Let’s Go Phishing – Play it Safe Now or Be Sorry Later

By: Frank Iacono

So, What is Phishing?

Phishing is a form of criminal activity where “phishers” attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an e-mail, instant message, or fraudulent Website.

Methods of Phishing

Most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception, such as making a link in an e-mail appear to belong to the spoofed organization or financial institution. For example, an attacker may send e-mail seemingly from a reputable credit card company that requests account information, often suggesting that there is a problem. When users respond with the requested information, attackers can use it to gain access to the accounts.

Damage Caused By Phishing

The damage caused by phishing ranges from loss of access to e-mail to substantial financial loss. This style of identity theft is becoming more popular, because of the ease with which unsuspecting people often divulge personal information to phishers, including credit card numbers, social security numbers, and mothers’ maiden names.

How Can You Prevent A Phishing Attack

The US Federal Trade Commission offers the following advice to help prevent you from becoming the victim of a phishing attack:

• Don’t reply to e-mail or pop-up messages that ask for personal or financial information, and don’t click on links in the message. Don’t cut and paste a link from the message into your Web browser — phishers can make links look like they go one place, but that actually send you to a different site.
• If you are concerned about your account, contact the organization using a phone number you know to be genuine, or open a new Internet browser session and type in the company’s correct Web address yourself.
• Don’t e-mail personal or financial information.
• Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorized charges.
• Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from e-mails you receive, regardless of who sent them.
• Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing e-mail. You also may report phishing e-mail to reportphishing@antiphishing.org The Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, uses these reports to fight phishing.

Phishing Examples and Anti-Phishing Resources

• How to Avoid Phishing Scams
• What To Do If You’ve Given Out Your Personal Financial Information
  
• Bank Safe Online
• The SiteJabber Blog

If you feel like you’ve fallen into a “Phishing” trap, please immediately contact your local authorities, your bank or credit card companies, and report it to the Federal Trade Commission’s at www.consumer.gov/idtheft.

The History of the Internet

Written by Frank Iacono

The history of the Internet is interesting. If for nothing else than it’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come in a relatively short period of time. Read this short history of the Internet and then review the Internet history timeline for important dates for technological advancement.

The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s that saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in the scientific and military fields.

J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of computers in 1962, and moved over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to head the work to develop it. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT, and later UCLA, developed the theory of packet switching, which was to form the basis of Internet connections. In 1965, Lawrence Roberts of MIT connected a Massachusetts computer with a California computer over dial-up telephone lines. This was significant as it showed the feasibility of wide area networking, but also showed that the telephone line’s circuit switching was inadequate. Kleinrock’s packet switching theory was confirmed. In 1966, Roberts moved over to DARPA and developed his plan for ARPANET. These visionaries listed here and many others not mentioned are truly the founding founders of the Internet.

