"Are You Prepared for Net Attacks?"
It appears that too many Internet users are unaware of the hazards online. A recent survey by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and AOL found a large discrepancy between how safe users believe they are how safe they actually are. The study reveled that the majority of online users think they are safe from viruses (77%) and safe from hackers (73%). However, when technical experts examined these same users computers, they found practically all of them were exposed to web threats. Most lacked proper anti-virus software and two thirds lacked a firewall. Plus, not surprisingly, 80% of the respondents had spyware and/or adware programs installed. Yikes!
Upon reading these findings, I thought it imperative to issue a warning to you! Especially, since more and more frequently I receive emails from subscribers asking me to resend information because a virus/worm/trojan or some type of malware wiped out data on their computer. As a small business owner, your personal computer is your lifeline to your business. It must be protected. You need to be able to surf the net safely and review your email without fear of it catching a disease. If you think I am being overly dramatic in my concern, keep the following in mind. Having viruses, adware and/or spyware on your computers will cause problems. While it might just be the annoyance of sluggish processing or an altered homepages it can be much worse. Malware can steal personal data, hijack control over your computer or even make it non-functional. In fact, the government is beginning to take steps to stop the growing problem of viruses, adware and spyware. On October 6, 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2929, the "Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act" (the "SPY ACT"). On September 28, 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Bill No. 1436, the "Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act". And the FTC, on October 12, 2004, took action for the first time against a spyware dealer. Interestingly, the case is against Sanford Wallace and his companies Seismic Entertainment Productions, Inc. and Smartbot.net. You may or may not know that Sanford Wallace, was labeled the "spam king" back in the 90s and was sued out of operation. It appears he's back with a new scheme. He runs a spyware operation that hijacks computers, secretly changes their settings, barrages them with pop-up ads, and installs adware and other software programs that spy on consumers' Web surfing. Then he sells software to fix the problems his spyware just caused. (Not a particularly ethical tactic.) The FTC hopes this case, as well as others they expect to bring, will address the growing problem spyware is causing ecommerce. At a spyware workshop the FTC held in April, Dell reported that 10% to 12% of its tech-support calls stem from spyware complaints or problems. Similarly, Microsoft reported that 50% of Windows crashes are caused by spyware. In reality, however, you can not wait for the government to stamp out the virus, spyware and adware problem. If you haven't done so already, you need to take steps to protect your system. So what do you need to do?
1) Consider using a router.
A router will act as a hardware firewall and make your computer relatively invisible to the outside Internet. If hackers can't easily see you, you're less likely to be attacked.
2) Use a software firewall.
A software firewall will allow you to monitor and control what applications access the Internet from your computer. You will be able to spot and stop anything suspicious from using your computer. A good frëë software firewall is ZoneAlarm - http://www.zonelabs.com .
3) Install and update your anti-virus software.
As a small business owner you have lots of email coming into your computer. Many of these emails contain viruses or worse. And, while you may nëvër open any attachments delivered with your email, that's not enough protection. With HTML email, viruses can be embedded in the HTML and just viewing the message can lead to problems. Further, because of viruses being embedded in HTML, even surfing the web, can cause your computer to contract a virus. You need anti-virus software. If you acquired software 2 years ago, it's no longer going to be effective. New viruses, trojans and worms are constantly being let loose on the Internet. As a result your anti-virus software has to be updated regularly. Some frëë anti-virus softwares you can evaluate are:
1. Antivir http://www.free-av.com/
2. avast! 4 Home Edition http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
3. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1/
Before you download an antivirus I'd recommend reviewing a comparison of good antivirus softwares to help you select the one right for your machine. A couple of sites with comparatives are http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asphttp://www.av-comparatives.org/
Counter act spyware and adware.
