Beat cyber attacks with prudent vigilance

Jonathan Bowers, October 6th 2008, 12:13PM

An article last week about Princeton University research into the sophistication of cyber attacks reminded me just how important it is for online businesses to take their security seriously.

The great strength of the internet is its accessibility but unfortunately the trade off is that this can also be its vulnerability. Providing access to legitimate Web surfers also means potentially providing access to those who would wish to do harm. So it is vitally important for any online business to ensure that they are doing all that they can to protect themselves and their customers from malicious cyber attack.

Most of you reading this blog will probably be thinking that you are totally covered, that you have the right level of protection in place. However, I’m sure that this was what global business giants ING Direct, New York Times and YouTube were thinking as well. According to the research from the Princeton group, all three were found to be vulnerable to attack because of weaknesses in their website coding or configuration.

A common theme to the problems the three websites experienced was data extraction. Cyber attackers were able to obtain important information of visitors to ING Direct, The New York Times and YouTube, which could be later used to obtain further crucial private information.

The realisation that such major organisations can become open to attack is very troubling but by taking the right precautions you can stay ahead of the online criminals.

The first piece of advice in such a situation is always - be proactive. Keep up to date with cyber attack trends and technological developments. Review your security software to ensure it is up-to-date and equipped to deal with new styles of online attack. Old security software is a waste of time.

Second, make sure that access to your website is properly monitored and protected. You obviously have to allow online traffic access through your server portals but procedures can be put in place to block tell-tail unscrupulous originators. Arm yourself with effective zero day protection systems.

Finally, talk to your hosting provider. All good hosting companies have comprehensive security procedures in place to ensure that their clients are fully protected. Make sure that your provider is delivering the protection you need, including appropriate security shields such as Cisco Guard.

It is a constant battle to defend your website from the attacks of online criminals but with proper attention and the right hosting support you can win the fight.

Tags: coding, consumer_confidence, cybercrime, internet, online fraud, phishing, security
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ITV's Grade - me thinks he doth protest too much!

Jonathan Bowers, September 22nd 2008, 4:49PM

Beleaguered ITV boss Michael Grade has referred to online video sites, such as YouTube, as ‘parasites’ to commercial broadcasters. See Brand Republic article .

In an interview at the IBC technology conference, the former Channel 4 and BBC man reportedly said operators such as YouTube, Google and Joost are "parasites” living off the TV shows and content created by the commercial broadcaster. However, he also added that he did not feel threatened by such entities.

The attack and then immediate brush-off smacks of desperation to me. Particularly as it comes from a man who finds himself steering a ship in increasingly troubled waters.

If ITV is not worried about Google then the organisation has its head in the sand. For a start, online advertising is already a bigger market than broadcast advertising. Brands are increasingly finding the internet to be a better shop window than TV and the reduction in ad revenue is at the core of the troubles commercial TV companies like ITV are facing.

As Google seems to be successfully siphoning off much of ITV’s ad revenue, I think Grade should not only be concerned about them but also prepared to learn a few lessons. Furthermore, Grade should actually embrace the positive opportunities that outfits like YouTube represent.

No one is going to watch whole pirated ITV shows on YouTube, however the broadcaster could have enticing two minute ‘taster’ clips available that will actually drive viewers to ITV’s portfolio of broadcast mediums.

With the right attitude, parasitical relationships can become symbiotic ones. In my view, Grade and ITV should be actively seeking YouTube exposure.

Tags: internet, marketing, tv, video, youtube
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No technology recession

Jonathan Bowers, September 19th 2008, 3:02PM

The annual Interbrands survey gives an insight into the fastest growing global brands and shows that the technology and internet focused companies are making the largest gains.

Google has jumped 43% in the last year climbing into the top 10 while the other growing brands flying up the list include Amazon, Apple and Nintendo. Microsoft and IBM are both in the top three with Big Blue controversially nudging Microsoft into third this year.

As businesses look at the ways they can improve their ROI in this time of economic uncertainty the Internet has proved to be the most popular area to still achieve growth. So right from the top down we are seeing online focused enterprises remain on an upward curve.

At UKFast, sales of managed hosting are mirroring this trend. More and more companies are looking to their dedicated server solutions to give them a solid online presence that attracts a level of interest that is simply not evident offline.

