security

DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC Re-develops PA Industrial Equipment, Inc.’s Website

July 19, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC redesigns and creates a new website for PA Industrial Equipment, Inc.

PA Industrial’s new website emphasizes an improved level of accessibility and internal security as a result of consolidated web hosting services from DaBrian Marketing Group. With the new website, PA Industrial’s team develops online marketing strategies with a degree of transparency that facilitates secure management for the maintenance and growth of the company.

Office Manager, Shelly Arthur gave the following statement: “The team at DaBrian Marketing Group completed our new website weeks earlier than we anticipated. We are pleased to be entering our 40th year of business with one dedicated team managing our website design, hosting and SEO programs.”

PA Industrial Equipment, Inc. specializes in the sale, rental, and repair of forklifts and aerial lifts. PA Industrial serves numerous counties within Southeastern Pennsylvania – including Berks, Philadelphia, Lancaster, Lehigh, and Northampton. PA Industrial stresses its dedication to high-quality service in the selling and repairing of machinery that is vitally important to manufacturers within the region.

Visit PA Industrial Equipment, Inc.’s new website to learn more about their high-quality repair and sales services as well as the most recent work by DaBrian Marketing Group’s team.

Web Security Can Compromise Your Company

March 7, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Why Is Web Security Important?

The more information you have, the more web security is important. It is crucial for your business to have security in place if you have customer’s credits cards on file in a server. If a hacker would get their hands on your customers credit cards, then you business could potentially run the risk of being sued.

Now, granted not many companies keep that kind of information. Most of the information you have on your site are documents of agreements, files made specifically for a client, etc. You wouldn’t feel good if you were the client of another business. Then one day that business got hacked and lost some of your information, and because of them, that information became public knowledge. Not something anyone wants happening.

How Can Web Security Affects Your Company?

A hacker can turn your website against you in minutes, getting your website blocked by common search engines like Google or Yahoo. Once your website is blocked by Google or Yahoo, it is a very long process and sometimes impossible to get it unblocked. A hacker can also send spam emails to all your clients, and potentially leak private client data, all without your knowledge of any of it happening.

Without some good security protecting your company’s website and computers, you could easily find yourself on the 5 o’clock news. There is a laundry list of things you can do to protect your company. Below are some of the basics to help you get started. This should not be the basis of your company’s security, merely a double check that everything is in place to keep you and your business safe.

Tips To Securing Your Website

Keep all software up to date. This may sound trivial, but you would be surprised at how many sites get hacked by an old security hole found long ago that was patched, and simply updating it would have fixed it.
Switch to HTTPS. An easy enough switch. Provides peace of mind to your customers knowing your secure and thanks to Google recently, you would also be increasing in search rankings.
Use strong passwords and change them regularly. This may sound like a simple change to make, but a site is only as strong as it’s weakest link. Making sure all passwords are strong boosts your security.

Tips To Securing Your Computers

Get an antivirus. Make sure you get an antivirus for your computer. It can be free or paid. If you pay for an antivirus, once the subscription runs out it is doing nothing for you. Anyone looking for an antivirus, Kaspersky is a good place to start.
Update your PC. Having all your software up to date will help make sure it is more secure.
Consider using a firewall. A firewall manages all files going to and from your computer. Usually, it notifies you of something that it does not recognize or it knows is malicious.

With these helpful tips, you will be keeping your computer and your website secure. This should not be your only security. Theses tips are only meant to help you get started. We are not responsible if your company gets a virus.

If you have any security questions ask away in the comments below or Contact Us today!

Why Should you Update your CMS?

July 15, 2015 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Before we get started on why we need to keep your website up-to-date, let’s get to the “why” behind why the updates come about. Updates are made generally to fix incompatibility, security, and bug issues. We can’t forget the most known update, when updating adds more features. If you don’t update your Content Management System (CMS), you might be missing out on fixes, new / fixed features, as well as, leaving yourself open to a security risk.

Why Bug Fixes Are Made

Bug fixes are released because there was some vulnerability in the code that was not caught before. It is easy to miss this because a website’s code might be 10,000+ lines of code long. It’s like watching a movie the 2nd time and catching something you missed before. If you don’t update your CMS, you could be leaving yourself open to be hacked. If you hold customer information, then you have a bigger risk of losing all or a vast majority of your clients if you do get hacked.

Dangers To Update Your CMS

I have 10+ updates and I want to update now! — Hold on there, don’t rush and wildly update your CMS without a plan. Updates come with new / fixed features and they might remove some old features, too. When that happens, and you are updating past a few versions, chances are your site will break. If your site is having issues check out one of our past blogs to help fix it.

What To Do Before Updates

Before you update anything, always make a full backup of your site in case it does go down. Depending on the size of your site it might take a few minutes or a few hours. Once that is done, update the CMS core first. It is the most important part of your site. It is your sites engine and needs to be in top condition. If something is going to break, chances are it will be here.

Now that your site’s core is updated, you need to update any plugins/extensions. If you’re updating more than 1 version, something might break which is why you should do the smart thing and schedule the update to you when your site has the least traffic. You usually start on a Friday and if needed, you then have the weekend to fix it. Just make sure your developer is reachable in case something breaks, so they can reprogram it to minimize downtime.

Lastly, the theme updates. These may get messy and often go against the principle. Updating the theme you are using often isn’t a smart thing to do. When the theme is updated, your custom code (if any) will most likely be removed. This forces you to reprogram much of your site. Generally, themes don’t update often, but if yours has one, back everything up first and then do the update. After any update, look over your site to assure nothing is broken. If everything’s good, then you’re all okay! If something broke, then roll it back to your backup, and notify anyone who would possibly update the site to not do that update.

Conclusion

Even if you have 1 update or 10 updates to make, always make sure to backup your site before each one. Remember, updating it can also cause issues to arise on your site, so be sure to schedule it during your site’s lowest traffic time. By doing that, you will prevent 90% of issues and protect yourself from being hacked. If you are interested in starting a wordpress blog site, check out this article.

Have a question about updating your CMS? Fire away in the comments below!

The Heartbleed Vulnerability Aftermath

May 21, 2014 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Recently, a huge security scare plagued the internet. This security vulnerability was coined The Heartbleed Bug, named for its relationship to the heartbeat on a server. The internet was in shock, emails were flying to reset passwords, and experts warned of an ominous outcome.

But what happened?

Before we can understand what exactly happened, we need to understand what The Heartbleed Bug is all about.

What is The Heartbleed Bug?

OpenSSL is an open source library of sorts. It allows for encryption of a connection on the internet. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, and is most easily recognized by the green bar or symbol in the left hand side of your browser’s address bar. It also is identified by the use of https:// a secure form of http://.

What is this vulnerability?

In a vulnerable version, an attacker can use the internet to access memory of a server via an exploited heartbeat. This memory may hold sensitive information. Since a large.

Has it been resolved?

In short, yes. A patch was released. However, in order to no longer be vulnerable, it is imperative that the patch is installed.
At this point in time, most important internet vendors have completed the patch. In addition, hosting providers rolled out their patches for servers.

I do not have a server, is there still something I should do?

Absolutely! Even if you are not in charge of a server, there are several things you can do:

Change all of your passwords, everywhere
Check with vendors to ensure that the patch has been made on their servers
Monitor sensitive information for signs of theft
Monitor accounts for signs of theft
Watch for vulnerabilities in the future

With a little precaution and some password updates, your internet assets can continue to stay safe.

Have more questions about this bug? Let us know in the comments!

Codenomicon. (2014, May 21). The Heartbleed Bug. [Web Log Post]. Retrieved from http://heartbleed.com/