One of the main roads spyware and adware take into your system is through your browser. In particular Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is loaded with vulnerable spots through which malware can invade your system. One step you can take is to switch browsers. WebSideStory just reported that the Mozilla Suite, Netscape and Firefox have increased their share of the browser marketplace by 3.5% since June because of the problems with Microsoft's IE. If you're interested in trying another browser, you might try out Firefox by Mozilla. It can be downloaded for free at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/. If you want to stick with Microsoft's IE, then be sure to download and regularly run on your system checks for Spyware and Adware. Two well respected anti-spyware programs which can be freely downloaded are:
1) Ad-aware from Lavasoft http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
2) Spybot-S&D http://www.spybot.info
Both of these programs work like anti-virus software, they'll scan and remove a wide variety of intrusive or dangerous spyware programs. As each finds different spyware, I encourage you to use both. Once you've taken steps to secure your personal computer, next you should evaluate the set-up and security of your ecommerce presence. Yes, your web site is in danger too! In the most recent Symantec "Internet Security Threat Report," a number of scary statistics were highlighted. Their study from January 1, 2004, to June 30, 2004 found that attacks on small ecommerce businesses are on the rise. They reported that 16% of the security attacks were targeted at ecommerce organizations, up from just 4% in the previous 6 months. Plus 10% of the attacks were specifically targeted at small businesses rather than bigger companies. The increase in attacks on smaller players, shows that hackers are looking for financial gain by going after what they perceive as more vulnerable targets. Smaller businessestypically have less robust security so data can be stolen more readily. Further smaller businesses are more vulnerable to blackmail, as many depend entirely on their Internet presence for revenue. After reading this disturbing news, I also learned of an attack earlier this fall which severely hurt small businesses. Wired News reported that Authorize.net was targeted with a denial of service, or DDoS, attack in September. Authorize.Net is one of the Internet's best-known, most widely used crëdit card processing services, whose customer base is mostly smaller merchants. The result of the attacks were that thousands of small business merchants lost monëy. As a small business you need take note of this rising attack trend. Take steps to review your Internet security and disaster plan. First, as I've discussed make your personal computer secure. Next, evaluate your web site's security. Review your host's and provider's security measures. You'll want to chëck to make sure that the physical location of your host's servers are secure. You'll want to confirm that your host makes back-ups of the data you're placing on their system. And you should read through their security policy. If you're unable to find this information about your host, contact them (a quick email will do), and ask them about their security measures. In addition to your host having back-ups, you want to make certain you have back-ups of all important data. Store this data on a disk. On the disk have copies of your web pages, your customer data, your email lists, your scripts, etc.. Should your host ever loose your data or go down for an extended period, you will be able put up your site elsewhere without difficulty. You'll only be able to accomplish this business saving step, however, if you have complete back-ups. You also want to safeguard your login information to your host. Do not give out your password or grant others access to your host without thoroughly knowing them. Lastly you may want to consider redundancy. What would you do if one of your providers has a problem? For instance what would you have done if you used Authorize.net to process your orders? If you use PayPal to process payments, they too experienced technical problem for several days in mid-October. Merchants couldn't collect payments as needed during the down time. Only those ecommerce sites, with multiple payment options would have been able to reduce the damage. If you only use PayPal on your site, you might want to set-up with a crëdit card processor like Authorize.net. Or if you use Authorize.net, you might also want to offer PayPal as a second option. Whatever payment processor you do use, consider offering another option. It's unlikely both providers will have problems simultaneously. Similarly, if you can not afford to have your ecommerce presence out for any length of time you may want to have 2 different hosts. Having the same site, housed under 2 different domains at 2 different hosts gives you options. Should one host go down you can refer customers to your other site. Plus, you'll have the ability to update your domain to point to the other site during the emergency. Take time to think through your disaster plan and your businesses' security so you can prepare. Small online businesses are being targeted, so you need to take action. Don't wait until tragedy strikes.
Upon reading these findings, I thought it imperative to issue a warning to you! Especially, since more and more frequently I receive emails from subscribers asking me to resend information because a virus/worm/trojan or some type of malware wiped out data on their computer. As a small business owner, your personal computer is your lifeline to your business. It must be protected. You need to be able to surf the net safely and review your email without fear of it catching a disease. If you think I am being overly dramatic in my concern, keep the following in mind. Having viruses, adware and/or spyware on your computers will cause problems. While it might just be the annoyance of sluggish processing or an altered homepages it can be much worse. Malware can steal personal data, hijack control over your computer or even make it non-functional. In fact, the government is beginning to take steps to stop the growing problem of viruses, adware and spyware. On October 6, 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2929, the "Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act" (the "SPY ACT"). On September 28, 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Bill No. 1436, the "Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act". And the FTC, on October 12, 2004, took action for the first time against a spyware dealer. Interestingly, the case is against Sanford Wallace and his companies Seismic Entertainment Productions, Inc. and Smartbot.net. You may or may not know that Sanford Wallace, was labeled the "spam king" back in the 90s and was sued out of operation. It appears he's back with a new scheme. He runs a spyware operation that hijacks computers, secretly changes their settings, barrages them with pop-up ads, and installs adware and other software programs that spy on consumers' Web surfing. Then he sells software to fix the problems his spyware just caused. (Not a particularly ethical tactic.) The FTC hopes this case, as well as others they expect to bring, will address the growing problem spyware is causing ecommerce. At a spyware workshop the FTC held in April, Dell reported that 10% to 12% of its tech-support calls stem from spyware complaints or problems. Similarly, Microsoft reported that 50% of Windows crashes are caused by spyware. In reality, however, you can not wait for the government to stamp out the virus, spyware and adware problem. If you haven't done so already, you need to take steps to protect your system. So what do you need to do?
1) Consider using a router.
A router will act as a hardware firewall and make your computer relatively invisible to the outside Internet. If hackers can't easily see you, you're less likely to be attacked.
2) Use a software firewall.
A software firewall will allow you to monitor and control what applications access the Internet from your computer. You will be able to spot and stop anything suspicious from using your computer. A good frëë software firewall is ZoneAlarm - http://www.zonelabs.com .
