Windows 10 Retires Soon: Lynette Furr Explains What's Next

Good Morning Gwinnett

I Care Tech Geeks is offering a discount to help you switch to the new version of Windows.  Use this link and disount code https://cyber.icaretechgeeks.com/ripwindows10  (GWC is The Discount Code

Lynette Furr, owner of I Career Tech Geeks, recently offered critical guidance to clients navigating Microsoft’s upcoming retirement of Windows 10. Microsoft has set October 14, 2025 as the official end-of-support date: after this, Windows 10 will no longer receive security updates, feature improvements, or technical support—though the OS will continue to function.

 For those needing more time to transition, Microsoft now offers a consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, extending support by one year through October 13, 2026. Eligible users can access the ESU free by syncing their PC settings via the Windows Backup app tied to a Microsoft account, or by redeeming 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, with a paid option (~$30) also available.  In summary, users on Windows 10 must either:

• Upgrade eligible devices to Windows 11,
• Sign up for free or paid ESU, or
• Consider alternative operating systems (e.g., Linux or ChromeOS) if unable or unwilling to upgrade.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are watching or listening the Good Morning Guenette Show,
hosted by Audrey Bel Kearney, bringing you your daily base
of business and technology to educate and power and inspire
small business owners. Be sure to subscribe to the show today.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of Good Morning Gennette. I'm your host,
boy you bet Kearney got a great show for you today.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Listen. I know a lot of times you.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Guys are on your computer and you see like all
of these updates and they're taking up a lot of
memory on your computer, Like, what the heck is going on? Well,
today we got a great guest and she's gonna be
talking about this new update coming from Windows ten. Well,
the fact that Windows ten is not gonna be around
any were what you need to be thinking about. And
I thought this was really important because I know, for me,

(00:50):
I wouldn't say that I'm a tech expert, but I'm
a little bit of a geek. So when things happen,
I'm trying to figure it all out, and normally I do,
but a little bit of time. Normally I figured that
I'll make it better than that I tell other people.
But she's an expert, So she's gonna tell you what
you need to know about this new Windows ten being retired,
what you need to expect, and all of that good stuff.

(01:10):
She's also a cyber security expert, so we're gonna see
can get a little bit of Windows technology out of
her and a little bit of cyber security for the
small business entrepreneur, like for the solopreneurs, for the person
that has a PC.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
They don't have a MAC. They have a PC. They
may have a Mac, but you know, they say Max
are the best, but I don't know. I got a PC.
So we're gonna have her to the show. But before
I go.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Listen, do me a favor before we even get started,
to go to this. Go to this, go to the
site good morning with that, subscribe to the show, share
it with two friends, and this helps us brank well
in algorithms. You're watching this on Facebook, on YouTube, LinkedIn Instagram.
Go to the show, like, subscribe to the show. This
is gonna help me move the show to the next level.
So I'm excited about that. I thank you in advance

(01:51):
for your support. So without further ado, let me bring
up to the stage, Miss Lynette Fir. She is gonna
talk to us about what to expect from the retirement
of window those tens and welcome, welcome, welcome, thank.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
You, thank you, thank you. Adrea. As usual, you were awesome.
Thank you for inviting me on the show. I'm excited
for what we're gonna announce to everyone today.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, you know so, Lynette is one of the members
of the Women's Chamber of Commers And by the way,
if you're not a member, we invite you to become
a member of the Women's Chamber of Commerce where we
take your business series just like you do. That was
my that was my commercial and we always happy to
bring our members up the share what they do because
here's the thing. We are small business owners, some of
us are micro business owners, and every little bit of

(02:36):
exposure that we can give to our members, that's what
we thrive to do.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
So without further ado.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Lynette, you know a lot of times people see these
updates on it.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I can tell you right now.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Last month, my yeah, last my computer was acting so
crazy and it's pretty new like it kept saying, I
was out of memory, I'm deleting stuff, I'm messing up stuff,
i was losing my mind. So finally I closed out
Google was a Google Windows Meet or something whatever the
meat one is, right, I closed that completely out and
in freedom, all this space in my computer was fine.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was, like, you mean to tell me.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
For a month, I've been trying to figure out what's
wrong with my computer, Like I can't be out of memory.
That just got the computer or I think it was Google
Meet that was like clogging up my memory and it
was jacking it up. And so when I foually said,
let me just close everything on my startup menu, and
Google Meet was one of When I did that, everything
went back to normal. So a lot of us have

