Answer Description

As a support technician you should always assume that a user has no knowledge of how computers and networks function. With this, it is always best to begin troubleshooting with the most basic questions to determine the issue.

Wikipedia

Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process operational again. Troubleshooting is needed to identify the symptoms. Determining the most likely cause is a process of elimination—eliminating potential causes of a problem. Finally, troubleshooting requires confirmation that the solution restores the product or process to its working state. In general, troubleshooting is the identification or diagnosis of "trouble" in the management flow of a system caused by a failure of some kind. The problem is initially described as symptoms of malfunction, and troubleshooting is the process of determining and remedying the causes of these symptoms. A system can be described in terms of its expected, desired or intended behavior (usually, for artificial systems, its purpose). Events or inputs to the system are expected to generate specific results or outputs. (For example, selecting the "print" option from various computer applications is intended to result in a hardcopy emerging from some specific device). Any unexpected or undesirable behavior is a symptom. Troubleshooting is the process of isolating the specific cause or causes of the symptom. Frequently the symptom is a failure of the product or process to produce any results. (Nothing was printed, for example). Corrective action can then be taken to prevent further failures of a similar kind. The

Answer Description

Spotlight is an application built into Mac OSX to allow for quick searching of files, applications, system preferences and integration with some search engines.

Wikipedia

Spotlight is a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. Spotlight is a selection-based search system, which creates an index of all items and files on the system. It is designed to allow the user to quickly locate a wide variety of items on the computer, including documents, pictures, music, applications, and System Preferences. In addition, specific words in documents and in web pages in a web browser's history or bookmarks can be searched. It also allows the user to narrow down searches with creation dates, modification dates, sizes, types and other attributes. Spotlight also offers quick access to definitions from the built-in New Oxford American Dictionary and to calculator functionality. There are also command-line tools to perform functions such as Spotlight searches. Spotlight was first announced at the June 2004 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, and then released with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in April 2005.A similar feature for iOS 3.0 with the same name was announced on March 17, 2009.

Answer Description

The pwd (Print Working Directory) command will display the user's current directory. The ls command will display the contents of the current directory.

Wikipedia

In Unix-like and some other operating systems, the pwd command (print working directory) writes the full pathname of the current working directory to the standard output.

Answer Description

Because this is a non-domain (local) user account the Local Security Policy is the cause of the issue. Accessing the policy to determine account requirements will solve the problem.

Wikipedia

Group Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems (including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2003+) that controls the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. Group Policy provides centralized management and configuration of operating systems, applications, and users' settings in an Active Directory environment. A set of Group Policy configurations is called a Group Policy Object (GPO). A version of Group Policy called Local Group Policy (LGPO or LocalGPO) allows Group Policy Object management without Active Directory on standalone computers.Active Directory servers disseminate group policies by listing them in their LDAP directory under objects of class groupPolicyContainer. These refer to fileserver paths (attribute gPCFileSysPath) that store the actual group policy objects, typically in an SMB share \\domain.com\SYSVOL shared by the Active Directory server. If a group policy has registry settings, the associated file share will have a file registry.pol with the registry settings that the client needs to apply.The Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) is not provided on Home versions of Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11.

Answer Description

The NET command in Windows provides many options, including the NET USE command tool. The NET USE command will show and configure mapped network drives from a shared resource like a NAS or a storage server.

Wikipedia

In computing, net is a command in IBM OS/2 (including eComStation and ArcaOS), Microsoft Windows and ReactOS used to manage and configure the operating system from the command-line It is also part of the IBM PC Network Program for DOS

Answer Description

NSLOOKUP will return the IP Address of a domain name by querying a computers assigned DNS Servers for the information. NSLOOKUP is well known as a Windows command but can be used on some Unix based systems as well.

Wikipedia

nslookup (from "name server lookup") is a network administration command-line tool for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain the mapping between domain name and IP address, or other DNS records.

Answer Description

Often when installing Windows onto an external RAID array, a driver is required for Windows to detect the hard drives.

Wikipedia

In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and other computer programs to access hardware functions without needing to know precise details about the hardware being used. A driver communicates with the device through the computer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects. When a calling program invokes a routine in the driver, the driver issues commands to the device (drives it). Once the device sends data back to the driver, the driver may invoke routines in the original calling program. Drivers are hardware dependent and operating-system-specific. They usually provide the interrupt handling required for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interface.

Answer Description

APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) is the default package manager for the Ubuntu Linux distribution. A package manager is a system used to download, install, update and remove software applications.

