“Just Nancy” – Page 14 – The Web Authority

October 3, 2016September 30, 2016

Don’t Get Bumped Off the Grid by “Frontier” Hackers

I have just returned from vacation in Alaska and am here to tell you that the real frontier is alive and well. Surprisingly enough to me, there are those who relish living in Alaska off the grid in a “dry cabin” – without water, sewer heat, internet or even generator power.

My photo for this blog post is of the Hubbard Glacier which is 6 miles wide and 250 feet tall just above the water line. You can get an idea of scale from the tiny 6+ passenger boat in front by a calved iceberg.

It is this very real independent “frontier-like” spirit that makes Alaska so wonderfully wild and beautiful, but this same spirit lurks malevolently on the Internet. Surfing endlessly using high tech tools, spiders and robots in a cyber world that has no real boundaries are criminals, spammers, and schemers who are looking for easy targets. An unsecured WordPress website and even an html based website can be prey to these savvy attackers.

The best way to stay safe in this frontier environment starts with a super secure password for your FTP access, WordPress logins and hosting account. I do not mean using the most popular password in America which is baseball and putting a 1 behind it. I mean creating a password that is nearly gibberish and may even be hard for you to remember that contains capitals, symbols and numbers. My team likes to spell out passwords but exchange e’s for 3’s and a’s for @’s.

Don’t forget that you should have different passwords for different sites so don’t use your Facebook password for your FTP access and your WordPress login. I recommend using a password application like one that comes with Norton’s Internet Security or using a Word document to track your sites and unique logins to stay sane.

I do consider your best defense when it comes to hacking is to be proactive and to switch up your passwords every three months. As inconvenient as this sounds, getting hacked and having to pay for a clean up and losing business while your site is reworked is costly and even more inconvenient. Stay safe, it can be wilder than Alaska out there on the Internet!

All the Best,

Nancy C. McCord

September 5, 2016September 4, 2016

What’s Your Mobile Security IQ?

It's time to review your security on your smartphone. — It’s time to review the security on your smartphone.

This past month, my husband’s identity was stolen and my access to our bank account was hacked. In my husband’s case a credit card was opened in his name. In my case my online bank user name, password and PIN was used to raise credit limits and then steal over $3,000 from our checking account.

Our bank took care of the matter, but what was problematic was just how robbers got access to my own personal online access information. The only thing we can think of is that I was using mobile banking features and may have accessed my bank while I was connected away from my home base.

As a result, here are the things that I have done to improve my smartphone security.

1. My entire family now uses on their mobile devices face or voice recognition biometrics to access our most important bank. For our other bank, we use two step verification. All family members use two step verification via text messages to smartphones to access bank accounts online through desktops.

2. My entire family now has withdrawal, deposit and transaction alerts set up for banking, savings accounts, and credit cards. The focus is to catch robbers early before too much damage has been done.

3. I personally am using NordVPN which ia a subscription base security tool for my smartphone that encrypts my communication on mobile data or when I am connected to any Wi-Fi hotspots out of my office. This will be especially important to me as I will be traveling in the months to come and this secure tunnel will allow me to encrypt data I exchange on the internet, geomask my location as well as to prevent eavesdroppers from snatching my user names and passwords.

Stay safe when you are online with your smartphone and encourage your family members to embrace new levels of mobile security to prevent the headaches that happened to us.

August 15, 2016August 13, 2016

Just Nancy – The Trouble with Travel

Recently my husband had his identity stolen and I had my checking account hacked. As a result we are both now super careful and security conscious to the Nth degree. As we are getting ready to travel in September out of the country and I need to continue to stay in touch with customers, I had done massive research on how to stay connected and still keep my data and communications safe.

Here are the things that I have learned as I am preparing for my trip that I thought I would share with you.

• For any kind of banking set up two step verification or biometric recognition access. Plan on only accessing your banking on an emergency basis or not at all.

• For Google set up advanced verification with either two step verification or phone verification. But make sure to generate codes that will allow you to manually enter a code to get in if the text or message is not received. Google had previously locked me out of my AdWords accounts when I traveled and I am hoping that this will solve my access problem.

• Try never to use unsecured Wi-Fi on your travel. If you will need to, as I will, get a secure VPN app to allow you to connect securely. I am currently testing NordVPN and have tested Norton Wifi Privacy and ViperVPN. When I settle on one I will write a post about the app. These apps allow you to be on any Wi-Fi system and be totally encrypted and secure.

• Don’t count on river cruise or cruise ship Wi-Fi as your method to access the internet. The cruise I am going on is trying to sell an onboard internet package, but the speed is 2G. For me this is archaic and not feasible to use. The river cruise was similar. It was so excruciating to connect that I stopped trying. This time I will be having Verizon sell me a short term global internet access package for my phone and I am not even taking my laptop.

• Make sure to have backup staff to monitor email and customer accounts. Although I will try to access my email and manage client AdWords accounts with my team, I know from experience that this may simply not work based on where I am traveling. As a result I have trained staff and created backup plans on how to keep my customers happy. The takeaway is I may get online, but I should be totally prepared in case I cannot.

• Move all important things you will need while on travel to access to the cloud. Apps like GoToMyPC will be excruciatingly slow (I learned this on a previous trip abroad). So I have moved all my mail, files, and documents to cloud storage that I can access from anywhere. This includes email. I moved out of Outlook two years ago and now only use GMail and Google Drive for my work items as well as perform team collaboration there as well. I have learned that to review email on travel and then have to re review when you come home is too much work. I want all my work to be synced everywhere all the time.

When I return, I will share my experience with you on how it went this time around in regards to staying connected to work while out of the country. Alaska and Canada here I come!

July 27, 2016July 22, 2016

How to Create Client Advocates for Your Business

Want to grow your business even more? What are you doing to cultivate your existing clientele?

I have found one of the best ways to grow my own business is by providing seriously on-point customer service, valuable and regular communication with clients, and by offering referral incentive programs.

When you have a really happy customer, who likes your approach and what you do, they become an advocate for you. Specifically that means in meeting with colleagues, they talk you up, encourage others to call you for services, and share, with pride, the things that you have done for them or how you have helped them.

Advocates for your business, make it easier for you to close a sale to a recommended party, do away with low price conversations, and really help to grow your business.

I thank all clients that refer a new customer to my business by sending a $50 Visa gift card. There is no limit to how many of these I will send to a client, but I do send these thank you’s typically only when the new customer’s monthly sale will be over $1,000.

I don’t post or tell clients about my special incentive program, but always follow-up with them about the success or lack thereof of any referrals they do send to me. It is funny, but they like to know how things turned out. When they get their gift from me, many have express surprise and even shock to receive anything for the referral.

I’ve found that growing your business starts by taking exceptional care of your existing customers and building long term relationships, but by showing appreciation too.

Find out more about how we do business by visiting our website today at www.McCordWeb.com.