Cyber Monday has become a highly anticipated event, drawing millions of shoppers eager to snag great deals online. However, the convenience of shopping from your couch also comes with risks, such as scams, fraud, and cyberattacks. To ensure a safe and enjoyable shopping experience, follow these essential Cyber Monday shopping safety tips.

1. Stick to Reputable Retailers

When hunting for deals, only shop from trusted and well-known retailers. Avoid clicking on random advertisements or links from unfamiliar sources. If you’re tempted by a deal from a lesser-known retailer, research the company first by checking reviews and ratings.

2. Verify Website Security

Before entering personal or payment information, ensure the website is secure. Look for:

• A padlock icon in the address bar.
• “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP” at the beginning of the URL.
  These indicate that the site uses encryption to protect your data.

3. Avoid Public Wi-Fi for Transactions

Using public Wi-Fi networks can expose your personal information to hackers. If you must shop while on the go, use a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt your connection.

4. Use Strong, Unique Passwords

If you’re creating accounts on new shopping websites, use strong and unique passwords. Consider using a password manager to keep track of your credentials securely.

5. Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Many retailers offer two-factor authentication for added security. With 2FA, even if someone gets your password, they can’t access your account without the second verification step, such as a code sent to your phone.

6. Be Cautious of Phishing Scams

Cybercriminals often send fake emails or messages pretending to be from legitimate retailers. Be wary of unsolicited emails with deals that seem “too good to be true.” Always type the retailer’s URL directly into your browser rather than clicking on links in emails.

7. Monitor Your Bank and Credit Card Statements

Regularly check your bank and credit card statements for unauthorized transactions. If you spot any, report them immediately. Using a credit card for online purchases is generally safer than using a debit card, as credit cards offer better fraud protection.

8. Be Mindful of Fake Apps

Only download shopping apps from official app stores, such as Google Play or the Apple App Store. Fake apps can steal your personal and financial information.

9. Set Spending Alerts

Many banks and credit card companies allow you to set spending alerts. These notifications can help you track your purchases and quickly spot any suspicious activity.

10. Avoid Oversharing Personal Information

Legitimate retailers won’t ask for excessive personal information, such as your Social Security number. Be wary of any site requesting more details than necessary to complete your purchase.

11. Keep Your Software Updated

Ensure your devices, browsers, and security software are up to date. Updates often include patches for vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.

12. Trust Your Instincts

If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Trust your instincts and avoid suspicious websites, deals, or requests for personal information.

By following these Cyber Monday shopping safety tips, you can enjoy the thrill of finding great deals without falling victim to cybercrime. Happy shopping—and stay safe online!

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Please beware of SEO/Link building billing scam that is going around to some of our clients, and possibly others. It appears that there is a company billing some of our clients for services they aren’t receiving.

The problem is that the company name looks somewhat similar to ours, and if you aren’t paying close attention, you could accidentally end up paying this false company. If receive this SEO/Link building billing scam and question what the bill is for, you could wonder why you are paying for two services. You are NOT. They are not providing you with any service.

We’ve attached a sample of the bill or invoice here so you can see what it looks like in case you get one as well.

Webtivity Marketing & Design doesn’t want you to fall victim to a scam. You work too hard for your money, and in times like these there are so many people out there just trying to take advantage of you.

Please be aware of mail, email, and faxes coming in to your business. Keep track of auto payments. And most importantly, don’t click on anything that looks or feels suspicious. If you do have a question, just ask us, it doesn’t hurt to be safe! Thank you to our customers for bringing these fraudulent bills to our attention. We hope it saves someone from paying something they shouldn’t be paying!

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We’ve all seen them, in fact I saw one yesterday. !!!!!! Do not accept friend request from XXXXXX XXXXX she’s a hacker!!!!! But is it true? What will really happen if you accept a friend request from someone you don’t know? They will have access to your personal information (which you shouldn’t allow anyway), but if someone tells you a Facebook friend request is a hacker, does thaty really mean they will hack your computer and all of your Facebook friends’ computers? Let’s find out.

What’s mentioned above is actually a hoax and it has been running around Facebook for quite a bit of time. And while it is true that there are people out there copying profile images and names, posing as an individual, in effect creating a duplicate account, going through and requesting all of your friends again, they aren’t hackers.

Snopes provides several examples of what this hoax look like below:

• Do not {read / open / respond to / join}
• an {e-mail / text message / friend request / }
• Sent by {real name / e-mail address / screen name}!
• If you do, {you / your computer / your Facebook account / everyone on your contact list / your children}
• Will be in danger of falling victim to a {serial killer / computer virus / hacker / predator}.