Wikipedia

Advanced Package Tool, or APT, is a free-software user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on Debian, and Debian-based Linux Distributions APT simplifies the process of managing software on Unix-like computer systems by automating the retrieval, configuration and installation of software packages, either from precompiled files or by compiling source code

Answer Description

Shoulder surfing is a common tactic to gain information by standing near a person as they talk on the phone, fill out a form, or type in their password.

Wikipedia

In computer security, shoulder surfing is a type of social engineering technique used to obtain information such as personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords and other confidential data by looking over the victim's shoulder. Unauthorized users watch the keystrokes inputted on a device or listen to sensitive information being spoken, which is also known as eavesdropping.

Answer Description

Tailgaiting is when an unauthorized person "tails" an authorized person through a secured entryway without the authorized person's knowledge.

Wikipedia

In security, piggybacking, similar to tailgating, refers to when a person tags along with another person who is authorized to gain entry into a restricted area, or pass a certain checkpoint. It can be either electronic or physical. The act may be legal or illegal, authorized or unauthorized, depending on the circumstances. However, the term more often has the connotation of being an illegal or unauthorized act.To describe the act of an unauthorized person who follows someone to a restricted area without the consent of the authorized person, the term tailgating is also used. "Tailgating" implies no consent (similar to a car tailgating another vehicle on a road), while "piggybacking" usually implies consent of the authorized person.Piggybacking came to the public's attention particularly in 1999, when a series of weaknesses were exposed in airport security. A study showed that the majority of undercover agents attempting to pass through checkpoints, bring banned items on planes, or board planes without tickets, were successful. Piggybacking was revealed as one of the methods that was used in order to enter off-limits areas.

Answer Description

You should always do your best to not interrupt a customer. Additionally, you should still create the trouble ticket for logging purposes.

Answer Description

Although the technician was able to locate and remove a virus, that virus was not the cause of the user's issues. The technician should continue to troubleshoot the computer.

Wikipedia

Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process operational again. Troubleshooting is needed to identify the symptoms. Determining the most likely cause is a process of elimination—eliminating potential causes of a problem. Finally, troubleshooting requires confirmation that the solution restores the product or process to its working state. In general, troubleshooting is the identification or diagnosis of "trouble" in the management flow of a system caused by a failure of some kind. The problem is initially described as symptoms of malfunction, and troubleshooting is the process of determining and remedying the causes of these symptoms. A system can be described in terms of its expected, desired or intended behavior (usually, for artificial systems, its purpose). Events or inputs to the system are expected to generate specific results or outputs. (For example, selecting the "print" option from various computer applications is intended to result in a hardcopy emerging from some specific device). Any unexpected or undesirable behavior is a symptom. Troubleshooting is the process of isolating the specific cause or causes of the symptom. Frequently the symptom is a failure of the product or process to produce any results. (Nothing was printed, for example). Corrective action can then be taken to prevent further failures of a similar kind. The

Answer Description

Sleep, Hibernation, and Stand By are the only true System Power States. Of the three, only hibernation provides no power to memory, and saves memory contents to the hard drive to be loaded back into memory when the computer wakes up.

Wikipedia

Hibernation (also known as suspend to disk, or Safe Sleep on Macintosh computers) in computing is powering down a computer while retaining its state. When hibernation begins, the computer saves the contents of its random access memory (RAM) to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage. When the computer is turned on the RAM is restored and the computer is exactly as it was before entering hibernation. Hibernation was first implemented in 1992 and patented by Compaq Computer Corporation in Houston, Texas. As of 2020, Microsoft's Windows 10 employs a type of hibernation (fast startup) by default when shutting down.

Answer Description

Boot Camp is a Mac OSX application that allows users to install Windows based operating systems. Boot Camp

Wikipedia

Boot Camp Assistant is a multi boot utility included with Apple Inc.'s macOS (previously Mac OS X / OS X) that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows operating systems on Intel-based Macintosh computers. The utility guides users through non-destructive disk partitioning (including resizing of an existing HFS+ or APFS partition, if necessary) of their hard disk drive or solid-state drive and installation of Windows device drivers for the Apple hardware. The utility also installs a Windows Control Panel applet for selecting the default boot operating system. Initially introduced as an unsupported beta for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the utility was first introduced with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and has been included in subsequent versions of the operating system ever since. Previous versions of Boot Camp supported Windows XP and Windows Vista. Boot Camp 4.0 for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 up to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion version 10.8.2 only supported Windows 7. However, with the release of Boot Camp 5.0 for Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in version 10.8.3, only 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 are officially supported.Boot Camp 6.0 added support for 64-bit versions of Windows 10. Boot Camp 6.1, available on macOS 10.12 Sierra and later, will only accept new installations of Windows 7 and later; this requirement was upgraded to requiring Windows 10 for macOS 10.14 Mojave. Boot Camp is currently not available on Apple silicon Macs. Via virtualization, it is possible to run ARM-based Windows 10 and

Answer Description

Social Engineering is the process of manipulating another person or group of people to divulge information or perform actions relevant to a systems security.