(03:27):
grown up with Windows, so we know Windows. I know
that Windows have some big things that's about to happen
as and they're gonna be retiring Windows tens. So I'm
gonna let you tell people about what that means and
what they should be doing, and what if they can't do,
who they need to call.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
That sounds great, Thank you very much. So you're absolutely right.
Most of the time, we are often just going along
our day and working on the computers, and as long
as it's working, we're great. And then we get these
little pop ups every once in a while and it'll
say things like it'll tell you when things are going on,
but we usually ignore them. So what I want everybody

(04:08):
to do is not to ignore this particular update. So Microsoft,
every four years or so they usually change out and
go to a different version of Windows. And so for
those who are operating on Windows, you may say, well,
how do we know if we're running on Windows ten
eleven or whatever for that matter. So a good way

(04:30):
of checking is you go to right click on your
icon at the bottom right corner. It should well, it
could be in the middle is an icon that looks
like a little Windows symbol. You write, click on that,
and then you go to system and then you in
the middle of that page, you scroll all the way
down to the very bottom, and you should see or

(04:50):
to tell you what version of Windows you're on. If
it says Windows ten Home or Windows ten anything. You
may say pro and may say enterprise and may say business.
Either which way it goes, you need to make sure
that you're able to update it come October the fourteenth
of this year. That is next month we are on

(05:13):
the countdown. So Microsoft has said, hey, we've allowed you
to use our wonderful Windows ten for several years now,
and it's time for us to expire. And what does
that mean when we say expire, meaning they're no longer
going to support you. And that what the cyber security
part comes in at. The hackers love to, you know,

(05:36):
get in our computers or systems any which way they can,
so we open the door for them when we don't
do the updates that are coming up for us. And
there's an update for a reason, usually update or security oriented.
It could be update to your your drivers that's on
your computers to make it work right, to be able

(05:57):
to see things and to be able to hear things.
So it's a combination of various things that the update does,
but the most important one is the security updates. So
whenever you are on your computer next, just go in
and do a quick check. We are able to help
you if you don't know what to do at that point.

(06:19):
We do have a promotion going on now with the
go At Women's Chamber and Audiy will tell you a
little bit more about that a little later. The biggest
thing is is to make sure that there is an update.
What we've done is we've decided that we're do an
assessment with you and an assessment would allow us to
come in. You fill out the form that we have
for you, you'll pay for the feed. The feed right

(06:43):
now is we have a two hundred and forty nine
dollars special. You have to have the cold That code
is very specific to the win at Women's Chamber, so
you can have if you put the code in there
at GWC, it will take it from three forty nine
to two forty nine. That intel. Okay, glad you asked.

(07:03):
So what we're gonna do with that is we're gonna
remote in. So when you feill out the form, you pay.
Once you pay, it'll allow you to book your appointment
with us. We'll get on zoom session with you and
then we'll remote in and verify what you have now,
and then we'll determine if you can upgrade. If you can,
then great, we'll do that for you. And then if

(07:24):
you cannot upgrade, we will let you know what you
need to do if there's some new equipment that you
need to buy because of this upgrade. Sometimes with this update,
if your hardware meaning everything inside your computer is too old,
then you know the recommendation would be for you to
buy a new computer. We can help you with that,

(07:45):
or we can just point you to how to buy
a new computer and what to buy and make sure
that it's gonna help you in your business to continue
to run. And most importantly, after that, if you decide that,
if we decide that, okay, you need a new computer,
then what we'll do is we'll take the moneys that
you've already paid, put that on towards setting it up

(08:06):
for you remotely, that is, and then you'll be good
to go.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
So and that, so let's go back to exactly helping
people understand why these updates are important. So a lot
of times the computer automatically updates itself, right like Windows
take up so much space in our updates till it
takes up a lot of our memory, and it'll just
do it. Or we'll come in there, we'll turn the
computer on. It says, don't turn it off. We're doing
an update. And it takes about ten to fifteen minutes.

