Tag Archives: security

Switching Your Website Development Team Without Risk

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Switching Your Website Development Team Without Risk

A business owner is often faced with the dilemma of deciding whether changing his / her Software Vendor or Development Team will boost the efficiency and progress of the website thereby improving productivity of the business. Many of us have had to take the decision to axe the existing service provider and hire a new team due to various reasons which were causing a hindrance to progress. This article explains how you can easily switch your software service provider, without causing any friction or widening scope for harassment in future.

Make it Quick

The crux about making the switch is to do it with speed, without allowing time for the old team or provider to brood over the matter and make matters sour. Dealing with a hostile provider may also delay the process and strain future relations, which maybe necessary in ensuring that the software transition happens smoothly. You should be ready with a detailed list on what exactly you want from your old vendor and also draft a timeline outlining how you want to go about the transition. This must be placed before the old vendor and discussed with his firm or team to ensure that they have understood the plan.

Pre-Planning and Study

Before the old provider is approached about the switch, make sure that your new vendor has understood the system and is capable and ready to take on the task of servicing your existing system. Many a times you may realize later that even your new developers are as unsuitable to manage your website, just like the old ones were. Allow your new team to study the website and all the bells and whistles with it, so that there is no scope fora shabby job in future.

Knowledge Handover

Software developers often incorporate work-arounds, patches, beta versions, test software and leave bits of code undocumented and often forgotten. These may lead to anxiety for the next team that takes it on and also be a cause for confusion. When diagnosing a compromise or security issue, you will be left perplexed at the test code that was forgotten about. It’s best that both the team’s sit face to face and crease out any difficulties that they maybe having.

Documentation

Documentation of the entire website and software is something which should be present at every stage and hopefully the prior documentation which was made, will come in handy for the new team to understand the intricacies of the software and intention of the previous software team. The entire website with sitemap must be well-documented with exhaustive number of screenshots and adequate number of examples to illustrate the functionality.

Keep them parallel

Before you discontinue the services of the old team that you are switching from, ensure that the new team needs nothing more from them and is not dependent on their knowledge or information to continue servicing your website. This may mean paying extra for the old team to continue their support and may also mean putting up with the delays and whims of the old vendor.

 

Using a secured connection to transfer files through FTP

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This article explains how you can create an encrypted secure connection to our server, to upload or download files using the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

This option works only with the default cPanel Username and Password.

It does NOT work for sub-accounts created in the FTP User Accounts section of cpanel (username with an @domain.com) To encrypt a connection made by a sub-account, you can refer to out article on FTPeS (FTP over Explicit TLS)

SFTP File Transfer

SFTP:// Secure File Transfer Protocol to encrypt your FTP connection

FileZilla:

SFTP through FileZilla

  1. Open FileZilla
  2. In the Host: field type in
    yourdomainname.com
    or type in
    sftp://yourdomainname.com
  3. In the Username field type in the full cPanel Username
  4. In the Password field type in the cPanel Password.
  5. In the Port field type in 22 (or leave blank if you have typed sftp:// in the domain name above)
  6. Click on the Connect button
  7. You should now see the welcome message and be connected through SFTP.
  8. You can verify this by clicking on the Lock icon at the bottom of the FileZilla window.

SFTP Certificate

 

 

Why are SSL Certificates becoming more popular?

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If you are planning on launching your online business or have an online business already in place, there is the need to ensure that your online website or business is safe and also gains maximum respect from all clients. Well, there are so many reasons why SSL certificates are becoming very popular and one of them has to do with the fact that, they make an online business look very professional and gives clients the impression that, the online business is very safe to do business with or to transact business on. For many years, businesses that claim to be professionals have fell because; other businesses considered safety to be a very important part of being in the online business world.

With so many bad things happening today online, it is only normal that various customers have the aim of working with businesses who can assure their safety even as they offer them with quality. Benefiting from the growth of technology, your business website needs to be very safe and look as well as feel presentable. This is the only way you can attract as many customers as needed and maintain or keep existing customers.

When your website has an SSL certificate, the person who is viewing your website is able to have the assurance and also know that, your website is very safe. Today, there are so many SSL certificates available or present on many web pages. It is true you might not have considered it to be important. However; whenever a client sees an SSL certificate on your website, you should know that he or she will want to do business with you. Apart from having the SSL certificate on the website, there are other signs that make it very clear to customers who know what is new in the world of technology to feel safe with your website. When the padlock figure or symbol or the http prefix with your website name has an “s” in the form of “https”, you can always be assured that your SSL certification is authentic.

