Securing Your Website

With ongoing security threats, maintaining a website has become more of a laborious task than ever before. Gone are the days where you could just put up a site and be done with it. Today, if you are not actively monitoring your site, you could be susceptible to malicious threats such as DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) and brute-force attacks.

DDOS attacks attempt to overwhelm a site by producing fake hits from multiple locations. With enough hits, the server may exceed its maximum connections to the database causing the site to stop responding. Brute-force attacks try to guess passwords by attempting to log in using every possible combination of numbers and digits. The latter is often unsuccessful due to the large number of possible combinations that would have to be tried but it becomes significantly easier if the intruder knows something about the user. For example, names of family members, pets, birthdays, hobbies, etc.

Both types of threats can be thwarted with firewall and special software like cPHulk. cPHulk prevents brute-force attacks by denying access to a site after a password is incorrectly specified a certain number of times. The downside of using such software is that it is not uncommon for an individual to be locked out of their own site if they accidentally leave cap locks on or forget the password. Firewall software can also be used to prevent malicious IP addresses or IP address ranges from accessing a site and overwhelming system resources. Knowing when to use each is a skill and delicate balancing act that must be learned today in order to survive in an ever more hostile world.

“Free Shipping” Claims Put to the Test

With ever increasing competition, offers of “free shipping“ are often used to lure in customers. When scrutinized, sometimes these offers actually cost the consumer more. One trick online retailers in particular use is advertising “free shipping” but neglecting to mention handling charges until checkout. One would also expect that the better known retailers would always be cheaper but often this does not prove to be the case. Some well known retailers tag the price of shipping onto the merchandise itself to make it appear as if you are not paying an extra charge for delivery. Others will fail to mention that “free shipping” does not include inside delivery.

A favorite strategy some office superstores employ is to change the item codes. By using their own item numbers, price comparisons become significantly harder if not impossible. Respectable stores like OfficeSalesUSA.com, a service of Haskell New York Inc., prefer a more straight forward approach using the standard MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) to identify items. This may not always work to their advantage but being upfront with customers is a hallmark of a well thought out operation.