(08:33):
So why is this important? Because I just checked mind.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
When you were talking.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
I'm on Windows eleven Home edition. First of us talk
about the edition? Should I be on the Enterprise edition?
It's just me at home, so I don't know if
I should need to be on the enterprise. But is
there a difference between being on an enterprise or a
small business.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Versus a home edition. Let's start there first and then
I talk about the updates.

Speaker 4 (08:54):
Excellent question. Thank you for asking that, Audrey, because I
was gonna mention that a lot of the instance is
what we're finding. Then some of the people we've already
had because we rolled this out to some of the
other chambers as well, and so when we get on
with them, what we're finding is is that they may
have Windows eleven already, but they have Home addition. So

(09:15):
depending on your industry, I want to just tell you
my personal opinion is you should always have a professional addition.
There's different levels. There's Windows Home, which is really consumer based, right,
it's not as secure. Windows Professional is the recommendation, and
then you have enterprise and business. Usually as long as

(09:40):
you have Windows Pro, professional is going to say pro
and then professional. For the loan pro, it may say pro.
Windows pro will be the short word, but it's actually
stand for professional. We recommend you do that. Why because
whenever you're let's say that you log into your computer,
it's an enterprise level of Windows, so it gives you

(10:02):
more security when you have your email address through Google
or through Microsoft. Especially let's say that you your business
email address is associated with Microsoft. Then when we set
our clients up, what we do is we allow them
to log in with the computer with that email address.

(10:22):
And when you do that, on the back end, it's
able to we can always check to see what's going
on when someone is logging in, when somebody's logging out.
If you're logging in in this state right now, and
then a couple of minutes later, you're logging in in
another state, we would know that and then we'll be
able to Obviously you can't be in two states in

(10:43):
a matter of minutes, so that would help us also
to protect you more in the security well rem as well.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
So there are a lot of people who they may
not use that computer as much, but they use it.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
But it's not like I use.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Mine all day day Sundays, I use it a lot,
so I'm always I have like I have three computers
in this office right now, two of them don't work,
and I have two in the closet and I have
one in my office.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So I have a bunch of computers. Some people don't
use their computers as often.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Is it still necessary for them to do the Windows
eleven update even if they they're not on their computer.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Like my husband, he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Use his computer very often. He uses it every now
and again just to search something. So for a person
like him who don't use that computer, is it still
necessary for them to change over or to make the
update to Windows eleven?

Speaker 4 (11:32):
And if so, why it's important for everyone? Doesn't matter
what you're doing with it or not doing with it,
how often you're using your computers. Everyone needs to have
the base level of security and updates installed. A lot
of times, what we tell our clients is what we
do is we have we're a managed service provider company,

(11:56):
and what does that mean. We manage their security their
technology on an outsource basis, and so we do proactive support,
not reactive and a lot of times we are installing
different tools because in order for us to make sure
our clients are safe, it's a holistic approach. We can't

(12:17):
just install one to you know, most people say, well,
I got antivirus software, are my good? No? A lot
of people will say, well, I'm a small company, why
does that matter. I'm really just like you say, using
it every so often. I even suggest that even for
home users that having the professional version of Windows. Anytime
we help our clients, whether they're commercial or not, we

(12:40):
make sure that they have professional version of Windows, and
really because of the security features, extra for security features
that they have on it. So you always want to
stay up today. It's like owning a home and you
don't lock the door. You just go to sleep and
you don't lock the door, well opening up your house

(13:01):
to people to come in while you're asleep. So it's
the same way with the computers. The least amount of
time that you do the updates, or if you keep
waiting you don't let it reboot and go it on
and do the updates, the more chances you have of
hackers getting in during that time and doing things. And
most of the times we don't know when they're in.
They're in for a good period of time. They just

(13:24):
don't let you know because they're monitoring what you're doing
so that they'll know whenever they do their attack. They'll
know what the attack. Who you know. They're watching the
emails that you're sending, who you're sending it to, your clients,
that you're sending it to, even if you're just paying
bills personally, like I said, your husband, maybe go on
in pay a few bills or go to his email,
anything that you're doing on the computer, that's very important

(13:46):
to have the most recent updates.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
I think a lot of times people think it's a
lot of money because I've always had I've always used Windows.
I've never used Mac when dough it is a Mac lover,
so I've always used when those and so I've always
had like the paid version because I wanted to make
sure I had enough email space and I wanted to
make sure I had access to all of I've been
using Microsoft products since nineteen ninety seven or four or

