Wireless Routers for Homes; Are they Even Safe to Use?

Many are wondering if wireless routers used in homes are safe to use and if there are any risks if other people use their internet connection. Indeed, wireless routers may offer free internet to some, but because of this fact, some people with dark intentions in mind can exploit this opportunity.

Hijacking Connection

Computer forensics say that someone can use your wireless internet connection to attack other computer networks. Hackers would prefer to use others internet connection, instead of theirs when they attack a particular target. Although hackers can mask their connection, details and location, it is much safer for them to use other’s internet connection. That way, the hacker will not be blamed for the attack he made, thus making him anonymous.

Attack the Computer and the Network

Despite the fact that there are new types of computers and operating systems, some people are still using ancient computers and operating systems in their homes, much worse, they have no decent protection against virus and malware. These types of computers are the easiest to penetrate. Once these computers are penetrated via the wireless network, hackers can then secretly install a Trojan. It can be used to transmit important information of the target, such as credit car information, banking information and etc. Hackers can use this information for their advantages, unknown to their victims.

The Zombie Computer

If zombies are scary, then a zombie computer would be scarier to digital computer forensics and security experts. The hijacked connection will be used to perform a specific attack at a specific time. A computer turned zombie can be used repeatedly by a hacker, through the installation of software. The software installed can be used to coordinate attacks; if there are more zombies the hacker controls then that could be more dangerous.

Data Storage

There are instances when hackers will need a place to hide the data they have stolen. And what is the most suitable storage place to use? It’s a computer with a wireless connection. The data is masked perfectly that only graduates of a computer forensic course can detect them. The data is hidden well and is not visible to the desktop’s user and the disk space will seem unused. Knowing how this happened will be very troubling.

The Bandwidth

Hackers will even use the bandwidth or connection of the one owning wireless connection to upload or download huge amounts of computer data. These types of files can be in Gigabytes and could lead to additional bills for that person’s internet connection.

Violates Privacy

No person with healthy state of mind would like someone activating their microphone just to listen to the conversations inside the house. Or activate the camera to see what is inside the house. If hackers are planning to hack a company, then hacking the privacy of certain officials would surely help their cause.

How to Protect The System

It is important to protect the wireless system against hackers. First thing to do is to configure the firewall of the operating system, so that there are some levels of protection. It is also possible to purchase firewalls to supplement or replace the current firewall of the system. Although they are hard to configure, there are manuals that would provide a step-by-step guide on how one could configure their firewall.

The second thing to do is to install the latest antivirus software; an antivirus software that has anti-hacking capabilities. It is important to know how to effectively use the software, since there are other things aside from protection anti-virus software can offer. There are many good anti-viruses in the market, such as Kapersky, Norton and others.

Turn off the router or the internet connection when the computer is not used. If there is a need to store important information like details in bank accounts, passwords or any other private information, store it on other secure media or in a secure external drive that will make the data encrypted so that the hacker cannot retrieve it. Sometimes routers will provide security features and encryption, thus it is much better to know how to make use of this. Of course, the hardware will provide manuals that will guide their users on how to activate and configure the security features of the router. It might be confusing at start, but it is worth it.

The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce. It is the owner and developer of 20 security certifications. EC-Council has trained over 90,000 security professionals and certified more than 40,000 members. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies. They also offer trainings in computer forensics.

More information about EC-Council is available at www.eccouncil.org.

Link Building Using Widget in Five Simple Steps

Widget is a small program that you can easily put on your website, blog, or personalized start page. A common example of a widget is that most of us run across almost every day is those Google advertisements. These ads are produced by placing a small piece of code on the web page. The hard part — choosing an advertisement that matches the content and displaying that ad — is done by Google.

But widgets aren’t limited to advertisements. A widget can be anything from a voting poll to a weather forecast to a list of current headlines to a crossword puzzle. You can utilize them in your blog to provide an interactive experience for your readers, or you can place them on your personalized start page to get at information you want to see on a regular basis.

Widgets are an effective way to expose data or crowd sourced information in easy ways. They can also serve as a scalable way to build links back to your target site while easy to implement distributed application that people find valuable, here are five simple steps to access widgets.

Widget:

The first step in widget success is creating a ‘great widget’. So adhere the following practices, these practices are best when you’re thinking about adding widget to your websites.

1. Transparency: Don’t hide the link using CSS or other coding tricks. Your embedded link in the widget has to be visible, only then your users will like it.

2. No Bait & Switches: Always make sure that the link is relevant to the creator and contents of widget.

For example: If the widget is from a fashion site; that displays the latest openings for Wedding Occasions, don’t include a anchor text where the link goes to an medical care sign-up site.

From above you could have understood that – don’t use anchor text link to send traffic to a site not based on the content of the widget.

3. Brand Attribution: Focus on brand creating the brand keyword modifier in the link. The anchor text value is the only one component of an effective widget link. For targeting most of the link includes both brand and a lock –up of the focus keyword. An example is Power Point Presentation.

SEO Benefits:

In all SEO activities; always aim to stay above board with “white hat” tactics. The SEO benefits of well designed widget include:

·  Persistent and distributed presence on other sites. Brand exposure can result in awareness and additional brand search in the engines.

·  Domain diversity is a key component of any inbound linking program. So increase the number of domain links in your site.

·  An increase in quantity of inbounds links will be more useful and also it will get added more to other sites.

· Have control over the anchor text in the links.

Development Area:

If a widget has to be well developed, it should be well designed, loaded quickly, should be light weighted, and be code perceptive so that it doesn’t slow down the loading of the page. The key to make widget use for SEO is making the widget visible to the search engines as a part of the host page. This means the following:

Using search engine bots like HEML, JQuery, XTML etc… build technology that can be “crawled” or “read”.

· Avoid technologies such as iframes.

· Use effective Meta tags.

· Make the widget as code light as possible to keep the speed of the loading page of the host strong.

· Make the widget as customizable from color to targeting perspective as possible, as it makes sense for the application.

Promotions:

A good widget has usefulness that excites web makers, marketers and end-users. Even the most helpful widget in the world can get lost without proper persisting. If users are unaware of the existence, below are some tactics:

· Using good SEO practices creates a standalone page on your website for the widget. Build the page with navigation and site map structures.

· Create blog posts, mentioned in your social media channels, profiles & e-mail newsletters.

· Promote the page with widget embedded in your own site, partner site, or site you have business relationships.

· Find some specific, relevant sites to partner with to “seed” the widget and get early feedback.

Analysis:

With most marketing activities, make sure you have referral measurement mechanism set-up in place, so that you can learn which widgets are performing as per your expectations. Track click-through, visits, conversions, and leads captured from your distributed creations. Keep the widgets that perform well, and remove the ones that are causing damage to your brand.