Being a business (online), there is no way you should take SSL certification for granted. This is because; many websites are been created to educate people on what SSL certificates stand for and why it is important for online consumers to do business with only companies that have such protection. This means, if your website does not have a SSL certificate or certification to back its services, there is no way you can have people coming to your online business. This is because; there is no client who will trust your business if you are not SSL certified. With so many credit card thefts and important information of clients and businesses being stolen, there is no way a reasonable and well meaning business owner will not want to be secured and also make sure his or her clients are secured. Buying an SSL certificate does not cost so much. This means, buying it will only benefit you.

Making a Privacy Policy for your eCommerce website

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Running an eCommerce website is one of the most challenging online businesses ever. There are so many reasons that make this so. eCommerce businesses mostly have to deal with the selling of various products and items from brands all over the world. This is why they have the highest chances of having to deal with online thefts as well as break ins. Well, with so many fraudulent activities going on, it has only become very normal for people to trust less even eCommerce websites. This is why many customers are starting to check for details on all online eCommerce websites before they go ahead to do business with them.

Yes, no one wants to be a victim to a credit card fraud or theft. This is why customers of eCommerce stores make sure they take seriously the security and also privacy policies the website offers them before they shop from there with their cards. Every customer today wants a business he or she can trust and also an eCommerce website that will offer only the very best services and nothing else. There are so many ways to make sure your online business has so much to offer your customers and to make every customer re-assured in their safety, you will need to publish and also connect your privacy policies from your website especially where the Help part or section of the business is concerned.

These policies should definitely include your privacy policy for one, your return policy as well as shipping policies. Your privacy policy should state categorically what your website considers important and also, the measures the website puts in place to make sure all transactions of clients are safe and not in view of public. Also, it should be able to give clients details of the security certifications you have like the SSL certification which is not only safe but one of the best to protect your business from any damaging mishaps today. When such details are listed and made known in privacy policies, clients feel very safe to buy or shop from your eCommerce website.

There should also be return policies made available on the same page. There are times when products bought from your eCommerce store gives users some problems and sometimes do not even work upon reaching customers. This makes it very difficult for clients to make good use of these products which is why; every eCommerce store needs to have a return policy. So long as the fault was not from the customer, there needs to be a policy that assures the customer he or she will have a replacement and also other assurances. Then finally, there should be shipping policies too. These policies will mostly cover the shipping processes of the eCommerce website’s products and services and various rates as well as policies that it is governed by. All privacy policies should have the very best policies stated in them. This is what attracts clients to the website and gives them the confidence to buy or do business with the site.

Tips to ensure your website’s security.

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Why should you have a secure website?

A secure website helps you to:

  1. Gain and maintain the trust of the users.
  2. Prevent online theft of your information or resources.
  3. To prevent your website from spyware and adware programs, viruses, and other attacks with malicious intent.
  4. To prevent hackers to easily take control of your website.

How can you secure your website?

  1. Regularly update the versions of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and other scripts on your site. Update your antivirus, FTP Client Software and Website Updation Tools, since they are the simplest entry points into your website.
  2. Select long and alphanumeric characters as your passwords and use different ones for your banking info, email, your cPanel, and your FTP accounts. This increases the time required to crack them, from a few months, to a few years.
  3. Change your default passwords and update your old passwords regularly.
  4. Always keep a backup of the entire data of your website files as it can help you restoring your website in case of a problem.
  5. Remove all unwanted files and folders from the public_html directory. We noticed that 90% of hack attacks happen through files which the website owners had forgotten to delete from their account after testing and backups.
  6. Avoid using free unsupported scripts and programs. Just because you liked a certain menu on another website, putting it on your own site can have major repurcussions, since the code you are using is not known to you.
  7. Use CAPTCHA on all your forms.


What is Phishing?

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Phishing is a fraudulent attempt, usually made through email, to steal your
personal information. The best way to protect yourself from phishing is to learn
how to recognise a phishing site.

Prevent Phishing:

  1. Phishing sites often try to scare you into submitting your username and password. A real site will never force you or scare you into doing anything in a hurry.
  2. While URL’s look correct in an email, phishing sites often use false URL’s. Be sure to check the address bar of your Web browser. Eg: “http://[email protected]” instead of “https://www.bizycash.com”
  3. If you look closely, you may spot misspellings that indicate the site is fraudulent. Eg: Instead of “Information”- “Infomation” is written.
  4. When you visit a secure page, the beginning of the URL in your Web browser changes from http:// to https://.
  5. You should see a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) lock icon in the address bar for a real site.
  6. The green address bar is a perfect way to identify the genuine Web site.