Cyber Security Awareness Week

National Cyber Security Awareness Week 2010 ends tomorrow (6-11 June, 2010). No matter when you are reading this it is well worth visiting the official Australian Government website at www.staysmartonline.gov.au for lots of easy to understand tips and information for home users, business, teachers, teens, kids and more.

National Cyber Awareness Week 2010

National Cyber Security Awareness Week 2010

Hide the Email Addresses

For anyone who has ever received an email that has either been sent to multiples of people or forwarded from many before getting to you, you’ll understand what I mean.

Hide the email addresses of your recipients!

This is how alot of email addresses end up on SPAMMERS (senders of unsolicited emails, like the Viagra ones) hit-lists. There’s also the possibility that if even just one person of those you e-mailed gets an e-mail virus, every person on that list is at risk of getting it. E-mail viruses check for ALL addresses that person has in his/her e-mail.

So the best way to send an email to many recipients is to send it using the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) option. It is available in 99.9% of email programs/clients and website-based email.

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Top 10 Security Tips

  1. Develop a ‘culture of security’
  2. Install and use protective software – anti-virus/anti-spyware
  3. Install a firewall to stop unauthorised access to your computer
  4. Protect yourself from harmful emails – be cautious about opening from unknown
  5. Minimise SPAM (unwanted emails) – use a SPAM filter
  6. Back up regularly – allows easy recovery of website or data in the event of a disaster
  7. Develop a system for secure passwords (i.e. - don’t use the same one for all)
  8. Keep software up-to-date by using the latest version
  9. Make sure online banking or any site requesting sensitive information is secure (https://)
  10. Develop, document and maintain a security policy

For more information on how Web One Design Studio can develop a security policy for your business or workplace contact us today.

What’s in a Name?

A Domain Name, or URL (Uniform Resource Locator), is the unique address that allows your website to be found on the Web. You can also attach email accounts to your domain and the amount of accounts is only limted by the specifications of the hosting package provided by your Web Host.

In Australia domain names are administered by AUDA (Australian Domain Names Administrator) whose main role is to mange the use of .com.au domains for “fair and legitimate use”.

When you register a domain name you only have the right to use it, you don’t own it. This means AUDA has the right to revoke your registration if you haven’t complied with the rules of Australian Domain Registrations.

And this is a good thing. Imagine you have a business name and want the matching domain name but someone has already registered it before you. And the registrant doesn’t have a business that suits the domain name but rather is “Cyber Squatting” it in hope that he or she will be able to sell it at a high price to someone who wants it for legitimate use.

You have the ability to appeal the current registrants rights to the domain and AUDA can revoke the registration, meaning you still possibly can register it.

To find out more about AUDA and domain registrations in Australia go to www.auda.org.au

Green Web Hosting

Green Web Hosting

Green Web Hosting

Web One Design Studio is conscious of the fact that all of the Computer/IT equipment used to make and host websites requires a lot of energy to run.

It is estimated that at present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes to running data centres.

That is why we are committed to using green alternatives where we can in an effort to reduce our carbon-footprint.

At Web One Design Studio we offer a truly “green” web hosting service for all of the websites we host.

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Season’s Greetings

Season's Greetings from Web One Design Studio

Season's Greetings from Web One Design Studio

 

Web One Design Studio would like to take the opportunity to wish you all the best for the Festive Season and a safe and prosperous New Year.

Virgin Airlines Replaces Laptops

We recently spoke to a Web One client who had their laptop broken in transit when flying on a Virgin Airlines flight. Virgin had quickly agreed to replace the laptop and made the whole process relatively simple for him.

We immediately began to reminisce about the United Airlines saga and how the viral hit on YouTube, “United Breaks Guitars” became an instant hit and did damage to both the airline’s image and their bottom-line (it has been estimated to have cost United $180 million with the stock price plunging 10%).

For those who don’t know the story goes; “Dave Carrol (an aspiring US singer/song-writer) flew United Airlines in the Spring of 2008 with his band. His guitar ended up broken at the hand of employees, and the airline offered no compensation. After almost 12 months of trying to resolve the issue with United and getting no-where, he responded by creating a music video about the experience. Now, United Airlines is feeling the back-lash of public journalism, the social web network, and the millions of airline travellers who can identify with his experience.”

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Backing Up

Anybody who has ever lost any work done on the computer due to a crash (or any other reason) will understand the importance of backing up.

Just imagine you’ve had your laptop for 2 years. You’ve done all of your accounts, proposals, research documents and alot of other valuable work on it, and have saved it all on the hard drive. Now, just imagine your despair when the hard drive fails, or worse, the laptop is stolen and you’ve never done a backup.

It would almost be the end of the world. So as we say at Web One Design Studio; Backup, Backup, Backup!!

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FREE Laptops!!

Free Sony Ericsson Laptop Hoax

Free Sony Ericsson Laptop Hoax

You may have already received a copy of the email hoax that promises a FREE Ericsson Laptop for simply forwarding the email to your friends.

This is a hoax that has been circulated over the Internet for many years. Sony Ericsson don’t give away laptops (it’s not how they make their money). And the model numbers mentioned in the email are actually that of discontinued mobile phones (as this hoax originated as a FREE mobile phone giveaway).

And to top it off there is a new version of this hoax email that now claims you can get a free Sony Vaio laptop by forwarding the email to 20 people.

The idea is to cause congestion to mail servers with all of the extra emails flying around and to waste people’s time in sending it.

Small things amuse small minds!

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Business Email Addresses

As any Internet user is aware, email is one of the most prominent forms of contact in today’s world. The average office worker would probably send more emails in a day than make phone calls.

And one the most common and problematic issues that comes with email addresses for business is using the “free” email accounts provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

For example: ISP1 include 5 email accounts with the provision of Internet services such as an ADSL (or broadband) account. Business A subscribes to the ISP1 service and sets up the 5 accounts for staff members to use and the main email contact address for the business.

The first point to be aware of is that this does not send a professional message (or image) about the online business to Business A’s customers but what happens if Business A, who has been using and promoting these email addresses for years, decides to change ISP (for whatever reason)?

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