Do You Have A Biometric Backup?

January 3, 2010

My wife uses a notebook computer. She usually has it set up on the dining room table, right in the middle of everything, in an area of the house from which she can “rule the household”, so to speak (in contrast, my computer — and office — are in the basement, which I alternately call [...]

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Website Hacked? This Might Explain It

December 30, 2009

Phishing is "To request confidential information over the Internet under false pretenses in order to fraudulently obtain credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal data.". And according to another blog post I read recently, some phishing emails have been sent out with the goal of getting website owners and webmasters to give up their cPanel [...]

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Where Is That Hyper-Link Taking You?

December 2, 2009

I just read a post in a private Google discussion group from the group’s moderator. He received an email that looked like it was from Google, telling him that there was a problem with his AdSense account. He was instructed to click on the link to correct the problem.
After clicking on the link, he alertly [...]

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Security Professional – Or Security Neanderthal?

November 26, 2009

As a security professional, I often have “insider” information regarding security issues that individuals and entities are experiencing. Quite often the initial reaction by a security pro will be to cut off access to the source of a threat or exploit attempt. Let me explain why this often is NOT a legitimate long-term solution to [...]

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Consider This If You Have Affiliates

November 24, 2009

Nicole Dean, Jimmy D. Brown’s affiliate manager, just sent an email to all of Jimmy’s affiliates regarding the new FTC rules that go into effect next week, on December 1. There’s one sentence that got my attention:
Anyone who doesn’t abide by the rules will have their affiliate account terminated and will be responsible for any [...]

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Why It’s Not A Good Idea To Send Me Spam

November 21, 2009

Somebody just sent spam to an account that I use solely for keeping records of sales. I have never, nor will I ever, give permission to anybody to send marketing stuff to that account.
One person just learned the hard way.
They thought that they would be clever and send it from a Hushmail.com account. Here’s a [...]

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WordPress 2.8.5 Vulnerability – Upgrade Now

November 14, 2009

I don’t normally like doing “timely” posts, but there seems to be some confusion regarding the reason behind the release of WordPress 2.8.6 among some in the online business arena, so I thought I’d take a few moments to explain.
According to Dawid Golunski, the basic problem is that anybody with the right to upload files [...]

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You Say Black Hat – We Say Malware

November 8, 2009

I just came across a post on the Sunbelt Software blog (they are a computer security firm — and a very good one) about somebody who is installing a trojan on user’s computer that changes their start page to CloneCashSystem[dot]com (do NOT visit that site).
Note that security professionals are calling this a trojan, which it [...]

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WordPress – Why I’m Not Using Fantastico For Installs

September 9, 2009

In a recent post (which may or may not be visible when you read this; some posts are scheduled to post automatically at future dates and times, but this is an “immediate” post), I talked about the WordPress Security Scan plugin. Installing and testing this plugin showed me a few things about using Fantastico for [...]

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Another WordPress Footprint To Delete

September 4, 2009

I just discovered another WordPress footprint that gives away which version of WordPress you are running on your blog. Unlike other footprints, this one can’t be corrected via a plug-in or by editing a theme.
Instead, just delete “readme.html” from the root directory of your blog.
If you open that file (which is installed by default), the [...]

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