3) Install and update your anti-virus software.
As a small business owner you have lots of email coming into your computer. Many of these emails contain viruses or worse. And, while you may nëvër open any attachments delivered with your email, that's not enough protection. With HTML email, viruses can be embedded in the HTML and just viewing the message can lead to problems. Further, because of viruses being embedded in HTML, even surfing the web, can cause your computer to contract a virus. You need anti-virus software. If you acquired software 2 years ago, it's no longer going to be effective. New viruses, trojans and worms are constantly being let loose on the Internet. As a result your anti-virus software has to be updated regularly. Some frëë anti-virus softwares you can evaluate are:
1. Antivir http://www.free-av.com/
2. avast! 4 Home Edition http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
3. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1/
Before you download an antivirus I'd recommend reviewing a comparison of good antivirus softwares to help you select the one right for your machine. A couple of sites with comparatives are http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asphttp://www.av-comparatives.org/
Counter act spyware and adware.
One of the main roads spyware and adware take into your system is through your browser. In particular Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is loaded with vulnerable spots through which malware can invade your system. One step you can take is to switch browsers. WebSideStory just reported that the Mozilla Suite, Netscape and Firefox have increased their share of the browser marketplace by 3.5% since June because of the problems with Microsoft's IE. If you're interested in trying another browser, you might try out Firefox by Mozilla. It can be downloaded for free at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/. If you want to stick with Microsoft's IE, then be sure to download and regularly run on your system checks for Spyware and Adware. Two well respected anti-spyware programs which can be freely downloaded are:
1) Ad-aware from Lavasoft http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
2) Spybot-S&D http://www.spybot.info
Both of these programs work like anti-virus software, they'll scan and remove a wide variety of intrusive or dangerous spyware programs. As each finds different spyware, I encourage you to use both. Once you've taken steps to secure your personal computer, next you should evaluate the set-up and security of your ecommerce presence. Yes, your web site is in danger too! In the most recent Symantec "Internet Security Threat Report," a number of scary statistics were highlighted. Their study from January 1, 2004, to June 30, 2004 found that attacks on small ecommerce businesses are on the rise. They reported that 16% of the security attacks were targeted at ecommerce organizations, up from just 4% in the previous 6 months. Plus 10% of the attacks were specifically targeted at small businesses rather than bigger companies. The increase in attacks on smaller players, shows that hackers are looking for financial gain by going after what they perceive as more vulnerable targets. Smaller businessestypically have less robust security so data can be stolen more readily. Further smaller businesses are more vulnerable to blackmail, as many depend entirely on their Internet presence for revenue. After reading this disturbing news, I also learned of an attack earlier this fall which severely hurt small businesses. Wired News reported that Authorize.net was targeted with a denial of service, or DDoS, attack in September. Authorize.Net is one of the Internet's best-known, most widely used crëdit card processing services, whose customer base is mostly smaller merchants. The result of the attacks were that thousands of small business merchants lost monëy. As a small business you need take note of this rising attack trend. Take steps to review your Internet security and disaster plan. First, as I've discussed make your personal computer secure. Next, evaluate your web site's security. Review your host's and provider's security measures. You'll want to chëck to make sure that the physical location of your host's servers are secure. You'll want to confirm that your host makes back-ups of the data you're placing on their system. And you should read through their security policy. If you're unable to find this information about your host, contact them (a quick email will do), and ask them about their security measures. In addition to your host having back-ups, you want to make certain you have back-ups of all important data. Store this data on a disk. On the disk have copies of your web pages, your customer data, your email lists, your scripts, etc.. Should your host ever loose your data or go down for an extended period, you will be able put up your site elsewhere without difficulty. You'll only be able to accomplish this business saving step, however, if you have complete back-ups. You also want to safeguard your login information to your host. Do not give out your password or grant others access to your host without thoroughly knowing them. Lastly you may want to consider redundancy. What would you do if one of your providers has a problem? For instance what would you have done if you used Authorize.net to process your orders? If you use PayPal to process payments, they too experienced technical problem for several days in mid-October. Merchants couldn't collect payments as needed during the down time. Only those ecommerce sites, with multiple payment options would have been able to reduce the damage. If you only use PayPal on your site, you might want to set-up with a crëdit card processor like Authorize.net. Or if you use Authorize.net, you might also want to offer PayPal as a second option. Whatever payment processor you do use, consider offering another option. It's unlikely both providers will have problems simultaneously. Similarly, if you can not afford to have your ecommerce presence out for any length of time you may want to have 2 different hosts. Having the same site, housed under 2 different domains at 2 different hosts gives you options. Should one host go down you can refer customers to your other site. Plus, you'll have the ability to update your domain to point to the other site during the emergency. Take time to think through your disaster plan and your businesses' security so you can prepare. Small online businesses are being targeted, so you need to take action. Don't wait until tragedy strikes.
posted by Begawan Bestari at 7:35 AM
2 Comments:
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