September 2019 - Tech Treak

How Fraud is Evolving and The Critical Role of Third-Party Security Solutions

The last two decades have been revolutionary to the world of businesses. More and more physical stores continue shifting to e-commerce as the multi-billion sector expands year-over-year. These days you can find nearly any product or services online via the internet or simply through your mobile app.

But criminals have been watching closely and evolving with businesses as they transform digitally. Because everything went online and the marketplace is lucrative, fraudsters work the midnight shift to take advantage of unsuspecting retailers and shoppers.

Therefore, businesses must keep up because cybercriminals are after a higher price. If you think the risk lies with hacks made with stolen credit card info, then you don’t know the real weight of the matter. Fraudsters are partnering to form large syndicates and designing automated malware that can compromise an entire company’s systems.

If you are going to survive digital fraud such as bots and card testing, then you must focus on machine learning and data science. Such attacks occur in the early stages of the transaction process. They also have comparable features such as the stages when they happen in the transaction process, the speed, and their overall impact.

Evolution of Defense Systems

As fraud gets more sophisticated, businesses must put up stronger defenses and response systems to ensure timely alerts and recovery in the event of an attack. In the past, organizations depended on internal defenses to protect themselves in the initial steps of the transaction process leaving third-party defenses as supplementary defenses for later stages.

While internal defenses are critical to any business, most firms hesitated to add a layer of security from third-party vendors. Not because the business didn’t need such protection, but the concern was more on the cost of partnering with a third-party vendor. Many firms saw partnering with an external service as an added operational expense that was difficult to maintain.

Yet these third-party vendors play a critical role in initial stages of the transaction process such as ID verification on multiple transactions and quicker response times to detect attacks and reduce their potential dangers.

Business Should Leverage Transaction Risk Solutions

Transaction Risk solutions are data science tools built to allow a seamless integration into transaction systems.

These third-party solutions have extrapolative identity verification capabilities to help e-commerce merchants fight transaction fraud. They also boost the efficiency of the ID validation process without compromising on speed.

The best solutions, like the Transaction Risk API, protect against identity fraud through email, IP addresses, phone, name, and home/business addresses.

Closing Up

Only businesses that learn to eliminate fraud in all stages of the transaction process will stay safe from fraudsters of the digital era.

Leverage digital technology to improve your identity verification process and protect your bottom line.

Author Bio: Electronic payments expert Blair Thomas is the co-founder of high-risk payment processing company eMerchantBroker. He’s just as passionate about connecting businesses with chargeback insurance providers as he is with traveling and spending time with his dog Cooper.

How Companies Can Avoid Running into Technology Issues

The different ways in which companies deal with technology and the issues that crop up will result in different outcomes. When a business fails to perform backups, it is at risk of losing its internal network and data to a hacker. Even when nothing bad has happened yet, the possibility is still there. Your company is on the line if you fail to act before a problem occurs.

In this article, we cover the essential moves you need to make to avoid running into technical issues as a business owner.

Data Management and Backups for Peace of Mind

Where companies focus on their technology needs, they reduce the number of potential problems that can happen. While technology isn’t the panacea for every issue, failing to protect against the downsides with its use definitely could be costly.

Staying organized by using data management software to perform backups of the network and data storage protects from a business interruption. Anything from a power surge to a power cut to the hacking of the network could cause data corruption or loss. Whether you are using Windows, Mac, or Linux networks, using professional data management software such as P5 Backup or P5 Archie from Archiware is ideal when you need to back up data for small workgroups. This type of software can make use of LTO tape storage, migrate data, or work with cloud storage too.

Update Software to Continually Secure It

The software that’s used in the business is only as good as its updates. When newer versions are released that plug security holes, then updating quickly is essential to avoid a bug from allowing intruders to gain access to the company’s network.

The main areas to be concerned about are as follows:

Desktop and Server Software

Patches for network operating systems such as a Windows Update and Linux Kernel updates are vital to patch buggy code. Along with closing security holes, updates often include small incremental improvements to built-in or add-on features which are useful too.

Enterprise and desktop software used by the IT team or other employees also needs regular updates to the latest version. For example, this doesn’t mean updating to the new version 2.0 release, but it does require updating to the latest 1.x version that handles security holes.

Mobile Software

Mobile users that connect to the intranet need to update their mobile OS (Android, iOS, etc.) to the latest version. Apps can also become vulnerable if not updated too.

Website Software

While most hosts will update their server software, a company using WordPress, Magento or another content management system must ensure they update it regularly, including their core code, add-ons or plugins that extend functionality.