• 1945: Vennevar Bush publishes a paper on memex machine. Vennevar Bush, one of the pioneers in radar, was also the originator of an idea that would later evolve into the World Wide Web.
• 1958: The United States Department of Defense formed a small agency called ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) to develop military science and technology.
• 1961-1965: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) started to research sharing information in small, phone-linked networks. ARPA is one of their main sponsors.
• 1966: The first ARPANET plan is unveiled by Lawrence Roberts of MIT. Packet – switching technology is getting off the ground, and small university networks are beginning to be developed.
• 1968: ARPA mails out 140 Requests for Proposals to prospective contractors to build the first four Interface Message Processors (IMPs).
• 1969: The Department of Defense commissions the fledgling ARPANET for network research. The first official network nodes were UCLA, Standford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah. The first node-to-node message was sent from UCLA to SRI.
• 1971: More nodes join the network, bringing the total to 15. These new nodes include Harvard and NASA.
• 1973: ARPANET goes global when the University College of London and Norway’s Royal Radar Establishment join up.
• 1974: Network intercommunication is becoming more sophisticated; data is now transmitted more quickly and efficiently with the design of TCP (Transmission Control Program).
• 1976: Unix is developed at AT&T; Queen Elizabeth sends out her first e-mail message.
• 1979: USENET, the mother of all networked discussion groups, is developed.
• 1982: Internet technology protocols are developed, commonly known as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol). This leads to one of the first definitions of an “internet” being a connected set of networks.
• 1984: Number of hosts is now up to 1,000, with more being added every day.
• 1985: The first registered domain is Symbolics.com.
• 1987: Number of hosts breaks the 10,000 mark.
• 1988: First large-scale Internet worm is unleashed by Robert Morris and it affects about 6,000 computers.
• 1990: Archie is considered to be the first search engine.
• 1991: Tim Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web.
• 1993: The World Wide Web’s annual growth is now at a staggering 341,634%.
• 1994: ARPAnet celebrates 25th anniversary.
• 1995: Yahoo launched in March and Amazon.com launched in July.
• 1996:Macromedia Flash 1.0 launches to add interactive animation to web pages. Early adopters included Disney and MSN. The first mobile phone with Internet connectivity was the Nokia 9000 Communicator, launched in Finland.
• 1995-1997: RealAudio introduces Internet streaming technology, dial-up systems emerge (America Online, Compuserve), the Internet backbone continues to be strengthened with the addition of MCI, Microsoft and Netscape fight for WWW browser supremacy, and there are now more than 70,000 mailing lists.
• 1998: Google was founded in September.
• 1999: Napster launched in June.
• 2000: There are an estimated 20 million websites on the Internet.  The dotcom bubble officially burst on March 10, 2000. After several years of venture capitalists throwing money at proposals with ‘internet’ on the cover, it all starts unraveling as many of these businesses fail to find a market and others realize they don’t have a business plan.
• 2001: Wikipedia was launched in January.  About 9.8 billion electronic messages are sent daily.  Record labels were so furious at Napster and by July 2001, they effectively stopped Napster from operating.
• 2002: As of January, 58.5% of the U.S. population (164.14 million people) uses the Internet.
• 2003: MySpace launched in August. LinkedIn launched in May.
• 2004: Facebook launched in February. An Internet Worm, called MyDoom or Novarg, spreads through Internet servers. About 1 in 12 email messages are infected. Online spending reaches a record high—$117 billion in 2004, a 26% increase over 2003.
• 2005: YouTube.com launched in February. Google then acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion despite owning its own video site.
• 2006: Twitter is created. In stark contrast to the proliferation of lengthy blog posts online, Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters.  There are an estimated 92 million websites on the Internet.
• 2007: According to Internet World Stats, approximately 1.114 billion people use the Internet.  The biggest innovation of 2007 was almost certainly the iPhone, which was almost wholly responsible for renewed interest in mobile web applications and design.
• 2008: Google’s crawler reaches 1 trillion pages, although only a fraction are indexed by the search engine. For comparison, Google’s original index had 26 million pages in 1998, and reached 1 billion in 2000.
• 2009: There are 234 million websites as of December 2009. There are 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of September 2009.
• 2010: In February, Facebook announces it has 400 million active members. That’s larger than the population of the US and UK combined.  According to Internet World Stats, approximately 2 billion people use the Internet.

Is Your Organization Employing Best Practices for Online Donation?

Written by: Frank Iacono

While every non-profit organization has a different mission and approach to fundraising, those who achieve the greatest amount of success from their web-based donation programs typically employ best practices.

Below, please find the top 6 best practices that all non-profit organizations should utilize when creating an online donation form:

1. Maintain Consistent Branding. To provide a higher level of confidence in the donor clearly brand all forms with your organization’s specific web look and feel.
2. Remove Extraneous Navigation. To lower abandonment rates and increase web form donations remove all unnecessary links.
3. Create a Clear and Concise Form. To help donors complete the web form as quickly and easily as possible provide both clear and meaningful labels for all fields, making obvious which fields are required and which are optional.
4. Pre-populate Form Fields. To increase the speed of form completion and reduce the chances of typographical errors pre-populate the web form fields with information when the donor is already in your database.
5. Provide Pre-set Dollar Amounts. To encourage higher giving levels suggest donation amounts and provide multiple ways for donors to support your organization.
6. Add Email Auto-Responders. To reinforce the donor’s affinity with your organization send out an immediate email follow-up once the donation has been completed.

In order to be successful with your online donation program, you will need to conduct some upfront research and analysis to determine what works best with your audience.  Depending upon what your marketing strategy is and/or becomes this may or may not be a huge undertaking for your organization but it will truly demand that you truly understand online fundraising principles.