(14:15):
something when they have Microsoft front Page.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Just how far I've been this, how far back I go.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
So I've always used it, But now that I'm thinking
about it, I don't think I've ever had Professional. And
I was just looking at the price point of what
Professional is. It's about the same as what I paid
for Home Edition, Like I think I paid and I'm
on a monthly subscription. I want to say it's fourteen
ninety nine a month or something, and then to get
the home with the Professional it's like one ninety for
a year or something crazy. So now I feel like

(14:41):
I need to switch over, which is what I'll probably do.
Right now, there's somebody saying, I you know.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
I'm I'll skip it.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
I'll skip the update, right, I'll skip the update because
you know, I'm not a I'm not a tech person.
So I don't know what's going on to that person.
I know you said you need to make sure you
have the updates, but how can they move forward knowing
that my computer.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Is safe, it's up to date.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Should they call you and set that thing up? Is
something that they say, you know what, I want to
do this, or I don't have the budget. I mean,
because a lot of times it comes down to budget.
I don't look at it like that. I look at
everything I do for my business as an investment in
my business. Now, some things I may say that's not
in the budget right now, but it's important, so I
plan for that. I need to make sure that I

(15:29):
like I did that yesterday, Like there's something I gotta
pay that's like that I need to get.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, I don't need to get it. I probably just
want to get it.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
But it's like a few grand right, So I'm looking
at like Okay, I need to I want to get
this right.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
And I'm thinking to Solf, I want to want to
get this. I need to figure out how to get this.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
When it comes to this, a lot of people just
kind of blow it off, like, Oh, it's Windows, it's
gonna do what it's gonna do. It's gonna automatically update.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
But it won't.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
And so if they decide not to do the update,
and nobody's at Windows answering the phone to answer these questions,
what do they do? Can they come to you after
the fact or should they be proactive like you're saying, Well.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
There's a couple of things. First of all, when we're
meeting with the clients that has Windows eleven already and
didn't know it, which is great, Like I said before,
like you said, you notice you have Home, what we're
doing is is well helping them to upgrade that over
to Windows eleven Pro Professional, And it's ninety nine dollars

(16:32):
to do it. It's a one time fee, so you
pay the ninety nine dollars direct to Microsoft or whoever
you have it through. Now a lot of these we're
finding that a lot of our clients are doing the
best they can right, So they go and they get
an email. Let's say to get an email, professional email,
which we recommend everybody have professional email, not a personal

(16:55):
email through Gmail that you've gone in and put your
business name in front of it, and then at the
end it says at gmail dot com. You want to
represent your own company, not Gmail or Google. I love them,
but you want to always look professional and you want
to have their brand to follow you. So you want
to have a professional email. So in that professional email,

(17:15):
if you choose to buy it direct from Microsoft, most
people don't. They go through GoDaddy for example. They buy
it through GoDaddy. They go in, they buy their domain,
which is their website. So anytime you see someone's web
email address, I tell people this little trick. Most of
the time, when you see an email address anything past

(17:36):
the AD symbol, it usually represents their website. So they
go and buy that domain name from GoDaddy, and then
it'll be a little pop up to say do you
want to go out and get an email, and so
most people say yes, they get the email, and now
they got a Microsoft email and they got protection and
all that's great, but then there's some things, any things

(18:00):
you can't do when you use Go Daddy's version of Microsoft,
and so what we tell our clients is, you know,
that's great, I'm glad you've done that. But the biggest
thing is is we need to upgrade, you know, first
your Windows from home to professional and then secondly we
migrate them off Go Daddy over to Microsoft Direct with

(18:26):
the vendor that we use. Because when you need support
from Microsoft, you asked about support, Calling Microsoft to get support,
even for myself could take quite a while. You have
to wait a while, they have to sign someone to you,
then they call you and maybe the next day to

(18:47):
two or three days from there. But it's the support
level is not so great. So that's why we partner
with our own We have an alliance with a company
called y'all may have seen the the commercials to come
on quite often now Packs eight. So with Packs eight,
it's our vendor. We go through them and we get

(19:07):
our licenses for various different software, especially for Microsoft. So
when we need to support our clients, we call them
not Microsoft. So that's we're in that case we're able
to get support immediately and not have to wait days
and months a periods of time to get the support.