Test Systems Against Threats

Along with running network security software, it’s important to test existing systems for threats. Only by making controlled attempts to get into the network can its security actually be verified. It also provides indicators where security is lacking and requires improvement. If the IT personnel aren’t able to perform these tests, use an IT security firm that can do so.

By paying attention to the important details covered in this article, it’s possible to protect your business from potential threats before they happen. This allows your staff to focus on serving your customers.

Cross-Platform Software: How are They Beneficial

Cross-platform software is a sort of software application that services multiple operating systems or tools, which are often referred to as systems. A platform indicates an operating system such as Windows, Android, iPhone, or macOS. When a software program application services greater than one platform, the user can utilize the software application on a larger selection of devices and computer systems.

The advantage of cross-platform software application

The advantage of a cross-platform app developed by a reputed IT company, such as https://www.velvetech.com/, is that the very same program, whether you get whether you’re visiting from your laptop, mobile phone or Windows, it can be used. The Microsoft Workplace collection of applications, that includes Word, Excel, as well as PowerPoint, can be easily used on Windows, iPhone (iPhone/iPad), macOS, and Android while you will find a lot of differences based on exactly how the platforms function, you’ll have a similar experience within the application in between all of your devices.

Having a similar experience across any type of platform means there’s a much smaller sized learning contour if one even exists in all, so you’ll be more effective and be able to use the software you recognize with no matter the operating system or device you pick. In addition, your files can be moved far more conveniently in between your gadgets, so you can use the software with whatever gadget you have with you at the time, as well as there’s a method to maintain every one of your operations in sync across every one of your devices, by using the cloud.

Syncing of files with cloud storage

The cross-platform software program doesn’t call for using cloud storage; still, the cloud storage usually is incorporated with the software program, so that it becomes simpler to maintain your papers and documents in sync across all of your tools. Microsoft’s Office 365 will immediately save your office documents to a cloud drive, and Apple and Google likewise use cloud storage space for their cross-platform applications.

For instance, if you possess an iPad, Android smartphone, and a Windows computer, you have three different systems, all with various OS. A popular note-taking app, Evernote, works with all of these platforms, in addition to on macOS. Evernote permits you to develop a note on your phone as well as makes a similar duplicate offered on any type of another gadget you use with the Evernote software.

Bigger organizations like cross-platform hardware

Cross-platform software program applications permit huge companies like businesses and federal government agencies to maintain the software running individually of the hardware platform and OS. Frequently the financial investment in a software program application for a big organization is much bigger than the investment in equipment, so cross-platform software program enables a company to make hardware decisions independent of the software program application.

WE GOT HACKED

I am sharing this story with you guys because I think there is a lot to learn from this case about the security and best practices or what is just enough in terms of security. If you are using any of the cloud platforms like AWS , GCP, Azure or another Cloud Vendor to support your Applications and have not really paid attention to the security aspect or feel that since you are using one of the well known Cloud Providers you are safe, this article might change how you approach this domain entirely.

Unless security is something you look at being an important piece of work or domain which you need to invest your time in or there is work done to ensure security is tested and a vulnerability assessment checklist is maintained and worked on, your system is still prone to breach.

Now what happened with us was a minor incident, but the way it happened made us wiser and more focused on security. The hacker gained the access to one of the AWS access key-secret pair from the environment file which was hosted on a web application, a developer had forgotten to put that file in gitignore and there was another developer who forgot to check for bad paths and excluding certain files from being served at all.

Still could be worse …

The DevOps team had been lazy and was using a single key for all the AWS resource API and this key was associated with an admin role. More so this key was also shared with various application services or micro-services to provide access to AWS resources and services.

We had One Key to Rule Them all … ( AWS resources )

Once he got that access he waited for the right moment and found out the IP of our productions instance as it was the public IP of our website. Now for the hacker to try and get access to our sensitive data he would require to either ssh into our instance, but trying to SSH into that instance will be futile as he would not have the key or pem file which is req by AWS.

But here is the most clever and simple trick he used yet no one thinks of this stuff or the fact that this will happen to them.

The hacker cloned our current EBS storage volume which was stored as a snapshot for backup purposes. Then went ahead to create a new VM instance, attached the volume. Since he created the VM instance from scratch thus a creating a new key pair, allowing him to SSH into the newly created VM instance.

This is where we could have been more active in setting alerts on the account activity and making sure we got active alerts for any new resource creation. This would have helped us to take note of new resources being created from a foreign location or at a very unusual time. There is a perfect solution for this which we will discuss soon.

