In a cautionary article on Forbes.com. Bill Hardekopf reports that Americans are over-confident about how secure their passwords are. He refers to a study by Avast that finds “Nearly every American consumer (98%) believes they are creating safe passwords, but a recent study shows that only 6% are actually doing so.” It is a fair assumption that Americans aren’t unique and that this is a worldwide problem. Most people use passwords of 8 characters or less and limit the characters to letters and numbers, although using Capital letters, small letters, numbers and special characters... [...]
Archive for the 'Website Security' Category
You never want to have your website hacked. It’s even worse than having your PC hacked. The problem is that some hackers are very clever, and probe any weakness in your defenses in your site that they can find. By the way, WordPress sites are especially vulnerable. When they probe many WordPress sites they find abundant opportunities to penetrate defenses and do their malicious damage. Without taking extra precautions, your WordPress site may have open doors that welcome hackers into your administrative system. Even if they don’t succeed, these attempts to penetrate your site eat up... [...]
We have warned you in the past about the risks of hacking for a WordPress site. The fact that there are millions of sites using WordPress, all of them configured by default the same way, means that when a crook finds his way into one site, he can find his way into almost all. If you want yours to be one of the exceptions, you may need ;Blog Defender 2015, the latest version of Matt Garrett’s protective shield for WordPress, first released in 2012. Garrett reports that since the first release, none of the 2500+ sites it protects has been hacked. That’s a significant improvement, from 75% hacked... [...]
It has been all over the TV news and reported by bloggers and news sites. The hacking onto Home Depot is potentially much bigger, more widespread, and most costly to the merchant, to the credit card companies, to banks (and to their insurance companies) than the Target break-in 8 months ago. This is a major crime event. If you haven’t become familiar with the incident, this story in ComputerWorld is a good, detailed overview of what seems to have happened: Data shows Home Depot breach could be largest ever. This is a cautionary tale for all marketers. If a corporate giant is not able... [...]
When his blog was attacked by hackers, Matt Garrett decided to never let that happen again. So he developed BlogDefender software that keeps hackers away by sending a site into nearly invisible mode. Once BlogDefender is through adjusting your site’s settings, botnets and hackers are thwarted when they try to find the cracks in your WordPress security. The cracks have been sealed. By default, WordPress is very “chatty”. It tells a visitor many details about your installation, details that hackers can use to worm their way into your control center, where they can damage your site... [...]
The latest article on ‘Website Magazine’ is titled “Unlocking the Power of Single-Theme Landing Experiences”. Eileen Burick says, “In most cases, a discussion of landing pages and microsites comes down to their differences: single page versus multi-page, one call-to-action versus multiple calls-to-action, and simplicity versus complexity. However, when you take a step back, they have something critically important in common from a marketing standpoint: They draw on the power of single-theme landing experiences, existing outside the structure of the run-of-the-mill corporate website. A... [...]
The latest article on ‘Website Magazine’ is titled “Is Content Marketing on Your Holiday Wish List?”. Eric McGehearty says, “What would make you merry this holiday season? Figgy pudding? A partridge in a pear tree? Or lots of holiday shoppers buying your goods? If you chose the last option, there’s good news: Content marketing can put your retail business in front of holiday consumers and increase your end-of-year bottom line”. Is Content Marketing on Your Holiday Wish List? Website Magazine [...]
The latest article on ‘Website Magazine’ is titled “12 Most Important Google Webmaster Help Videos from 2013”. Pete Prestipino says, “Google’s Matt Cutts produces numerous videos each year, educating webmasters on what the search engine considers best practice when it comes to search engine optimization. As Website Magazine winds down its coverage of 2013 and search engine optimization related news for the year, we thought we’d take an opportunity to highlight what we believe to be some of the most important Google Webmaster Help videos (featuring Cutts) throughout the year”. 12... [...]
The latest article on ‘Website Magazine’ is titled “Who’s Driving Shopping Traffic for ‘Net Retailers?”. Pete Prestipino says, “Data from RichRelevance’s latest Shopping Insights study, which examined nearly 700 million shopping sessions, reveals the degree to which social channels are impacting ecommerce today and how they are comparing against one another this holiday season. The study indicates that of all social sites, Facebook produces more than three times the number of sessions and 10 times the number of orders than the next most prolific social site, Polyvore.... [...]
The latest article on ‘Website Magazine’ is titled “Cyber Monday Survival Guide”. Allison Howen says, “The busiest shopping weekend of the year has finally arrived, which means that Internet retailers don’t have much time until their websites are flooded with Cyber Monday traffic. Although preparations for this digital holiday should be well underway by now, there is still time for merchants to optimize both their sites and marketing strategies for better performance. So between restocking the virtual shelves and scheduling social posts this weekend, merchants should sit down... [...]