The Michigan IT Experts

How is this possible? Well, all one has to do is look at an ad that was up on the White Shark Channel of the Telegram messaging service:

“Selling a Chinese man in Sihanoukville just smuggled from China. 22 years old with an ID card, typing very slow.”

That ad, listing the sale of a human being, offered a price of about $10,000.

Many of the People Actively Operating These Scams Have Been Defrauded and Enslaved

Imagine that you were offered an employment opportunity that had a good enough offer that you agreed to travel to their location, only to be held there against your will and forced to work, under threat of physical beatings, torture, and starvation.

This is the reality for tens of thousands of people from China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Promising employment opportunities, victims are lured in and forced to work defrauding people online, all around the world. These victims are held captive, forced to engage in fraud until their negligible wages allow them to pay the fee to leave.

The thing is, these victims are regularly moved or sold to other organizations, with the price of freedom rising by a few thousand dollars each time.

These people are then forced to engage in “pig butchering” scams, where the scammer metaphorically fattens up their target before going in for the kill. Essentially, the scammer—pretending to form a friendship or even a romantic relationship—draws as much money from their target into an investment platform, but once the target is out of cash, the scammer cuts them off and makes off with the funds. Naturally, this kind of fraud isn’t reported very often, largely because of the shame associated with being bamboozled and betrayed in such a fashion.

These operations have this process down, to the point where documentation is provided to their enslaved workforce. They are encouraged to create social media accounts for their fraudulent personas, with photos available from specialized websites for this specific use. These profiles are then populated with photos and interests that communicate affluence, like those of luxury cars or posts about investing. They are even encouraged in one example of the scammer’s documentation to focus on family values, as this sort of belief helps encourage trust from others.

Once these profiles are created, these trafficking victims are then expected to reach out to their prospective victims. One forced scammer reported working on a team of eight such scammers, organized under a leader, and provided with 10 phones each to use as they reached out to a list of names in an attempt to draw them into these scams. From there, the scammers take note of any promising information that those who respond reveal, to see if there are any “pain points” to take advantage of. This “customer mapping” gives the attackers the opportunity to gauge how promising of a mark an individual may be.

Meanwhile, all of this is done behind bars, with barbed wire fences. Calling the police isn’t really an option for victims, either, as they will be harshly punished for doing so and likely sold to another operation…ultimately increasing the price for their freedom further. In addition, they are also coerced into making statements that absolve the company of any misdeeds.

Is What Forced Scammers Do Bad? Absolutely…But For Many, It Isn’t Their Choice

Don’t get us wrong: we are in no way apologizing for what hackers and scammers do. We just want to point out that, in many cases, the person actually taking advantage of you is just as much a victim as you are (and arguably, more so).

It’s also worth understanding that criminals treat cybersecurity like a business, albeit they are doing a wide range of horrifying and abhorrent things to accomplish their goals, it’s organized and optimized like a business that’s designed to cause harm.

Regardless, it is important that you and your team are able to identify and mitigate as many of any scammers’ attempts as possible. We’re here to help you do that, amongst our other services. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to find out more about how we can help protect you.

Why Modern IT is So Valuable

Regardless of a business’ size, the right technology can drive its performance ahead by leaps and bounds, particularly in terms of productivity and efficiency. However, with so many options available today, determining which of them will actually provide value to your business isn’t always all that simple. This is particularly the case when you consider that the same technology won’t work the same way for every business.

NuTech Services and our team of professional consultants work closely with businesses in Michigan so they have the IT that will help propel their operations forward most effectively. This goes beyond the concept of just getting computers set up. It also entails the process of incorporating the IT that will improve the business’ capabilities through enhanced productivity, process automation, and collaboration.

Provided that a business’ IT is correctly implemented and supported as it needs to be, the value it can provide is practically unlimited. This is what makes it so important to have access to technicians with an appreciation for the fundamentals of technology maintenance and its impact on a business’ operations.

A Technician’s Experience Matters

The more experience that an IT technician has, the better they are able to shape a business’ technology to provide it with the maximum amount of value and utility. Likewise, someone without this experience will likely find it more difficult to identify what is needed to accomplish these goals—particularly in terms of technology investment and procurement. Without having concrete goals outlined and the knowledge of how to go about accomplishing them, a business can find itself stagnating.

Not only this, but since these investments need to be made thoughtfully and diligently, bringing in an experienced perspective can bring back substantial dividends. By creating a productive and consistent working environment, your operations will be in a better position to succeed.

There are many, many considerations that a modern business needs to weigh out in regards to its IT—whether or not remote work is utilized, are certain systems required to have additional security or transparency, is the robust IT infrastructure you need to maintain attainable? Our consultants can help you construct an effective and reliable business environment that helps you create an improved workflow.

What Experience are You Seeking from Support?

Naturally, acquiring the right technology is only part of the equation. It is also important for you to have the means to keep this technology properly maintained, supported, and managed in general. This kind of support is—in short—critical to a quality infrastructure, requiring experienced technicians with the knowledge and skill to keep your IT in operation.

Threats are more prevalent than ever before, and that’s without even taking the odd downtime incident or user error into account. Again, this means that having an experienced resource to turn to has also become more important. Now, you have a few options—hiring IT staff internally, for one, but this can be incredibly expensive. Hiring a managed service provider is often a more cost-effective option for businesses, with the proactive maintenance we offer helping to avoid downtime and maintain your productivity.

Business IT can easily become quite complicated, but we can help simplify it for you. Call us today at 810.230.9455 to talk to us about what we can do for your operations.

Let’s examine what differentiates these cables and consider which of them is more likely to last.

What Separates USB from HDMI?

Beyond the visually obvious differences between these cables, there are a few things that set them apart in terms of their functionality.

USB-C

From the very beginning, the Universal Serial Bus cable was meant to be, well, universal…and USB-C is the next step towards this goal. First developed in the 1990s, USB was meant to simplify plugging in assorted hardware. USB-C can be used to transfer data, power, video, and audio signals between devices in either direction. Perhaps most appealingly, USB-C can be plugged in either way, which other USB types quite frustratingly couldn’t be.

HDMI

High-Definition Multimedia Interface cables have a more specific purpose, designed to transmit uncompressed A/V data from one device to another. First becoming available to consumers in the early 2000s, HDMI helped to reduce the cables necessary by sharing both audio and video data. Furthermore, less data quality is lost through the uncompressed HDMI cables.

While Both Work, Chances are That USB-C Will Ultimately Phase Out HDMI

And, at some point after that, the next thing will phase out USB-C (but more on that later).

HDMI has been around for about three decades or so at this point, while USB-C is simply the next step in the progression that USB was designed to follow in creating a universal (hence, universal serial bus) cable to replace every other cable type. This is why USB-C can transfer more data and more power than the USB cables that came before it.

This will take a long time to come to fruition… and that’s assuming that something else doesn’t come about to replace USB-C first.

We’re Here to Help Your Business Make the Most of Its Technology

Regardless of what the future may hold, we’re here to ensure that you have the IT you need to maintain your business’ productive operations. Learn more by giving us a call at 810.230.9455 today.