IN THE KNOW —
Damn Spambots! How to win the battle against the scammers One of the unique challenges of running a business in our modern world is how to protect your information, privacy and security. Business websites are, unfortunately, key targets for bots crawling the internet looking for security vulnerabilities to harvest information. This information; email addresses, logins, credit details, is then on sold or used in scams by spammers. Marry this with brute force attacks on websites as well as phishing scams and it’s easy to get a feeling that your business is under siege. Never fear…
Here are some tips to help you beat the bots • Don’t have your email address showing on your website. Provide your email address only to people and organisations you know and trust. Use a contact form instead. • Beware of emails from an unknown or dubious source. Never open email attachments or click hyperlinks included in a message that you were not expecting or were sent from an unknown sender. • Never provide personal or financial information such as passwords or credit card information to an unknown or untrusted person or website. • Use strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts and include two-factor authentication where possible. • Don’t store your passwords on your browser, e.g. when your browser, such as Google Chrome, asks to save your password for you. Instead, use password protection applications such as www.keepersecurity.com or www.lastpass.com.
How is NZCB helping to keep your website and details safe? • The New Zealand Certified Builders (NZCB) website does not publish email addresses for public access but uses secure contact forms to pass enquiries directly on to the relevant people, including the FIND A BUILDER section.
Because not all bots are bad, the solution prevents false positives by automatically maintaining and updating a list of “good” bots such as those belonging to search engines. • Websites on the NZCB system are also stored in a secure hosting environment powered by Google Cloud platform’s world class architecture. This provides exceptional security and back-ups. So, the key message here is protect your info, don’t open those dodgy looking emails, use strong passwords and always remember that NZCB has your back.
Some common terms explained Spammer – person or organisation that sends irrelevant or unsolicited messages over the internet, typically to large numbers of users, for the purposes of advertising, phishing, spreading malware, etc.
Bots – an autonomous program on the internet or another network that can interact with systems or users.
Spambot – an autonomous programme on the internet that sends spam to a large number of users or posts spam on online forums. Phishing – phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers. It occurs when an attacker, masquerading as a trusted entity, dupes a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message.
• The NZCB website also uses Cloudflare security which detects and mitigates bots.
Mike Graham, Director Brave World Web. Brave World Web is a Creative Agency based in Tauranga providing a range of services across social media, marketing and web development. For more information visit www.braveworld.co.nz.
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