Discover Social Media Marketing

Written by: Frank Iacono

Embracing Social Media

In today’s marketplace, with the advent of social media, the fundamental principles of how business is conducted have changed. Social media initiatives present companies with many new ways to engage with their target audiences. However, with these new opportunities come a variety of challenges around understanding and utilizing various platforms and formulating workable marketing strategies.

So what exactly is social media? Social media is best described as a group of new kinds of online media, which share most or all of the following characteristics:

• Participation
• Openness
• Conversational
• Community Building
• Connectedness

Types of Social Networking Sites

There are many different types of social networking sites but here are a few to consider:

Blogging-based Sites

• Blogger
• Technorati
• WordPress

Content-based Sites

• HubPages
• Scibd
• Squidoo
• StumbleUpon
• Yelp

General Sites

• FaceBook
• MySpace
• Tagged
• Twitter
• Wikipedia

News-based Sites

• Digg
• NewsCloud
• Newsvine
• Propeller
• Reddit
• ShoutWire

Professional Networking-based Sites

• LinkedIn
• Naymz
• Plaxo

Photo and Video-based Sites

• 1Cast or Onecast
• Flickr
• TubeMogul
• YouTube

Next Steps…

In order to be successful on the social networking sites listed above, you will need to conduct some upfront research and analysis to determine which sites work best for your company.  

Good Luck!

Give Them Something to Talk About

Written by: Frank Iacono

In today’s current economic climate, most companies are operating under intense pressure and heightened scrutiny to increase revenue and grow profitability, in many cases with a reduced staff. What if there were a proven marketing strategy they could deploy to build their business, year in and year out, regardless of financial instability or competitor pressure? Well, there is, and it’s called word-of-mouth marketing

So, exactly what is word-of-mouth marketing? By definition, this term is used in the advertising and marketing industry to describe activities that companies undertake to generate personal recommendations and referrals for products and services as well as brand names. Essentially, it’s about giving real people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. In other words, think of it as business-to-consumer-to-consumer marketing.

Word of mouth has been described as the world’s best-known marketing secret. Wait a minute! Okay, how can word-of-mouth marketing be both the best known and a secret at the same time? Simply put, practically every businessperson knows how important word-of-mouth marketing can be to his or her bottom line, yet so many businesses do not know how it works or how it can be used to meet their specific marketing objectives.

If word of mouth has been around forever, than why has it suddenly become the fastest-growing form of marketing? Up until a few years ago word of mouth was something that just happened, but now it is something that can be influenced — making it actionable, trackable, and planable. Today it is considered the most cost-effective means of attracting new customers. To illustrate, the market research firm GfK NOP reports that 92% of consumers today cite word of mouth as one of the best sources for ideas about new products, up from 67% a generation ago. Perhaps the largest benefit of word-of-mouth marketing is the fact that it requires a very small budget and works without us even knowing it. We as marketers simply need to give people something to talk about.

Why is word-of-mouth marketing so powerful? Over the years there have been many reasons given to explain its amazing success. With the emergence of the

Internet, consumers now have more product choices and information about these choices than ever before at their disposal. The ease and instant gratification of seeing their words on such consumer review sites like Amazon.com, blogs, messageboards, discussion groups, chat rooms, and other forms of social media such as MySpace.com at the push of a button has sparked consumers’ expressive urge to communicate and spread the word.

So, how can you create a positive buzz about your product or service? As Andy Sernovitz, the CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, points out in his book entitled Word of Mouth Marketing, there are four essential rules to running an effective campaign:

1. Be interesting and generate enthusiasm.
2. Make people happy and get them talking.
3. Earn trust and respect.
4. Make the message easy – simple and portable message, make it easy to grasp, accept and pass along to others.

Mr. Sernovitz also notes that people generally love to talk and share their opinions with other people. However, in order for companies to warrant good word of mouth they must first understand what motivates people to start talking about their products and services. Additionally, he outlines three basic motivations that drive good/positive word-of-mouth conversations:

1. People genuinely like you and your products or services.
2. People genuinely like to feel good about your product or service.
3. People feel connected to the brand family.

