Archive for security measures
Little Known Truths about Domain Privacy
Posted by: | CommentsYou’ve finally decided to join the rest of cyberspace and set-up a website to begin your e-Commerce venture. Even though you’ve prepared detailed marketing plans, and a budget analysis to track online inventory, the one thing you neglected to spend some serious time considering is choosing a creative website domain name. In addition, it’s just as important to take proactive security measures to prevent solicitors to track your every online move following the crumbs of your domain name.
Domain Privacy 101
Regardless of how much time you’ve spent coming up with a domain name for your website, chances are that it’s already been snatched by someone else with a similar related business. It’s always a wise decision to jot down several domain names that would be appropriate for your website just in case the preferred options are taken. Fact: First options are rarely available!
Competitors are notorious for purchasing related domain names simply for their own personal gains in hopes of tricking potential customers into thinking that they are actually shopping from your website. So, always be careful of competitors’ ploys just to make a few extra bucks.
Another issue that many newbie’s registering website domains fails to realize is that their personal contact is displayed for the entire cyber world to see when your associated domain contact information that’s connected with the domain account is viewable in the WHOIS database. Remember that domain privacy is a feature that may be added on at the time of sign-up for any domain including: com., net, org., info, biz, etc.
Consider privacy protection as a knight in shining amour for those wishing to keep their WHOIS contact information private from potential identity thieves and cyber hackers. The way it works is that specific details of your domain account are substituted with generic information, preventing your personal contact details from being revealed in the WHOIS public database for solicited purposes.
Personal Domain Security in the Home
In today’s Google-ish world, with just a few mouse clicks it’s virtually possible to knock on someone’s front door across the globe. WHOIS search works much the same way as it generates personal names, physical addresses, and occasionally phone numbers based on personal web domain names. Many individuals are acquiring a private domain registration to prevent annoying telemarketers and other unsolicited material. The same is also true for entrepreneurs working from home.
Private domain registration is typically used in households in lieu of businesses ventures. The greatest advantage of private domain registration is to protect your family’s or home-based business’ identity. After the initial registration process of setting-up the domain name, essential personalized data is replaced with “proxy” domain register information.
Whether protecting your personal assets in the office or at home, domain privacy is a security vital tool to prevent cyber hackers from wrecking havoc on your business affairs!
Locking Your Online Business Using Website Encryption
Posted by: | CommentsFor business owners leaving the doors to their stores wide open without proper security measures in place is no different than online business owners leaving their websites vulnerable to looters and thieves.
If You Build It, They Will Steal
The act of stealing website content is becoming such an issue that it’s now commonly referred to as “website hijacking.” This increasingly sinister phenomenon is most detrimental to e-commerce website and other online business ventures.
As a business owner with an online venture to ensure that your website is protected against outside elements, encryption is the solution. Encryption allows you to “lock up” the essential components of your website that you may not even realize are exposed to cyber thieves.
Typically, there are three main reasons website content is hijacked:
- To harvest e-mail addresses for spam purposes
- To copy design and layout content and code
- To reveal and/or steal payment method links to be circumvented/stolen
Harvesting E-mail Addresses
It’s a global consensus that spam is excruciatingly annoying. It’s even more of a nuisance when spam bots stealthily invade your website with the intentions to seek information, steal e-mail addresses and destroy your company’s reputation simply by storing hijacked e-mailed addresses in a database with malicious intent to flood customers with spam.
While many tech savvy customers are able to distinguish between spam scams and legit e-mail messages; unfortunately, for many others, they unknowingly fall prey to costly scams. Each year millions of dollars are embezzled when cyber criminals steal customers’ credit card information and identities are snatched by manipulative spam e-mails forwarded to e-mail addresses obtained by website hijacking.
Spam is not only an issue for customers, but it’s an even greater headache for business owners. Spam is also responsible for:
- Loss of productivity for your staff;
- Loss of valuable server resources;
- Loss of revenue when important e-mails get lost in the shuffle.
Copying Design and Layout
Setting up your web host account and website requires many resources including time and money. Although it takes days, if not weeks to complete the initial setup, however, you may be surprised to learn that it takes less than five minutes for your website content and source code to be hijacked with just a few simple mouse clicks.
Online entrepreneurs soon discover the answer if they don’t “lock up” the doors to their website’s content. Open HTML source code is easily accessible with a few clicks, and the process of hijacking is as simple as copying, and pasting. Often Java Scripts are installed to thwart potential cyber thieves from lifting code as the scripts block code from being viewed; however it’s only the first step as it doesn’t protect from software based queries.
Pocketing Payment
Not only can a thief steal credit card information from customers; thus tarnishing your reputation, hackers can also alter your source code diverting payments to their own accounts, leaving you a responsibility to provide products or services to your customer without receiving payment. Encryption is a definite necessity in any online business venture, especially when protecting customers’ credit card information
“The Lock”
By using available software tools to encrypt website code prevents information from being hijacked. Encryption is extremely effective against all types of informational breaches, including software queries and spam bots. The idea being, even if thieves access the source, the code will be indecipherable.