Wikipedia

In the context of information security, social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional "con" in that it is often one of many steps in a more complex fraud scheme. It has also been defined as "any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests."An example of social engineering is an attacker calling a help desk, impersonating someone else, and claiming to have forgotten their password. If the help desk worker resets the password, it grants the attacker full access to the account.

Answer Description

The TASKKILL command in Windows is used to manually stop a process from running. Example: TASKKILL /IM notepad.exe, will stop the notepad.exe process.

Wikipedia

In computing, kill is a command that is used in several popular operating systems to send signals to running processes.

Answer Description

As an IT, you have access to personal data. You should always get customer permission before copying or changing it.

Wikipedia

Client confidentiality is the principle that an institution or individual should not reveal information about their clients to a third party without the consent of the client or a clear legal reason. This concept, sometimes referred to as social systems of confidentiality, is outlined in numerous laws throughout many countries.The access to a client's data as provided by the institution in question is usually limited to law enforcement agencies and requires some legal procedures to be accomplished prior to such action (e.g.: court order issued, etc.). This applies to bank account information or medical record. In some cases the data is by definition inaccessible to third parties and should never be revealed; this can include confidential information gathered by attorneys, psychiatrists, psychologists, or priests. One well known result that can seem hard to reconcile is that of a priest hearing a murder confession, but being unable to reveal details to the authorities. However, had it not been for the assumed confidentiality, it is unlikely that the information would have been shared in the first place, and to breach this trust would then discourage others from confiding with priests in the future. So, even if justice was served in that particular case (assuming the confession led to a correct conviction), it would result in fewer people taking part in what is generally considered a beneficial process. This could also be said of a patient sharing information with a psychiatrist, or a client seeking legal advice from a lawyer.

Answer Description

Software as a Service (SaaS) is an internet or cloud based application accessible by consumers or customers. Crucial Exams, Google Search and Twitter are all common examples of SaaS.

Wikipedia

Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as on-demand software, web-based software, or web-hosted software.SaaS is considered to be part of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a service (DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), data center as a service (DCaaS), integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).SaaS apps are typically accessed by users of a web browser (a thin client). SaaS became a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, field service management, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), geographic information systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategies of nearly all enterprise software companies.

Answer Description

Both worms and viruses have the ability to spread themselves and they both have malicious intent. They differ in that a worm is a standalone program while a virus has to attach itself to a host program.

Wikipedia

A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It will use this machine as a host to scan and infect other computers. When these new worm-invaded computers are controlled, the worm will continue to scan and infect other computers using these computers as hosts, and this behaviour will continue. Computer worms use recursive methods to copy themselves without host programs and distribute themselves based on exploiting the advantages of exponential growth, thus controlling and infecting more and more computers in a short time. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, even if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer. Many worms are designed only to spread, and do not attempt to change the systems they pass through. However, as the Morris worm and Mydoom showed, even these "payload-free" worms can cause major disruption by increasing network traffic and other unintended effects.

Answer Description

A good password can be defined in many different ways - however at a minimum it should contain letters, numbers, special characters and be at least 8 characters long.

Wikipedia

Password strength is a measure of the effectiveness of a password against guessing or brute-force attacks. In its usual form, it estimates how many trials an attacker who does not have direct access to the password would need, on average, to guess it correctly. The strength of a password is a function of length, complexity, and unpredictability.Using strong passwords lowers overall risk of a security breach, but strong passwords do not replace the need for other effective security controls. The effectiveness of a password of a given strength is strongly determined by the design and implementation of the authentication factors (knowledge, ownership, inherence). The first factor is the main focus in this article. The rate at which an attacker can submit guessed passwords to the system is a key factor in determining system security. Some systems impose a time-out of several seconds after a small number (e.g. three) of failed password entry attempts. In the absence of other vulnerabilities, such systems can be effectively secured with relatively simple passwords. However, the system must store information about the user's passwords in some form and if that information is stolen, say by breaching system security, the user's passwords can be at risk. In 2019, the United Kingdom's NCSC analysed public databases of breached accounts to see which words, phrases and strings people used. The most popular password on the list was 123456, appearing in more than 23 million passwords. The second-most popular string, 123456789, was not much harder to crack, while the top five