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Posts Tagged ‘security’

Grow Your Business With These Web Tools

Friday, August 19th, 2022

One way to plan for your financial future is to ensure that your business can grow. After all, you have to make money to plan your future wealth strategy. Technology is just one way to make growth possible, and the following suggested tools from Ojambo can help.

IT security

At the top of our list is IT security. Specifically, having a recovery plan drafted and ready for when and if your site becomes compromised. A smart IT security data protection and recovery solution begins by knowing the types of threats you might face. These include DDOS attacks, malware, and viruses. There are many more, so it pays to be acquainted with potential digital disasters. As for your recovery plan, it begins by having at least three backups of your data. You will also need a written time objective, priorities list, and list of people involved in recovery.

Business scalability through outsourcing

The best problem your company can have is more demand than you can currently meet. If you find yourself in such a situation, one solution you can turn to is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to help you and your team keep up. BPO companies are both highly adaptable and highly skilled, so if you’re looking for BPO companies to outsource various tasks to, you can find several agencies listed on staffing websites. Each company is listed with their specializations and minimum job requirements to help you find the right fit for your needs.

Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management is a digital tool that allows you to keep better tabs on your professional and personal relationships with your customers. Your CRM should work with all of your tech, including your ERP. By collecting valuable insight into your customers, you can better serve them during all points of contact. Business tech blogger Adam Enfroy recommends several products, including Salesforce.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization is the process of making your website more visible to both search engines and people. It’s a technical and complicated process that involves understanding consumer behavior, keywords, and site transactions. Your SEO endeavors are also heavily linked to location-based technology within your website, such as your listings on Yellow Pages and Google my business.

Social media management

Your website and social media should be linked and visible to one another, and your social media should work to drive traffic to your site. Using a social media management platform helps you manage your entire social media presence from a central dashboard. Most social media managers use these tools, which include programs like Sprout Social and Loomly.

Workflow management

Workflow management systems are online tools that utilize cloud-based technology. Many workflow management tools utilize the kanban visual scheduling system to easily showcase who is working on a project and where it is in the company pipeline.

Cloud storage

The cloud can also be used to store your valuable data or to run your website. According to VMWare, a cloud server can be either public or private, and these are typically accessed through a VPN or other portal requiring login credentials. Utilizing cloud storage and web hosting means that employees from all over the world can help you grow your business through the internet. Cloud technology also makes it possible to do away with a brick-and-mortar environment, which can reduce overhead.

Connected e-commerce

Finally, and just as important as all of the above, your website should offer consumers a seamless buying experience. Not only should your customers be able to buy from your website utilizing a variety of payment methods, but their purchases should also be routed through your CRM and other systems so that your inventory, invoicing, and shipping processes are initiated automatically.

We are in the digital era, and that is unlikely to ever end. If you want your business to grow with your future financial aspirations, you have to keep up. The above tools can help, but don’t be afraid to change your digital growth plan as the market demands.

References

Tags: CRM, Scaling, security, SEO
Posted in Business | No Comments »

Two-Factor Authentication Is Not Secure Or Private

Thursday, July 21st, 2022

How Two-Factor Authentication Works

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) works by sending alphanumeric characters to an email address or mobile phone. During the login process after entering correct username and password, the send code is expected to be input in order to complete the login process.

Email Two-Factor Authentication Issues:

If your login credentials are compromised, the hacker will already have the email address which also commonly used as the username.
Most platforms show or ask for the email address to be entered before sending the 2FA code. A hacker can then send phishing emails or spam emails to the email address.
Email 2FA is not a secure method of communication because the messages are encrypted.

A better option would be to secure the platform by never sending passwords over email and never having third party scripts especially trackers on the login page.

Voice Call Two-Factor Authentication Issues:

This method assumes that a user has a phone and wants to receive phone calls from unknown numbers.
Relying on a phone call means a user needs to add their phone number to the platform which motivates a hacker to sell the phone number to scrupulous actors.
The user will have to pay for unnecessary long distance charges.
Voice Call 2FA is not a secure method of communication because the messages are encrypted. Also the phone voice call can be heard by other people nearby.
Assumes that a user has full unfettered access to the phone or phone line, which might be on temporary loan or compromised such as an abusive relationship both at work and home.
Assumes that a user will have reliable phone service. In Canada, telecommunications provider Rogers Communications had a major outage on 2022-07-08 affecting individuals and businesses.

A better option would be selecting a random question that only the user can answer. The online bank Tangerine has used the random question method since at least 2009.