Basic HTML encryption tools are readily available online for free. For novices, encrypting may sound complicated, however, it’s relatively quite simple. Once you find an online HTML encryption tool, simply copy your existing code into the tool and it generates a secure encrypted code within minutes.
The Overlooked Connection Between Computer Viruses and Site Security
Posted by: | CommentsMost site owners are very paranoid about the possibility of their site being stolen or hacked, and are therefore insistent on using a web host that utilizes top notch encryption technology and other security measures. For a web host, a single lapse in security can result in the loss of entire networks for days at a time, so the level of security upheld is very high. In fact, there are governmental organization that regulate the security measures used by web hosts and mandate certain levels of security be maintained at all times. All of this makes the web hosting industry pretty safe in regards to fending off hackers. However, most people don’t realize that the security of their own computers hard drive plays an incredibly important role in the security of their web sites and hosting account.
The following information discusses the connection between computer and web site security, while also providing tips on how to ensure the safety of both your computer and your hosting account.
How Hackers Get Passwords
Contrary to popular misconception, hackers do not spend their time trying to compromise the integrity of massive web hosting networks in order to take control of entire servers,. Instead, they use thousands of individuals ‘drone’ computers to complete tasks like this for them. These computers belong to people that have installed the hacker’s malware on their computer. The malware consumes the computers resources for nefarious purposes, essentially creating a networked super computer out of a bunch of hacked computers. Of course, this in turn makes the computer slow in many cases, but not always.
Sometimes the hacker does not want to use your computer for hacking – they actually want your passwords. They obtain them by hiding a keylogger on your computer, which records every keystroke you make, in conjunction with your browser history. This allows the hacker to access your web hosting account, change the account’s email address and completely steal all of your domains overnight.
How to Avoid a Security Breech
The only way to keep the above scenario from happening to you is to keep powerful and proven antivirus software running ion your computer at all times. Since hackers find new ‘exploits’ and develop new malicious software on a daily basis, it is important to make sure your anti-virus software is updated on a routine basis. Fortunately most anti-virus software will perform automatic updates and handle the security of your computer on autopilot. It is also important to note that all anti-virus software are not the same, and most free anti-virus software are not adequate to provide complete protection.
What to Do After You’ve Been Hacked
Luckily, most people recover their domains and web hosting account by calling the hosting company and providing the necessary information, After recovering your information or domain it is imperative to change all of your passwords, potentially reformat your computer, and install an anti-virus software with active protection. Choose a new password that contains plenty of symbols, letter and numbers in order to make it harder for hackers to steal. Change your email addresses and any other basic online communication methods so that the hacker cannot track you down and begin harassing you again out of spite.
Five Simple Website Safety Tips
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle, Microsoft, and The New York Times are just a few of many big names that have suffered notable security breaches in recent times. Hacking has become an industry all its own and there is a lot of money to be made for unscrupulous characters who are good at it. While there is a good chance your website is safe and secure, there is also the possibility that it is vulnerable and open to a wide range of threats. Unfortunately, many new customers have the presumption that just because they have signed up with a well known web hosting firm, they are automatically protected from a security breach. They believe that the host will handle all the security measures while they sit back and simply maintain their website. It is this type of thinking that could make you an easy victim. In fact, your best defense against a security breach involves taking the necessary measures to protect yourself.
A Little Common Sense Goes a Long
While many security software solutions exist, some of the best ways to defend yourself can be summed up to applying common sense. Here are five simple tips to help keep your website safe and secure:
1.) Smart E-commerce – If you plan to sale goods or services through a shopping cart, make sure that the software used is properly figured and secured. If you do not possess this knowledge, bring someone on board who does.
2.) Password Protection – Use secure passwords for all of your website applications that require a login. This goes for everything from your control panel to CMS software. A good rule of thumb is to use a combination of numbers, letters and symbols, in addition to never using something that others can associate with you for a password.
3.) Monitor Your Server Logs – By checking your server logs on a regular basis, you may be able to identify strange or unusual activity. Because knowing what to look for can be difficult, many software solutions exist that will do the job for you. These programs analyze your log files and automatically send alerts if strange behavior is detected.
4.) Update Your Web Applications - An outdated web application is one of the most vulnerable points of a website. Hackers are constantly working on new ways to compromise security so if your applications are not up to date, you could be exploited. Also keep in mind that most updates consist of critical upgrades that address known security issues.
5.) Backup Your Website – Because no website is ever 100% secure, it would be wise to frequently backup your site and all the files its contains. Don’t overlook this. Not only do hackers target websites, but entire web servers. If the server your site resides on is compromised, you could possibly lose everything you worked so hard to build. Regular backups give you the assurance that your website data can be restored should a disaster occur. Be sure to keep a copy of your backup in a location other than your hard drive just in case ill fate happens to strike your computer.