Tech Sense: Who Do You Trust October 2025

Who do you Trust?

October is here and Microsoft is ending the supported life of Microsoft Windows 10.  Microsoft is offering to extend support for Windows 10 to consumers for an addition year for a cost of $30 (rates are higher for businesses).  This provides security updates over the next years.  A company called “0patch” (pronounced zero patch) is offering to patch (update) Windows 10 for up to five years.  0Patch offers free subscriptions for Zero day patches to consumers.  Zero days are new threats active on the Internet, but not yet patched by Microsoft.  For $30 a year 0patch will also patch older versions of Office and the Edge browser.  0Patch is a European company so the price shown reflect the current exchange rate in dollars.

To put this into perspective, in the last quarter of 2024 Microsoft, through security updates, patched 30 critical flaws in Windows 10.  Microsoft no longer updates older versions of Office software (2013 for example) whereas the paid 0Patch subscriptions still do.

Microsoft is using the expiration of support to force consumers to move to Windows 11, however many computers run fine on windows 10 but can’t install Windows 11.  Microsoft’s solution is for everyone to replace older computers. 

This raises question, who should you trust.

 

Credit Reporting Agencies

There are three national credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.  These companies determine the risk of lending money to people and businesses.  The “Credit Score” it the basic measure of that risk.  The credit score can stop a company from offering a loan or determine the interest rate you pay on the loan. 

In 2013 Experian was hacked! This hacking was possible by their poor internal security practices.  Again in 2015, another hack at Experian that also affected T-Mobile.  Experian apparently hadn’t learned from the first one. In the following years, there have been multiple security failures at Experian, yet the financial industry continues to share our personal information with the company. 

Equifax and TransUnion have also experienced major breaches in their security exposing our personal data to criminals.  These events and subsequent exposure of personal information typically result in identity theft, fraud, and other crimes.  Can these credit agencies be trusted?

To protect yourself I suggest that you keep a credit freeze or lock on your information with each of the credit agencies and only open the lock only when you have a need to share the credit agency information to purchase a car or house or increase the amount of lines of credit.  For example, I might ask a car dealer which agency they use for a credit report.  Then only open access to that agency and close it again when issuance of the car loan. 

 

Payment Apps

Payment Apps are phone apps like Venmo and Zelle, used to transfer money between you and a friend, bank, or a business for example.  These apps are frequently involved in scams.  Some examples of the types include:

·       Business Impersonation – A scammer pretends to be a bank or other money institution saying they need you to send money right away to pay a late bill.  Often with the threat of a utility being turned off or some other dire consequence.  Remember if you use these services only use them with people you know and trust and positively confirm their identity.

·       Fake friend or family member – This technique the scammer pretends to be a close friend or relative and claims to need money for an emergency.  You send the money and then discover the person wasn’t who you thought it was.  Again, ask for positive identification.  Do not trust photos or voice alone, now easily imitated in today’s world of AI fakes.

·       Accidental Transfer – In this situation, you receive money and then the sender requests you to send it back to them through an alternate channel.  In this case, block the sender and keep the money.

·       Overpayment Scam – This is similar to the Accidental Transfer Scam, they send you money to pay from something you are selling, but the amount requested is larger than the price.  They may even have paid with a credit card.  If you pay back the overpayment, it is likely you will find the payment card was fraudulent and the scammer keeps the returned the “overpayment” leaving you with nothing.  You should never ship a product until the payment has cleared and if the buyer claims they paid too much, have them seek the overpayment back through the payment app. Never send your own money.

These are just a few possible scams.  The sad thing is neither Venmo nor Zelle offer adequate protection for their users, leaving them with unrecoverable losses.  There are many more apps like these leaving the users vulnerable and inadequately protected.  Avoid these apps.  My experience is that Paypal is the safest of these apps to use.

 

Coming Soon

Christmas is coming soon so, keep your eyes open for the holiday column next month.