Skip to main content Screen Reader Website Version
Get a Quote
Home Web Design SEO Services ADA Compliance Hosting & Support Custom Web Applications Our Work About Blog Contact

Small Business Sees A Rise In Cyber Threats

Come on, let’s all live in the real world: we’re all vulnerable. Really the only chance you have these days is to make it as difficult as possible for any potential hacker to get to your valuable data. First and foremost this means protecting your data in transit. Using secured connections to transmit data is crucial to any protection strategy. In web terms that means having an SSL certificate installed. There are some variations but most provide 128 or 256 bit encryption which has been relatively reliable, although security loopholes were recently discovered.

Fixed? Yes, but can we be sure. The heartbleed bug went undetected for some time. What else could be lurking out there that we haven’t discovered yet?

Secondly, protect sensitive data at rest. This means encrypting your database. We like to use AES256 encryption. It isn’t foolproof, but it is strong and recommended by everyone’s favorite secret organization, the NSA.

Third, protect your passwords. This means letting your staff know how important keeping this data safe. Don’t leave passwords out in the open and, for the love of everything holy, make them strong. “123456” is not a password (we feel we should not have to mention at this point, but still will, that “password” is not clever… and never was). Keep your passwords safe – sometimes it’s best to create a little song to remember it. Or if you have many passwords, create an algorithm to remember them by. For instance, use the name of the domain you’re accessing to configure a password. If you were logging into Livewiregeeks.com, you might use the L and S as the first two letters of your password, then add some variation, take the numerical representation of that letter and att that to the password. So for a domain called ABC.com, if might be AC321 (the numbers being C=3, B=2, A=1 , added together =5). As long as you remember the process of creating the password, you don’t have to remember anything else. Just looking at the domain will enable to to know the password.

Tedious? yes. Works? yes.

Some more information on the current cyber security situation.

More Web Design Blog Content

ADA Compliance

ADA compliance refers to the compliance of websites with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law in the United States that requires businesses and organizations to make their goods and services accessible to people with disabilities. In the context of websites, this means ensuring that individuals with

TNA The Facial Pain Association has a new website

Glad to have them on board! The Facial Pain Association does some really great work on helping people with debilitating condition known as TNA. Facial pain is a serious condition and options are often limited for sufferers. Fortunately they do have the association there to assist them in

Branding & Marketing Services

Livewire is proud to announce that we are now offering professional branding and marketing services. Phil, the owner, never considered branding services because, well to be honest, he is terrible at graphic design (he’s a programmer so it’s okay). Branding services include but are not limited to : Branding

Choosing The Right Domain

Finding the right domain can be a arduous process. That is, unless of course you are lucky enough to find your business name in the exact form you desire. More often than not, obtaining a great domain takes a lot f time, mental energy and cautious anxiety. Will

Code School: Woo Shipping Per Product Count Script

Here’s a little snippet that has been useful for woocommerce development. This regulates shipping charges from a simple fee based system to a fee per quantity output. We modified this to allow for a couple of different shipping charge options based on quantity – first by three’s and

New Projects

We’re excited to have new projects coming in on a regular basis. On the menu for the next few weeks are some great opportunities to expand our portfolio and our reach. Lake Butler is electing a new Sheriff soon and we’ll be creating one of the candidate’s websites.