Kaspersky Internet Security

Kaspersky Internet Security - I have this to cover the Lamas Equipment and the Lamas Junior Devices.

I have been spammed over the weekend by Kaspersky asking me to renew as my subscription is about to expire.

Its true it is about to expire.

In the email they were offering me 70% off the price.  Not unrealistic, the price of a new licence on Amazon is only a pound or so more.

I first tried this renewal on Friday when I got the first email.  It would not go to the correct page and on closer inspection it had an incorrect date.  I received a further email on Sunday and again on Monday morning.  Each time the deadline date was incorrect and it would not work on my PC.  I was just getting the Aww Snap page. 

Now as an additional thing, there was a notification on my PC that it was time to renew.

With Mondays email I thought will this now work they are back in the office, perhaps if this was an error they have fixed it.  

It worked on my phone.  I was about to enter PayPal details and I thought, wait a minute, try the PC again to be certain that this is what it should be and not some elaborate and clever scam to get all the information off my phone and drain my account!

On the PC it did not work and I know that scams are not usually elaborate or clever.

I even tried calling the number on the website, but that was not really Kaspersky, that was for Digital River acting on their behalf.  So they could not help me.  He kindly offered 50% off my renewal today, when I explained the situation, but I declined.  My reason ? I needed a moment to gather my thoughts and decide what I should do.  Obviously the Network Manager was consulted (quizzed extensively about what he thought was happening and whether he thought it was a scam and and and….)

There were several red flags up to this point.

The cost for the renewal was £59.99 less 70% so approximately  £16.50.  I can pick up a licence on Amazon for just a couple of quid more.  So its not even in the Too Good To Be True Category.

I honestly can’t say whether these emails were real or a scam.  But I do not want to take the chance.  I will wander round Amazon later today and purchase another licence and to heck with their spammy emails and renewal.  For a couple of quid it is just not worth it.

Google (FRP) Factory Reset Protocol

I will pretend that I’m not the only one who missed the memo about Googles Factory Reset Protection  and explain all about it.

It all began with The Network Manager and his trusty Hudl earlier in the week.  The Hudl was not charging, so having previous form with this kind of thing I ordered a new charging port for it. I fitted it and bingo, it still did not work.  There were more troubleshooting options, like a new battery, a hammer… but how far to take it.  

So He went off to Argos on Saturday  to get hisself a new tablet.  He had done some research along the lines of What about this one it’s a nice colour or this has got 21gigawatts of flux capacitor power or something like that, I lost interest after about number 75.

We are quite good here at Lamas HQ about passwords, we use password managers and other methods to remind us of passwords and are really quite reliable where passwords are concerned, so I was not overly concerned about the loss of any saved passwords stuck in the depths of the deceased hudl. 

New Tablet arrived amid some ooh shiney new tablet interest and then I went off to peel some spuds or re-tile the bathroom or something. 

He started with the obvious enter your google account details, but the account password was incorrect.  The current password was located and everything continued quietly for a while.  The password was not what I would call a strong one and was duly changed for a more complicated one as befits the level of security required.  This has subsequently been identified and ERROR No 1.

ERROR No 2 was allowing the upgrade of Android from 5.x.thing to 6.0 and 6.0.something else so closely after changing the password

When Android upgrades from one version to another it effectively resets the device.  This means that the Google Account information needs to be input again.  However, if the password has been changed within the last 72 hours it locks the account until the password has been changed for 72 hours rendering the device unusable until that time is up. 

This account protection has been around since at least July 2015 and I have read most of a community support thread spanning some 20 or so months, which contained many many voices saying the same thing,”what on earth has happened and why can’t I access MY device” to paraphrase!  It is to stop Tablets and phones being stolen, reset and sold on, but its a pain in the bum if you are not aware of it.

So :

• If you buy a second hand android device that has not had the previous google account removed, it will be useless.
• Try not to reset/upgrade your device and your google password in the same week.

• Make sure you keep a record of the original account details for your android device.
• If you have to perform a reset on your phone delete the google account from the device.

It appears that in the Network Managers  case the Google FRP only held the account up for 24 hours.  I tried to log in the following afternoon 20 hours post password change and it didn’t work.  At 25 hours post password change it did in fact login and continue the setup as normal.