Text Message Two-Factor Authentication Issues:

Same issues as voice call 2FA in that it assumes a user has a phone with a text message plan.
Means that a user is not allowed to travel as they will have to pay roaming charges.
A compromised platform will allow hackers to have access to users phone numbers and send spam text messages.
When the phone service is down or unavailable in remote rural areas, the user will not be able to login. Also the phone text message can be seen by other people nearby, especially with modern notifications.
Spammers and scammers can mimic the simply text messages and redirect users to malicious sites.

A better option would be asking a suspicious question that only the user can answer. Tracking the location of a user is a privacy issue and does not improve security.

CAPTCHA Authentication Issues:

One way to separate humans and bots is with the Turing test for machine intelligence. CAPTCHA tests typically use images, a check-box or simple math calculation. Modern versions implement a timer and click algorithm to verify that the user is a human.
Users dislike CAPTCHA methods because they are repetitive and impersonal due to the random generated images. There is no need to keep showing CAPTCHA methods if a user just logged off.
CAPTCHA will not work when a user disables JavaScript or a web browser is not compatible
Web browser cache can prevent CAPTCHA from loading.
CAPTCHA will not work when some countries and IT departments ban IP addresses or ban popular third-party services

A better option would be to use a honey pot or wait for human behaviour such as a click.

Better Security With Privacy Without Annoying Users:

Two or Three-Step login process where the user clicks something to bring up a generated login form.
The user clicks a button to bring up the password form separately from the username.
The user clicks can act as a CAPTCHA method using a honey pot such as a hidden check-box or another input form.
The contact us form of both Ojambo.com and OjamboServices.com implement a tweaked hidden honey pot and never receive spam.
No tracking on the login screen to prevent hackers from stealing credentials.

Sites that really care about user security should not compromise on privacy. Two-Factor Authentication should not be though of as a secure method because it utilizes two of the most insecure methods of communication. Email, phone voice call and phone text message are not secure as they are unencrypted methods of communication.

References

Tags: 2FA, Authentication, Privacy, security
Posted in Business | No Comments »

Grow Your Business With These Essential Website Strategies

Friday, June 3rd, 2022

Building a website is much easier to do these days than it used to be, but it still takes some careful thought and a lot of planning to ensure that it’s done right. Not only that, it’s essential to make sure your business site includes everything you need to grow while remaining productive and efficient. It should work with all your internal tools in order to optimize those processes, and it should also have resources in place to protect your information and customer data. If you need help creating a professional website that includes all of these aspects, utilize the web design and app development services available at Ojambo.com. Here are a few key aspects your business website needs to include:

Security

When your website is secure, you’ll have peace of mind that your most sensitive data is safe, but how do you eliminate cyber security threats? For starters, you’ll want to use anti-virus and malware protection, but you should also train your employees well on how to spot scams and other security issues, as well as how to keep passwords safe. It’s also a good idea to have a plan in place in case there is a data breach; this will help you resume your daily operations quickly and prevent a loss in revenue. An effective plan will allow you to figure out which applications need to be recovered first while establishing a timeline, as well as determining which individuals should be involved in the recovery efforts.

Make sure you can be found

Once your website is secure, it’s essential to make sure your customers and potential customers can find it. The key is to ensure that your site is favored by search engines, which means creating the right content–including different mediums such as text, videos, and images–and making it accessible for all abilities as well as SEO-friendly. Search engine optimization may sound like a complicated term, but it’s essentially just a way to get noticed by utilizing the right keywords. If you’re unsure of where to start, consider using the Google keyword planner tool.

Use all the tools at your disposal

When you’ve found your customer base, it’s important to learn all you can about their behavior and decisions in order to better cater to their needs, predict buying patterns, and grow your business. One essential tool you can use is process mining, which uses data analytics to show you how to increase sales, minimize risk, and look for new opportunities. It can also help you eliminate processes that are no longer efficient so you can save time and money. To get started, think about which data sources you can use, determine key stakeholders, and create a timeline.

Integrate systems for more efficiency

When it comes to making your website more efficient, few tools are better than CRM and ERP, and you can actually integrate them for maximum benefits. Customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning are processes created with software that allows business owners to nail down the details concerning customer service, purchase info, and contact information as well as the workflows that are involved in daily operations. When brought together, these tools will allow you to see customer information and things like inventory or shipping data at the same time, which provides a much more efficient way to manage your processes.

Ensuring that your business’s website is maximized can take some time, so do a little research on the different tools you can use and how to utilize their potential. It might also be helpful to take a look at what your competitors are doing so you can stand out from the crowd.

Ready to get started with the professional services offered at Ojambo? Get in touch today to find out more.References:

Tags: Analytics, security, SEO, web design
Posted in Business | No Comments »