A real-world example of word-of-mouth marketing involves Google’s Gmail service. When Google launched their Gmail service they did not market nor did they spend any money advertising. Instead they created scarcity by giving out Gmail accounts to only a handful of what they called “power users.” Other users who aspired to be like these special users yearned for a Gmail account, and this generated a bidding war for Gmail invites on eBay. Google created demand by offering a limited supply of e-mail accounts and the privilege of having a Gmail account caused word of mouth, rather than any marketing activities executed by the company.

Another classic word-of-mouth example focuses on TiVo. TiVo is not known for their marketing and advertising. In fact, TiVo has hardly advertised at all. But most people have heard of and know what TiVo is and what it does. TiVo owners have been described as fanatics. They absolutely love the product and can’t stop talking about it. Their love of TiVo has turned them into passionate word-of-mouth advocates.

As Mr. Sernovitz mentioned in his book, word-of-mouth marketing is the most profitable marketing that any company can do. The net impact of conducting word-of-mouth marketing leads to more business, higher return on investment, and lower costs. And, word-of-mouth marketing does more than just make money on new sales, as it makes all of your sales and marketing initiatives more effective.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most natural method of communication and it should become an integral part of your marketing plan. Traditional marketing methods are becoming gradually less and less effective for more and more companies. So the bottom line for companies in today’s marketplace is to open their eyes to new ways of doing business.

Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing Manifesto:

1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
2. Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
3. Ethics and good service come first.
4. UR the UE: You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).
5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
7. Be interesting or be invisible.
8. If it’s not worth talking about, it’s not worth doing.
9. Make the story of your company a good one.
10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.
11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
12. Honest marketing makes more money.

What Can You Do to Support Earth Day 2010

Written by Frank Iacono

Today, Thursday, April 22, 2010, marks the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. It’s hard to believe that it was on April 22, 1970, that we celebrated our first Earth Day. It all began behind the support of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin who wanted to use this as a nationwide environmental tech-in day.

Earth Day 1970 featured a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, tycoons and labor leaders, and city slickers and farmer. Additionally, the first Earth Day also led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts.

In support of Earth Day 2010, I encourage you to participate by:

• Using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter as well as emailing your family, friends, and business colleagues to spread the word about Earth Day
• Finding an alternative means of transportation such as biking, walking, mass transit or carpooling
• Taking the stairs instead of elevators
• Turning off all electrical devices such as televisions and radios when not in use
• Turning off all lights when not in use
• Purchasing Energy Star rated appliances
• Finding ways to use water more efficiently
• Taking shorter showers
• Lowering hot water heaters

You can make a difference!

Top 25 Email Checklist

Written by: Frank Iacono

Prior to blasting out an email campaign, please make sure to follow the Top 25 checklist shown below:

1. Is your server black-listed? If you are not sure you can go here to find out: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
2. Have you made sure to remove all unsubscribed email addresses?
3. Have you segmented your database to include the right target audience?
4. Is the email “from address” and “display name” correct?
5. Are you complying with all the CAN SPAM requirements?
6. Have you properly identified yourself as the sender in the footer of the message?
7. Does your message include a working unsubscribe link?
8. Is the subject line going to make the end-user open the email?
9. Does your subject line contain any punctuation?
10. Does your copy content include short sentences (a maximum of four lines per paragraph)?
11. Does the email content pass the spam filter test? (e.g., http://web0.lyris.com/resources/contentchecker/)
12. Does the tone of your email match your “personality” that the end-user expects from you?
13. Does the email message contain a clear single purpose? 
14. Does the email clearly ask the end-user to take a specific call-to-action?
15. Have you tested the message content, design, and performance across multiple platforms and email clients to ensure proper delivery?
16. Are the merge codes and fields working correctly?
17. Are all the links in the email live and working properly?
18. Is the width of the email design 600 pixels wide or less?
19. Does your message contain at least two or more links to the landing page (early in the email and near the end) to ensure maximum exposure for the offer?
20. Does the email message use inline styles within the two BODY tags versus using cascading style sheets (CSS)?
21. Is there a good balance of copy and images
22. Do all images within the email should have ALT Tags in case the graphic is not or cannot be displayed?
23. Did you strip out useless META tag info from the email?
24. Are you sending the email message at a specific time and day that a majority of your target market typically checks email messages?
25. Are you prepared to track the response on the back-end?