These messages are circulated around and around with names swapped out randomly. And with names you would know, making you more likely to believe the hoax.

One of the most widely used hoaxes is to not accept friend requests from hackers named Christopher XXXXXX and Jessica XXXXX or they will somehow figure out your computer’s ID and address.

If you open a message that contains a link, NEVER click on it. This goes for anything, a message, an email message, even if it isn’t coming from a hoax like this. Always go to the source. Links can contain a virus which can infect your computer, and can gain access to bank accounts and so much more.

There was another hoax involving all the major internet email players like Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and others. Microsoft and Norton sent users an email warning them they might receive an email titled “Mail Server Report”. Advising them that when they opened it, they would get a disturbing message stating that “It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.” Users would lose everything in their computer. They were asked to pass it on immediately.

Subsequently there were different variations of this in Italy, West Africa, and again in the United States.

The bottom line is that this will continue, these are hoaxes, they’re scare tactics. Don’t spread the fire. Don’t open anything suspicious, and especially, don’t click on any links!

The post Fact vs Fiction: Facebook Friend Request Is A Hacker appeared first on Webtivity Marketing & Design News.

Adobe Flash had a great run. It was the most popular way to insert animations, games, videos, and other rich features into a website for a significant part of the Internet’s existence. For a substantial amount of time, it was the only option website creators had to create a dynamic, visually pleasing website. However, that time has passed. Adobe Flash is bad for not only websites but business. So what brought us here? What are the causes of Flash’s fall from grace? Webtivity Marketing & Design will delve into the myriad of reasons why Flash is bad for business.

Adobe Flash’s Background

The now deprecated Adobe Flash produced rich media internet applications such as mobile games, mobile applications, animations, audio, and even video applications. The main difference between Flash and its predecessors was the ability of the user to interact with the animations. Website visitors could click, type, and manipulate the Flash window creating an amalgam of results that drew users into the website. That level of interactivity was previously unknown to the World Wide Web that led it to be one of the most popular applications to include in a website.

Why Flash is Bad for Business

Flash has been on the decline for years now. Alternatives such as HTML5, WebGL, and Web Assembly have been the go-to methods for animating content for going on a decade now. Major browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer have not been loading Flash applications automatically for years! It is known for causing an innumerable amount of security flaws that place users at risk of being taken advantage of by unscrupulous websites. Search engines now penalize you for having flash applications, mobile devices can now barely load it, and most mobile devices have done away with it completely. Flash is now outdated to the point where Google Chrome will now no longer load it starting in 2020 regardless of user preference.

Flash is Bad for Business, But Now What?

It’s time to update your website if you still have Flash applications on it. You are losing rankings against your competitors in search engines by the minute. You’re losing business from users who visit your website and run into the error you see below. Would you do business with a business whose website presents you that error? Most importantly, are you going to go through all of those actions just to see the rest of the website?

The Bad Flash Solution

An updated website does NOT have to break the bank. Thanks to Webtivity’s revamped website design packages, you can now have the best of both worlds: a brand new website, at an affordable price.

Reach out to Tim at (941) 753-7574 or send us a quick message for a swift rundown of your options.

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Webtivity Designs recommends that ALL webmasters or site owners upgrade their websites with an SSL certificate.

An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the server using SSL technology.

SSL is essential for protecting your website, even if it doesn’t handle sensitive information like credit cards. It provides privacy, critical security and data integrity for both your websites and your users’ personal information.

This increased protection has not gone unnoticed by search engines. Starting in 2015 Google has slowly but surely increased the importance of having an SSL certificate to its search rankings. We fully expect the rest of the big three, Yahoo and Bing, to follow Google’s lead.

This is outlined on the Google Webmaster Blog.

This is a rare but incredible break in normal Google practices of never commenting on search ranking factors. They did not stop there with their pursuit of a more secure user experience. Recently the Google Chrome browser began showing a “Not Secure” warning on any webpage without an SSL that collects user data.

Where can you get an SSL Certificate? Webtivity currently offers SSL Certificates as well as installation and maintenance for a nominal fee. Certificates must be renewed every year to remain valid. We can provide a free estimate on the cost of the whole process.

If you do not go through us GoDaddy also offers SSL Certificates. Please note however that they do not offer installation or renewal services, just a certificate.

