I know a business that had their website hacked, their entire customer database hijacked, and thousands of customer credit card numbers stolen at the same time.
In the following months, the hackers did their best to steal as much as they could from this business through a number of “phishing” scams and direct email campaigns to their customers posing as the business.
After many months of heartache, expense, and lost sleep, this company was able to clean up the mess and the hackers moved on to greener pastures.
What’s the lesson for all of us?
Whether you operate a multi-million dollar e-commerce empire, or generate part-time income with a small eBay or ebook enterprise, the following tips will help you fraud- proof your online business before it’s too late!
~ Protect Your Passwords ~ Never share passwords for sensitive applications such as web hosting, email, PayPal, bank accounts or anything else with anyone.
If you must share hosting passwords with web designers or programmers, change the password immediately after they complete work.
Change all your sensitive passwords on a monthly basis.
~ Use Proven Service Providers ~ Custom programming is great until someone figures out how to hack an unproven system.
Using credit card and shopping cart providers like ClickBank, 1ShoppingCart, Authorize.net, and PayPal greatly reduce the chances that your sensitive data will get hacked and stolen online.
~ Shred Everything ~ A good, cross-cut shredder rates just about the best investment you can make in online security.
Before throwing anything away, shred it!
The shredding list includes bank statements, check stubs, lists of names and emails, printed emails, and anything else that can lead someone back to you, a customer, an account, or where you go or what you do online.
~ Fight The “Clone Wars” ~ Keep an eye out for illegal copies of your website posing as you or your business.
If you find someone posing as you online, the easiest way to shut them down is a direct frontal assault.
Contact their hosting company, their credit card processor, and their domain name registrar about the illegal activity.
Threaten to sue them (the provider) if the illegal activity does not cease immediately.
~ Troll eBay ~ Regularly check eBay for people selling bootleg copies of your products.
Set up automated searches to email you any time a listing gets placed with your name, product name or any reference similar to your product.
Sign up with eBay’s Vero program to get the offenders shut down immediately with a simple email from you.
~ What Mom Always Told You… ~ “Never talk to strangers!”
That means NEVER give ANY information to anyone via phone or email, especially if they call you! Oh, guess what?
Your bank, hosting provider, email service, ISP, and PayPal already know your username and PIN#… they don’t need to call or email you to ask you to confirm it.
~ Additional Tips ~ Never leave your physical mail (incoming or outgoing) in your mailbox overnight.
Don’t share any sensitive information with anyone who doesn’t need to know it.
Be careful of any shareware you download and use because it can contain spyware and even viruses intended to steal critical information.
Use common sense and never think you’re invulnerable to an attack that could derail your business with one little misstep.
Copyright 2006 Jim Edwards
“Finally! A Quick and Easy Way For YOU to Painlessly Set Up Your OWN Moneymaking ‘Mini’ Websites… Without Being a Computer Geek, Buying Expensive Software, or Paying Outrageous Fees To A Webmaster!” Click Here => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com
The Worm_Grew.A Virus Got Allot Of Attention
—————————-
The 3rd has come and gone. What has been the real effect or impact of the “WORM_GREW.A (Also know as Nyxem, BlackMal, MyWife, and so on)” virus? For weeks there has been tons of warnings, in the news, print, e-zines, you name the forum and it has been a discussion topic. Current information indicates that the WORM_GREW.A virus has not caused mass destruction as promised or suspected. I’m sure some of those 600,000 or so suspected infected computers were impacted, but who really knows at this point.
Viruses Can Impact You In Various Ways
————————–
There is one thing I do know however; Even if the BlackMal virus has not done as much physical damage as predicted, it has done a good deal of indirect damage. Think about how much time corporate technical people have spent preparing for the possibilities, making sure their enterprise anti-virus solution is functioning properly, the time devoted to discussing and planning for disaster recovery in the event a direct impact is realized. What about all the home and small business people stressed about the doom looming over their computers head in the form of a “possible” destructive and wide spread infection.
How Do You Know If Your Business Is Protected Against Viruses
————————————————–
A business associate of mine recently worked on a project in which he performed a complete infrastructure upgrade for a document / information heavy business. During the upgrade, he found that the anti-virus solution they were using was not functioning properly, had not updated its virus signatures for eight months, and on top of this, their very expensive tape backup solution had not been working for about as long. The customer kept changing the tapes, but they were blank. Just imagine what would have happened if they had not had this upgrade done, and an effective anti-virus and tape backup solution put back in place. If they had contracted this virus it could have not only shut them down for a period of time, it very well may have cost them huge financial losses or worse.
Virus Threat, Hype, or Somewhere in Between
—————————-
Do I think this particular virus scare is a product of a real threat, fueled by hype, or a dud? Quite frankly I think it has been a little of all three. The threat was / is definitely real, the hype was all over the media and other information outlets, and as far as being a dud, if you analyze it using the equation threat+hype= impact, maybe.
I think what really has set this virus apart from recent malware / threats, is its destructive capabilities. Many malware developers have moved away from creating destructive worms and viruses in favor of creating cash generating malware. There’s no money in it for them if they just blow up your system.
Conclusion
———-
It’s quite interesting, the parallel between how we deal with threats and risks in our personal lives, and that of the technology world. Many of us only prepare for a negative or damaging event shortly before the event takes place. That is if we have been warned with time to prepare. The bottom line is we can never let our guard down. Consistency, persistence, awareness, and preparedness need to be in the forefront of our minds.
You may reprint or publish this article free of charge as long as the bylines are included.
Original URL (The Web version of the article)
————
http://www.defendingthenet.com/newsletters/Worm_Grew.A-Threat-Hype-Or-Dud.htm
About The Author
—————-
Darren Miller is an Information Security Consultant with over seventeen years experience. He has written many technology & security articles, some of which have been published in nationally circulated magazines & periodicals. If you would like to contact Darren you can e-mail him at Darren.Miller@defendingthenet.com. If you would like to know more about computer security please visit us at www.defendingthenet.com.
Remote alarm systems: At the heart of these kind of home alarm systems are the control units. These units are used for a predetermined monitor- the monitoring units however are found in diverse configurations though. The high-end members of the remote alarm systems typically connect to some sort of central station or responder (could be police or hospital or fire brigade). These systems are typically connected to the central responder via a direct phone wire or tamper-resistant fiber optic cable.
Technically speaking, the alarm monitoring of the remote alarm systems includes much more than sensors- the communication wire is also part of the deal. Few years ago, the use of direct phone circuits were heavily very common (with the help of phone companies). But their high cost has cut their popularity. Rather, the industry is moving towards direct connections, as they are common in Federal, State, and Local Government buildings, or on school campuses with dedicated security systems.
Today, there is also a heavy trend towards digital telephone dialer unit. These units dial a central station or some other location through the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Thus the alarm is raised with a synthesized voice or through an encoded message string that is decoded by the central station.
