Saturday, February 7, 2015

Hacked!

          Despite having Norton anti-virus protection, Building Superintendent John McLean’s office computer was hacked sometime during the last weeks in January.  Ransomware infected the machine. Cyber criminals captured all the files and encrypted them making them impossible to read. The bad guys were demanding $450 to be paid in internet bitcoins to unencrypt the files and return them to readable condition. Of course, there was no guarantee the criminals would honor the bargain after we paid, because – criminals!  Luckily a board member happened to have a copy of John’s most important file, so PT opted not to pay the ransom or deal with the *&%#  crooks. 

This incident serves as a reminder of how sophisticated and devious these cyber miscreants are and how careful and vigilant we all must be.  With the help of Scott Miyazaki of local computer repair company Geeky Clean PC, John’s entire computer hard drive was cleaned and the vital programs re-installed. We are happy to report everything's up and running once again. 

Ironically, the same day Scott discovered our particular virus, NBC Nightly News featured a story about the newest in cyber crimes -  "Ransomware."  Pacific Tower, always on the cutting edge!   

Oh Baby!

Former Board member Thayne Yungman and his wife Tara Jones are the proud parents of a baby girl, Elizabeth “Ellie” Jean Yungman, born January 30. Thayne and Tara no longer live in PT, but Thayne owns the Land’s End Gallery on the corner of Cass and Loring. Besides making custom frames, the gallery also has many cute gift items, perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Friday, February 6, 2015

New Employee

Pacific Tower is sorry to report that our weekend janitorial helper Forrest Graham has moved away. After putting an ad to replace him on CraigsList, we received 150 replies in 10 hours – many seemed qualified. It's certainly a symptom of our economy that so may good workers are available.

We took down the ad and selected the 12 best. John McLean narrowed the choice to 6 and interviewed the top contenders. We are happy to announce our new weekend and part-time employee is a college student, Gerardo Gutierrez, who prefers to be called Gerry. Please make him welcome.