A key requirement of an SSL Certificate is a dedicated IP. This means a website has its own IP address. Typing in the URL of the website or its IP address would bring you to the same website. This has the added benefit of speeding up the loading time of your website further positively influencing SEO rankings.

Webtivity is here to guide you through this process regardless of which provider you use. We highly recommend that ALL of our clients upgrade their websites to this security level. This goes double for current SEO clients.

Please feel free to send any questions or concerns our way via email or phone call at: (941) 753-7574

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Since “The Snappening” happened last week and tens of thousands of photos and videos leaked onto the internet several people have asked my opinion about it.  During conversations some have said things like, “Don’t take naked pictures of yourself and send them to people if you don’t want them going public!”  Others have exclaimed, “We entrust these companies with our stuff, they should be sued out of existence when this happens!”  No matter which side of the issue you come down on there are larger discussions we should be having about technology and the perceived safety of our information.

Your Information Is Not Safe
Before going any further, understand this truth: Your information is never completely safe once it hits the internet.  Emails, banking information, credit card information, healthcare information, family photos, nude photos.  None of it.  Hopefully that isn’t a revelation?  Any information you send or share over the internet has a chance of being seen by someone you didn’t intend to see it.  Sometimes things you don’t think are being stored are being saved by web browsers, search engines, Internet Service Providers, mobile devices, and the applications you use.

Corporate and Industry Responsibility
Somehow it seems the public forgets that technology is subject to all the same human paradigms as any other product or service we use.  There are people who develop apps who make mistakes.  People maintaining hosting infrastructure who simply aren’t very good at their job.  People responsible for penetration testing who are distracted because of strained relationships with their significant others.  People who work as Chief Technology Officers at major corporations who are lazy.  Corporate decision-makers who determine it’s “cheaper” to keep older, vulnerable technical infrastructure rather than invest in newer and better technologies.  People in other positions of importance who do wrong on purpose for whatever reason.  Unfortunately on top of all these possible failure points are arguments and power struggles in our industry over best practice standards.  Also factor in that newer technologies are often adopted in their infancy without significant testing.   And in the midst of all that criminals are waiting for the perfect storm of human conditions to come together and provide a golden opportunity to score big. 

Who knows how many of the possible failure points listed above contributed to The Snappening, the Target breach, Home Depot breach, Dairy Queen breach, Jimmy Johns breach…  but hackers have been sending a crystal clear message there are gaping holes in our systems.  So what steps are we taking to put better systems in place?  To insure better quality control?  To test newer technologies before introducing them to the mainstream ecosystem?  We know that costs money.  Are companies willing to make the investments?  Are consumers willing to bear some of that cost that will inevitably trickle down to us?  Only if consumers get concerned, involved and demand it will meaningful change happen.  We could hope that Washington would get their shit together and begin passing meaningful legislation in this area, but the unfortunate truth is that our federal government is typically years behind the technology curve, and of course highly susceptible to lobbying efforts.

Education and Personal Responsibility
It’s not in my place to make moral judgements here about people sending naked pictures of themselves, and that’s not the purpose of this article.  I do however believe just as it is an app developer’s responsibility to use best practices, thoroughly test their products, and clearly communicate best practice security measures to their users (not bury them in the T’s and C’s), it is also the responsibility of users to become educated and responsible technology consumers.  Most people should be aware by now you should have anti-virus software installed on your devices, and you should use strong passwords.  But yet there are so many people out there who don’t!  If you don’t use anti-virus and you’re still using passwords like “password”, then I have a hard time feeling sorry for you if someone breaks into your computer or cloud storage account and steals your stuff.  For the cost of a week’s worth of latte’s at your favorite coffee shop you can have a trusted anti-virus program on your computer.  For a fraction of that you can also buy a password keeper program to help you generate and store secure passwords for every website you use.  These programs are crucial to practicing safe surfing habits online, and they are not expensive.  What you decide to send and share from there is up to you, just understand the risks involved.

Risk Versus Reward
No matter how many best practices you and the services you use follow, there are still failure points in all the technologies we use.  As with anything else in our lives we need to weigh the risks versus the rewards, do our best to educate ourselves, try not to make bad decisions, and then hold on tight!  In my opinion the benefits of the internet and technology far outweigh the risks when developed and used responsibly by all parties involved.  Unfortunately right now WWW is still the Wild Wild West, and it’s going to keep getting uglier until everyone involved commits to a safer, more secure web.  How we achieve that is the real discussion we should be having.

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