited by local transfer speeds, rather than dependent on an internet connection as with a cloud-hosted service.
5. Setup Multi-Factor Authentication Wherever Possible – The unfortunate reality of the modern digital age is that threat actors are everywhere, and are constantly going to attempt to separate you from your money through nefarious means. This also means that it is incumbent upon you to secure your data against bad actors. One of the best and most straightforward ways to do this is by enabling multi-factor (sometimes referred to as two-factor) authentication wherever you can. This means that in order to access the account, you have to provide something that you know (your password) and something that you have with you (your multi-factor authentication code/acceptance). Most online services have this available as an optional (if not mandatory) option to secure your login. If they don’t, let them know its 2023 and its well-past time to get it implemented.

Start 2023 out strong by implementing some of the digital well-being steps we’ve outlined above. Each of these steps will continue to pay dividends throughout the year. Many of us wish we could say the same about that gym membership we bought on January 1st. For more information on this or any other IT related topic, please reach out to your IT services provider. We wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!

Article written by KTS Operations Manager, Tristan Collopy

Issue No. 124December 2022

Holiday Scams – Tis the Season to be Wary

The Holiday season brings with it many traditions—families gather together to cook and enjoy each other’s company, meals are made, gifts exchanged; and attempts by scammers to separate you from your hard-earned money go through the roof. Below, we’ll outline some yuletide tips and tricks to keep you and yours safe online throughout the holiday season.

Social Engineering scams are some of the simplest to perpetuate, and consequently increase greatly in volume this time of year. This can take the form of a call placed to your relative, telling them that they have to pay a sum of money to repair issues the scammer has ‘identified’ with their computer. The scammer will often impersonate some authority figure—the government, Microsoft, etc., in order to lend additional credence to their claims. There will also be an appeal to a sense of urgency, the idea being to get the target to act quickly, rather than think of what is being asked. If you believe that a member of your family might be vulnerable to a scam of this type, its good to develop some ground rules. One simple method to mitigate scams of this nature is to have a standing order for a phone call to be made to someone trustworthy in the family to check the veracity of the caller’s claims before any money changes hands.

Additional scams intended to take advantage of the holiday season also skyrocket this time of year. These might include scams on Facebook Marketplace (usually where the scammer is posing as a seller of something that does not exist, or as a buyer that wants to provide payment in a seemingly convoluted manner). Since most folks are out looking to buy, rather than sell, this time of year, most scammers are going to be focused on the former. Most of the flags one should look out for here are the same ‘smell test’ type items that one should look out for any time you’re purchasing something from a private seller. Is the cost too good to be true? Is the seller asking you to jump through seemingly unreasonable hoops, like sending money ahead of time? Is the seller the only person with some extremely hard-to-find item available? All these can be red flags for a scam.

Similar to scams perpetuated on Facebook Marketplace, Zelle scams or Paypal scams also increase dramatically this time of year. Many times, these take the form of money suddenly being send, the receiver being told this was in error and asked to re-transmit the money to the sender. The problem here, is that the money never existed in the first place, and one banks finish sorting the transaction out, the only person that is out any capital is the good Samaritan who sent the cash back. If you or a friend or relative are on the receiving end of a scam of this type, the best thing to do is contact support for the service itself (Zelle or Paypal) and ask them how to proceed. If the charge was truly in error, its best to let them reverse it, rather than potentially be a victim of a scam.

Last, and certainly not least, we would be remiss if we did not include the KTS Holiday Gift Guide! All the gifts we’ve outlined below can be had for under $50, and are sure to bring a smile to even the grinchiest among us. In no particular order, we present, the KTS 2022 Holiday Gift Guide!

1. A highly flexible and affordable Smart Plug: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/tp-link-kasa-smart-wi-fi-plug-slim-ep25p4
2. The most unobtrusive way to talk to Google: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/google-nest-mini
3. The best affordable streaming device: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/chromecast-with-google-tv-hd
4. The best AirTag alternative: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/tile-pro
5. Affordable Pet Tracking: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/tractive-gps-dog-lte-tracker

There you have it folks! As we bring 2022 to a close, we wanted to take a moment to thank our team, our clients, and our wonderful San Diego community for another wonderful year. Here’s wishing you peace, joy, and prosperity in the New Year!