Nightmare on Main Street - How a single hacker can end your business forever

by Steve Bowers

Have you ever wished you “could have” gazed into a crystal ball and seen a disastrous event before it occurred? With such knowledge you could have avoided that car accident, fire, missed opportunity, or…fill-in-the-blank.

If your business stores client or customer credit card data electronically, consider this your crystal-ball-warning. There could easily be a hacker in Russia, China, or your neighborhood who is trying to breach your systems right now.

In 2009 the estimated cost of identity theft to companies and consumers topped $54 Billion. Stopping identity theft is a major priority for credit card companies. Several years ago, the major card companies banded together to enact something called “PCI Compliance”. This cryptic and scary term is the name for an even scarier set of security standards that businesses of any size must follow if they touch credit card data in any way. Card companies use this compliance standard to judge the security of your business as it relates to their credit cards.

Here’s the nightmare story. The ACME Widget Company (fake name) was a solid business producing some of the finest widgets in the country. The company was financially strong and had been a family owned enterprise since grandpa Acme started it after the war. Because ACME was an older company, its technology was somewhat “dated”. They had a good client base and often had recurring widget orders. This is why they made the fatal mistake of storing card data on their internal system. Acme also had a simple web site on which customers could place orders.

One dark and stormy night, a hacker compromised ACME’s system and obtained all of their customers’ credit card data. Eventually, the credit card companies traced the breach back to ACME. Based on the PCI Compliance standards, they fined ACME $50,000 per instance of stolen information. Unable to withstand the financial devastation wrought by these fines, the company was forced to close. And no one lived happily ever after (except the hacker).

Here are some tips you can use to avoid ACME’s fate:

· Don’t Touch It! - Never store customer credit card data in your own systems if you can avoid it. If you must store it, use an established and reputable card processing company to store the data for you. These card processors are experts at PCI Compliance and help shield you from liability.

· Don’t bargain shop your hosting! – If your systems are hosted on a server owned by a “guy you know” and his server resides in the data center known as: “his basement”... you are at risk. A reputable host will use a data center with multiple layers of security and which has been certified by various security authorities. I recommend a data center with a “SAS 70” certification at a minimum.

· Do your homework! – Learn the basics of PCI Compliance. Credit card companies will not allow you to use ignorance as an excuse (neither will the government). Google the term “PCI Compliance” to find a large list of varying resources.

Windows 7: Maybe the Best Ever

By Steve Bowers

Hi. My name is Steve and I’m a Microsoft fan. There. I said it and I’m not ashamed.

I’ve made my career using their products and everything our company produces is based on Uncle Bill’s technology. Even so, I was embarrassed by the initial versions of Vista. It was clearly released before it was “ready” and became a PR nightmare or the company whose software is estimated to run more than 90% of the business computing machines world-wide. Microsoft fixed most of the early problems with service-packs, but the damage was done.

As a result, over the last 4 years Apple has enjoyed a slightly increased share of the Market despite inferior hardware (plus they’ve produced those commercials that make my blood boil).

However, Microsoft is now staging a huge come-back with Windows 7. A few days after it was released to the public, we installed Windows 7 on one of our older machines in our development office. The guinea pig pc is 5 years old and has no special hardware. Here’s the verdict. Windows 7 installed with 0 problems. It was the simplest and most problem-free install of an operating system I’ve ever performed.

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I decided to install Windows 7 on my trusty lap-top that I use every single day of my life. Lap-tops, as you may know, can be tricky to “rebuild”. They have all kinds of special drivers that can be a problem if not handled correctly. I wiped the system clean and installed Windows 7 from the ground-up. Not only did Windows 7 install perfectly, it has improved the performance of my lap-top’s power management and battery saving features.
If you want another opinion, look at this. PC Magazine said this of Windows 7: “It's far and away the best OS we've ever seen from Microsoft. “ Here’s a link to their full review:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348899,00.asp

That is high praise indeed.

Boring Brochure or Super Salesperson?

I challenge you to ask yourself a few tough questions about your company’s website.

1. Is your website stale and just taking up space on the web?
2. Does your website bring value to your business?
3. Is your website a boring brochure or a dynamic, super salesperson?

Hopefully, you feel great about your response to these questions and you’re pleased with your website – it is current and operates as an online salesperson bringing great value to your business.

If you are frustrated with the performance of your website and it is not an online salesperson for your business, keep reading.

Ok, first, a few more questions related to sales.
· Would you hire a salesperson and never check on his/her performance?
· Would you keep a salesperson that has a poor product or service presentation?
· Would you retain a salesperson that doesn’t bring value to your business?

Your answer to each of these questions was probably, “Of course not!” Salespeople are constantly working towards closing the deal. Now, take a look at your virtual salesperson; your website. In order to truly maximize your website, it is imperative to start with a sales mentality.

Every interaction with an online visitor should be viewed as a sales process. I’m not saying your site should be converted to an E-commerce website – that’s totally different. I mean that your website should be working hard; using every opportunity to build relationships and generate interest and credibility to drive new prospects to your business, just like a salesperson.

In order to generate interest and credibility your website has to be a great communicator. Your online salesperson must be:

1. Current and fresh
2. Visually pleasing with a good color palette and high quality graphics and imagery
3. Easy to navigate
4. Updated frequently with content that is relevant and engaging

The entire goal of your website is to engage the prospect or customer and encourage him/her to take action. The website ‘call-to-action’ is like a salesperson wrapping up his/her presentation and asking for the business. That online ‘call-to-action’ should trigger a sequence of events which either drive or support sales such as generating a lead by capturing prospect data.

Of course, an online super salesperson needs to be coupled with various marketing and media campaigns to drive traffic to your website – but that’s a completely different topic. (I’ll cover that in a future post.)

If your site isn’t bringing value to your business, I encourage you to take the necessary steps to make it a vital part of your sales team. You may need to partner with a marketing agency and/or web development firm that can provide the skills and guidance you need to transform your site.

Here’s the bottom line: A website should be focused on the role of a 24/7 online salesperson and should provide measurable value to the marketing and sales strategy of your business.

Learn how Encore Web Works can help you transform your website into a sales and marketing asset.
Visit http://ww.encorewebworks.com/AboutUs.aspx or http://www.notabrochure.com/