(19:28):
So that would be my recommendation on that going on
and upgrade. If you know how to do it yourself,
then that's great. If not, please give us a call out.
We can be reaching at for zero four none three
five for four that's four zero four nine three five
four one one four and my direct extension is one

(19:51):
zero one, So that would be the way to reach us.
And then our website obviously we have. Our website is
ww of you dot I is in ignite c A
R E T is in tom E c H geeks
with an s dot com and the best way I'm

(20:13):
assuming that we would have that as well, Audrey, you
will have the link for them in the on the
on the YouTube page for them to be able to
go and sign up and then put the code in
there for them to sign up to beerd to get
us to help them in that way as well. Is
that correct?

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (20:32):
And so I gotta I got a question though, real
quick before we go, you talked about you said people
that buy the email, that's a good thing from go Daddy.
Now they got a match to email, which is great,
but you also said you need to not there. Why
is it that they should not use even though they
have their the email that matches their domain. But you

(20:55):
said it shouldn't be on go Daddy.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Like what because when I think about email, I don't
I don't really have a problem with my email, So
it's just people send me email. Why should they move
their emails from go Daddy if that's what they registered
to Microsoft?

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Because whenever I mentioned earlier the security measures, when you
get your email through go Daddy, they have a phenomenal support.
I'll give them that, but the problem is is that
when you get there, certain things that they do. They
kind of make it easy for people to manage their

(21:30):
own email, if you will. And so for us, as
managed service providers whose security focused company, it's certain things
we can't go in and help you with because they've
put on their own version of Microsoft. So they've put
on some on the front end, they make it easy

(21:51):
for you, so they make it where you can just
hit add email or add another user. But on the
back end, we need to be able to do that
and what is your security is different and we can't
do certain things when you have your Microsoft email through
go Daddy and all these other platforms. I think you

(22:11):
know there are other platforms that sell emails and go
Daddy is one of their highest resellers though, and so
that basically security and there are certain things we can't
do when you have it through them. So that's why
we usually recommend migrating it, and we migrate them sooner
than later, especially if they just got it. A lot

(22:33):
of times, you know, some people have just gotten it
and then sometimes they've had it for a while, so
we you know, navigate them and help them kind of
get off of that version of it.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
So later on.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
We always design with the end in mind. So if
something comes up and we need to make sure that
you're compliant. You may need to be Hippo compliant, you
may need to be some of the financial sector that
we work with, they need to be FTC Safeguard compliant.
There's all kinds of compliance that you need to have,
and if you can't control you're that part of it.

(23:08):
I'm trying to explain it, you know the easiest way.
If you can't control that part, then how compliant are you.
So that's the reason why we recommend them coming off
of it. I too, I must admit I was I
fell in that category. I got it many years ago
and then as I migrated off. It's been very challenging

(23:29):
because you know, I actually called in to go Daddy
once and I said, listen, I need to be able
to do this, this, and this. I want to log
into my computer with my email address. He said, ma'am,
you have to You would have to get rid of
us and go straight directly to Microsoft because we don't
allow that.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Wow, And see, I think that's what a lot of
people don't know, Like they don't know like all these
little nuances when they're trying to do the right thing.
It's kind of like it almost makes you feel a
little sick, like I'm trying to do the right thing
and I'm still not doing the right thing. And so
you know, when I think about email, now, when you
register the domain name, because y'all don't think you can

(24:07):
register domain names at Microsoft, and so when you register
the domain name at GoDaddy or one of the other platforms,
then should you then go to Microsoft to set it up?
Because if they don't know to call you, so they
may be listening right now, or they may be in
their car and they're not going to remember anything you
said except for my email is not set up properly.
Can they go to windows after they buy the domain

(24:30):
name from GoDaddy and then set up the email there, like,
is that how they would do it to make sure
it's right.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Well, you can set it up a couple of ways.
So you buy the domain through whoever. It doesn't have
to be GoDaddy. You could buy the domain through. I mean,
there's many others, right, Just most people know about GoDaddy.
They're the most highest reseller of domain names, but there
are many others, right, So you can buy the domain.
There's name cheap dot com, there's many and so you

