Even Further Traumas of a (Former) IT Professional

I have a more (mis)adventures that I wanted to share on here, so here goes!

IT Tale of the Day
Until my return to the seminary, I worked for a cloud hosting company for close to 3 years. Most people assume that if you possess even a modicum of skill with a computer, then you are automatically some sort of wizard who can do all things related to computers.

Suffice to say that we were all many facets of a finely tooled gem, with each side being pretty on its own, but functioning wonderfully together to make something gorgeous. So when I was assigned to be the Internal IT guy, it was not a strange or bizarre thing to have at a tech firm. After all, there were non-techie people to consider as well - a marketing team, administrative assistants/office coordinators, accounting, and HR.

One other thing to realize about the office is that the hardware was all Apple - MacBook Pros, Thunderbolt displays, Mac Minis. So it was rather unusual when one of the employee's MacBooks would come down with some malware.

And so it happened that one day, a MacBook Pro was brought to my desk. The section of the office that my department was in also contained the rest of departments in the division, so it was great that the head of Network Security Team and a member of the Systems Operation Team were in the room. I called them over to take a look at what came up on the browser window:

Like most ransomware, it was impossible to go anywhere else via the web browser, so we kept seeing the same screen, complete with a convenient phone number to call so that you can pay the ransom to have your computer unlocked. So the three of us - head of security, the system operator, and myself - decided to have a little fun and call the ransomware number. We put him on speaker phone, and the system operator took the point. Due to the speaker, I could not place the accent of the man on the other end of the line, but it was easy enough to understand him. The system operator kept him going, stepping into the role of hapless and helpless computer owner. The guy on the other end of the line proceeded to provide a series of instructions that seemed innocuous, and would really have worked to duped the average user.

But we were all superusers, and there was no way that we were going to be taken for a ride.

Especially when the guy on the other end of the line made one fatal mistake - he assured us that it would remove the virus and unlock our Windows PC.

Our Windows PC.

Windows PC.

System operator manages to contain his laughter as he asks, "Windows PC? OK, that's great to know. Just, um, one quick question - can you tell me how to do all this, because I have a Mac, and I don't think it runs Windows."

*CLICK *