Now the hacker had access to our virtual machine instance which had our code environment variables and all of our sensitive data. This included our database credentials and other sensitive information. He already had access to aws account. And now with all the credentials, he had all the ingredients to successfully reach into our database and do harm us.

And these events took place over several days, but none of the DevOps could spot the extra resources or keys which were created. And to the credit of hacker, the naming conventions he used were able to skip the negligent eye. So basically all the new resources like security groups and ec2 instances or keys created were named by twisting the names of existing resources so that these will not be spotted over just a glance.

For example, if a resource was named — launching-wizard5

the hacker named his security group lanuching-wizrad5.

This is where we learned another lesson for we had not given importance to the naming of some of the resources or did not have a clearly defined naming strategy for resources. If we did we would have been abler and have had more chance to spot abnormalities.

Alright so how did we eventually find him or what was it that we did right which allowed us to recognize something was happening albeit a bit too late …

Find out here…

Backlink – https://medium.com/@damitj07/we-got-hacked-86552e22197a

Fine SMS Tracking Options for You

This idea is interesting. Yes, there is software that secretly copies the content of an external smartphone and sends it to you. The recipient’s phone owner can never understand that he is in control. Want to know more about it? For busting your boyfriend on SMS tracking this is important. This is where you need to choose https://askdougandchris.com/catch-a-cheater/catch-a-cheating-boyfriend/.

The Services

Convenient services such as receiving and sending SMS records to mobile operators and their subscribers were not immediately recognized, even though the capability of transmitting small text blocks was previously defined in the GSM standard. But today rarely does one of us use it several times a day. Sometimes subscribers who are in different regions are cheaper than exchanging sms for messages rather than phone calls. Listen to the fact that the phone has received an SMS message.

Let’s start with the introduction. This modern espionage software is designed so cleverly that it works fully in stealth mode. It offers you 100{a63d75b0ad78116a18b4aa18a840c1570624be95828a76ad070b4fa8337f8b21} raw data that you can rely on without a doubt. Why do people use cell phone surveillance software?

People use the information they have collected to loyally protect or alienate their partner. This spyware is used by parents who want to check what their children are doing all day and all night on their smartphone screens.

Guide:

Hearing the sound of the voice, you will immediately see on the screen the phone record: “1 message received” Click the “Open” button and read the message. If you have not responded and received the information you read immediately, you can receive a message at any time.

Children may think it is illegal, but in reality, it is not. Parents are responsible for all of their children’s actions, and at the end of the day, they have to fulfill their parental responsibilities. Therefore, it is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that children are closely monitored for their injuries and that it works well with a cell phone monitoring tool. So parents know early on if it’s not very attractive and requires more attention.

How do you protect people close to you or your business? In order to protect your relatives from harmful or illegal activity, you need this software for internet surveillance. This monitoring software is very smart and offers interesting features, and you can use any of these features tailored to your personal needs.

The fact that you have unread messages is displayed on the monitor in the form of a closed envelope. To read them, select the menu phone and open the Message folder and select Inbox from the list. Open the list and view all messages that are opposite, which will be an icon with a sealed envelope, which are unread messages. After reading the message, it will become a readable, opened envelope with a new icon.

There are many times when you need to read other people’s text messages. More often than not, a cell phone causes suspicion of unfaithfulness. Your children may also be victims of harassment on the networks, or your staff may misuse their phones. When mobile spyware is needed You need to be specific here.

How you can start an online store?

If you are a beginner and want to kick-start your business in an effective way then you can go with online marketing and selling. Digital marketing is very common nowadays and every other business owner is going with the flow for effective and better results. There are many guides available on the internet on How Start Online Store which can help you as well. You can expand your business reach and engage more audience by going with the online platforms.

Some tips to start your online store

Decide your niche –

It is very important to decide on the niche of your business. Decide what type of products you want to sell online and work on it. Going with the particular category will make you offer your customers better services and the targeted audience will be more interested in your website making your engagement and sales boost up. Deciding on niche will help you to target a particular audience in a larger number.

Register and layout –

After deciding upon the product you can register into the given eCommerce platforms or you can also go with your own website. Going with the eCommerce platform provide you the platform which is already used by the millions of customers. If you are going with your own website, you provide your online store its official website. Purchase the domain and create a beautiful page layout that can be navigated easily by the users.

Product –

Many people go with the drop shipping of the products and many go with the selling of their own products. Dropshipping is very common nowadays as it does not require any capital to buy products and the place to store them. Decide for which option you want to go and then display the product images and details on your site to create your store.