(25:02):
buy your domain. You don't have to have and sometimes
you even can get it through these like like you say,
the hosting company is what we call those companies. So
when you buy your domain through let's say you buy
it thro GoDaddy. Let's say it's ABC dot com. So
then it'll pop up and say, hey, do you want
to get an email address? Then you say yes, so

(25:22):
then pay for that. This says do you want to
get a you know, it'll say professional email, This says
if you want to get a website, and then they'll
give you that. It's kind of like going to like
wix dot com and then it asks you the same
thing and so certain vendors have Microsoft emails and then
certain vendors have business emails to Google. So it just
depends on which platform you went through. After you've bought it,

(25:46):
then it just it's what we call the process is
called migration. So you have to migrate it from whoever
you've bought, not the domain, but just the email itself.
If you bought the domain and you haven't bought you
your email address yet, that's great, then we can walk
you through how to do that. We can order it
on behalf of you, and then what we do is

(26:10):
at that point we're managing it for you. So we're
managing your email for you. We're managing all your technology
for you for you know, a brief monthly fee. It's
a flat fee, something a fee that you know what
is going to be every month and not something that
keeps changing. So that's kind of how we would recommend
you what.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
You do for that.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
And now the fees that you the thieves that you
charge for that service to monitor all this technology. Does
it depend on the size of the company or is
it one flat fee across the board?

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Thank you?

Speaker 4 (26:41):
Yes, it depends on the size of the company and
the type of industry, you're in, how many what we
call devices or computers or devices that you're using, how
many locations you have, you know, if you're here in
the States and you're in you know, in Florida, if
you're in Atlanta, you know all of that. Math's most
importantly what the industry is. So if you're healthcare facility,

(27:08):
for example, then we need to make sure that your
help of compliance. So we offer as little as needed
for our clients all the way up to as the
match so we can come in and be your chief
AI officer for you and all things AI, make sure
you're secure in that aspect, your chief security officer for you,

(27:30):
make sure everything is done in that aspect, your chief
technology officer for you. Those are the high levels, and
then we go down from there and we also offer,
you know, just support, help us support. Some companies already
have technology, you know, the technology taking care of so
we come in and we help them to bridge the gap.

(27:50):
So if they have a team already, that's great. We
can do what we call co manage. So they may
not want to deal with just the first level support
the second of a support. So we come in and
we assess everything. Everything, we do is cybersecurity focus first,
So no matter what, whether we hapen another team, augment
their team, or whether we're good team, we come in,

(28:13):
we do what we call a cybersecurity risk assessment, and
that or cybersecurity. Now we have added cybersecurity AI risk
assessment as well, so we're going to do that assessment
to see where you are first before we start trying
to make recommendations. So that's whenever we are getting ready
to take our clients to the next level, we do

(28:36):
that assessment. We come back to them a week or
so later and it's a paid engagement. But after that
then we show them where they are now and then
we can tell them where they can go next with us.
And it's always best to be proactive. A lot of
us smaller business say, well, it won't hack us. You know,
every day, every sixty seconds of the day, there's so

(29:00):
and getting hacked, whether they're a small business or not.
And whoever too normally it could cause you you to
get hacked. So let's say, for example, CPA, if you
have seen that you're dealing with, then I too have
that same issue. Unfortunately, many years ago I had a

(29:23):
CPA that I used and she was in the Virginia
area and one day she called me and she said, Lynette,
I am trying to file your taxes. We did the extension,
so it was an October timeframe. I'm trying to find
your taxes. But it got rejected. I said, oh, what
do you mean it got rejected? She said, did you
file your taxes already? I said no, I did not.

(29:44):
She says, well, I said, that's what you're for to me.
Then she said, well, now she's a small company she
had about It was herself and maybe one other person
that helped her out as a consultant. And she said, well,
let me call to you know, rs and find out
what's going on. So you call me back. She says, okay,

(30:06):
good news and bad news? Which one you want first?
I said the good news, she said, good news is
I know what happened, great. What's the bad news? Bad
news is somebody's already filed taxes in your name. I'm like,
what what do you mean? She said, yeah, it's already
filed taxes in your name, and so we have to

(30:31):
go through a process of proving that you're the right
person that should have filed the taxes and not the
bad actor. And so for the next two years plus
I spent over thirty plus hours of going in physically
to the office of the RS and getting the number
and sitting down and being called by a number and