It's not surprising then that the hardware companies like HP and Dell are also growing in line with this demand. At UKFast we have noticed that dell in particular have made their solutions much more attractive to those buying on a large scale and this allows hosts to pass on the cost saving, increasing the ROI of the businesses residing on their networks.

Tags: brand, internet
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Lies, damn lies and statistics

Jonathan Bowers, September 15th 2008, 5:42PM

Statistical surveys are interesting not just for the results they show but also for why they show those results. It is often said that stats can be made to support just about any contention depending on the timing, question wording, sample group etc. And I certainly give a lot of credence to such a view.

The UK Government holds to the laughable position of trying to convince us that a crime survey of a cross section of society is a more accurate reflection of crime in the UK than official police figures. No doubt this is because the perceptions of most of those surveyed are favourable to Brown and co. Then there is the SNP holding off on a vote for Scottish independence because they know that right now they would lose. For them timing is everything.

So why am I on about surveys? Well this week a survey from security firm Finjan http://www.safedns.co.uk/news/businesses-now-most-worried-by-cybercrime.html states that online businesses are now more worried about cybercrime leading to data loss than downtime. Don’t get me wrong, cybercrime is a very important issue that we at UKFast take extremely seriously. We use state-of-the-art security and firewall applications to ensure that our clients are totally protected. However, I am surprised that cybercrime would concern online businesses more than downtime.

The potential threat of downtime is at least as serious as cyber attack if online businesses use cheap and unreliable hosting. And downtime can be just as devastating to an internet business as a serious cyber attack. An online business needs to have a reliable online presence. If potential customers cannot access a website they can, and will, go to a rival at the click of their mouse. Then, once they have sampled the online services of the rival, they may never come back.

So we have considered the results, what about why the reasons for them. Firstly, businesses are rightly very concerned about cybercrime and data loss and so many would vote for it as the major concern at any time. However, other crucial factors probably included the spate of recent high profile news stories about UK Government data losses and the fact that the company carrying out the research is an online security specialist.

Online businesses should be serious about protection against cybercrime but they also should be serious about ensuring that downtime doesn’t happen. A dedicated server hosting solution will massively reduce the threat of either problem. For even greater reassurance, a total managed solution offers expert support and monitoring 24/7.

Tags: cybercrime, e-commerce, internet, security, websites
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The benefit of personalised home pages

Jonathan Bowers, August 20th 2008, 5:27PM

One of the biggest advantages of the internet over other media is its ability to offer a flexible, personalised service. Web surfers already have the option to filter the content of a website, choose what email alerts to receive and even save certain website interactions for later referral.

Now, more and more website administrators are offering personalised landing pages to users as the next level to this phenomenon. The most high profile example of this is the BBC which allows visitors to extensively customise their very own home page. They can chose what aspects of the BBC home page appear when they arrive, what orientation it appears in and they can even assign the background colours.

Other sites go a step further. For example the UK version of the NFL website asks for a few personal details so that it can offer a personal greeting to visitors. ‘Welcome Jonny’ certainly feels like personal service. Nfluk.com also allows the user to input their favourite team so that the news section can be refocused from general sport wide news, to news related solely to that team.

The attraction of this strategy to the sports industry is clear. Sports fans have already established allegiances and a website that has the flexibility to cater to these allegiances and effectively ‘decorate’ its home page with the fans’ team colours is certainly at an advantage.

So why are website increasingly going down this personalised route and how easy is it to do?

Personalising allows the users to improve their experience while also saving time. It offers the opportunity for providers to build a closer relationship with users, which is likely to precipitate a longer relationship. All of this equates to more visitors, greater visitor loyalty and a better bottom line.

The best bit is that it is not hard to do. All you need is some asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax). “An Ajax application eliminates the start-stop-start-stop nature of interaction on the web by introducing an intermediary between the user and the server,” says Jess James Garrett of Adaptive Path. The Ajax engine allows the user’s interaction with the application to happen asynchronously — independent of communication with your dedicated server. So Ajax offers the flexibility for the end user to customise their experience.

So there is nothing holding you back. Get closer to your visitors by offering home page personalising.

Tags: e-commerce, internet, marketing
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