(30:52):
showing them all kinds of paperwork I had to take
to them and prove that I am the person who
should have been filing the taxes and not the bad act.
And as a result, I mean, it was extremely frustrating.
So the second year it happened again, and finally IRS said, okay,
I believe you. We're going to give you a special
pin code to file your taxes going forward. And I'm

(31:16):
therefore now I still have that pin code that we
use to file my taxes. But the thing about that
is is she's a small company, and you know, when
you don't think about how important it is to just
the little things that we ignore with our computers or
whatever is telling us something is going wrong and we

(31:36):
don't know what. We don't know right, So you only
know that once you get in there and do some
kind of cybersecurity risk assessment to see what's going on,
see if your email has been had, even your personal emails.
A lot of people use the personal emails for the business.
We have a way to check that as well. It's
not as extensive, but we do have a little way

(31:57):
to check to see of a personal email else has
been compromised as well. So what we recommend that you
do is this, you know, just be on the safe side.
Don't be like the particular CPA that I'm no longer
with because obviously I can't trust them anymore, and you
know their reputation. You know, I couldn't recommend anybody else

(32:18):
to them, And so when she she for all we
know she's somebody else that she's dealing with, could get hacked.
We see it all the time on the news where
a CPA firm someone else they get hacked and then
as a result it shut down several of the hospitals.
That was something that we read about recently the news.

(32:39):
I want to say it was last year that they
had this major hospital that was shut down because their
CPA was hacked. So it's who you're tied to as well.
We want to be careful of that. If you're dealing
with vendors, make sure you off board them after you
finished working with them, or if they're still working with you,
you know, make sure they're that they're using credential managers,

(33:00):
and most people say, well, what's a credential manager? Most
people call the password manager. We always make sure that
any resources we share with anybody we deal with vendors,
even though obviously our employees, we make sure that they
have a credential manager, and that credential manager you can
save everything in there, not just passwords, which is why
we call it that. So you want to have an

(33:21):
enterprise level of that as well. So you want to
have a holistic approach. You want to have some security
in all aspects. And that's what I recommend for everybody.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
I don't know if y'all paid attention, if it didn't
go back and watch the recording. You want to make
sure you're protected. You think you can trust people. That
happened to my husband, that whole tax thing. So he
has a pen number on his account and it was
a tax prepayer that did it, which was the craziest thing,
Like we had been doing the whole family taxes for years.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
And try to defra It was ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
God rests, so he's gone on the heaven now, but
that he did everybody like that, and then he went
into hiding. But the difference me and my husband like no, no, no,
we got a note. No, we're gonna fix this. So
we fixed it and we were able to put a
pen on his on his social with RS. If you
have not taken care of any of these things, reach
out to Lynnette.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
She is a wonderful person. She knows her stuff.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
She speaks at the Georgia AI Sum and she's done
it for two years in a row. She's one of
our members at GWC. This is her website, icare tech
Geeks dot com. Her number is four zero four nine
three five four one one four. Go check her out.
Give her a call at least at least get the
information that you need. Don't be afraid. I know it
sounds like she probably charges the line and she probably does.

(34:37):
I don't know, but you won't know until you call her.
So give her a call, talk to her and her team,
let them help you. Before this this this this expiration
data Windows ten Because here's the thing. You can't get
Microsoft on the phone when it's not expiring. She just
told you that, so why would you wait till it expires?
And it's even worse, So don't do that to yourself.
Don't sit over there and pull your hair out because

(34:58):
you didn't listen, all right, DwC members, GWC is the
code that you use to take advantage of the wonderful
discount that she's given you. Guys, Bennette, thank you so
much for being my guest today. Thank you so much
for sharing all this great information with our viewers and
our listeners around the world.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
And listen.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Don't wait, y'all. Don't sit there and drag your feet
and then the next thing you know, your windows is
not working. You have no one to call. You can't
call Ghostbusters, but you can.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Call Ie care like right now, So make the call.
All right. Thanksful that have a wonderful day, everybody. I'll
see you again Wednesday with a really great guests.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Until next time, my friends, until next time, make it
a great day by everybody.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
You've been watching or listening to The Good Morning Gwinett's
show Coast is by Audrey bel Ken Monday through Thursday
and ten around me. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe
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like going to www dot good Morning winnot Com