Normal office hours will resume at 9:00am CST (GMT -06:00) on Tuesday, September 7th.

As always, 24 hour emergency support will be on duty should you experience any network or server issues.

Regards,

Staff Writer

BummerHosting.com

At BummerNews.com you will find valuable information for all your webhosting and Internet business.

Are you curious about how to get started on the internet with your own website, e-commerce, membership site, shopping cart, online merchant account services, hosting a chat page, combating spam, how to get started on the internet, ordering a domain name, web design, site maintenance, secure forms, web email, web hosting, SSL certificates, starting a blog or anything internet related?

At Bummer News, you will find many articles specific to the needs of today’s ecommerce websites, business forums and blog informational needs.

Bookmark us today or visit us for all your hosting needs, at Bummer Hosting Solutions, a full service web hosting company!

Contact us today, for more information on getting started with your own website!

As always, 24 hour emergency support will be on duty should you experience any network or server issues.

As always, 24 hour emergency support will be on duty should you experience any network or server issues.

Best wishes for a Happy 2009!

Our Best!

Bummer Hosting Staff Writer

Make it easy on your donors, and your organization, to accept credit card payment securely, via your own Non-Profit Merchant Account. With your own Merchant Account, your funds will be deposited directly into your Organization’s Checking Account.

Bummer Hosting Solutions has teamed up with E-Online data to offer you a special on a real merchant account at a price you can afford. This also includes the Authorize.net gateway for shopping carts and other on-line transactions! What are the benefits?  Many! You can use your E-Onlinedata merchant account for online charges AND for your brick and mortar business/organization. Internet accounts INCLUDE real time Payment Gateway & Virtual Terminal. Apply for American Express & Discover right on the Application, along with Visa & Mastercard.

Accept credit cards Fantastic Rates 100% Gross Daily Settlement

Visa / MasterCard American Express Discover Card

- Apply for your merchant account and start accepting major credit cards when selling your products or accepting donations!

Bummer Hosting Solutions has teamed up with E-Onlinedata to offer you a special on a real merchant account at a price you can afford. This also includes the Authorize.net gateway for shopping carts and other on-line transactions! What are the benefits?  Many! You can use your E-Onlinedata merchant account for online charges AND for your brick and mortar business. Internet accounts INCLUDE real time Payment Gateway & Virtual Terminal. Apply for American Express & Discover right on the Application, along with Visa & Mastercard.

Apply online today!

Accept credit cards Fantastic Rates 100% Gross Daily Settlement

Visa / MasterCard American Express Discover Card

- Apply for your merchant account and start accepting major credit cards when selling your products!

If you have any questions, please let us know.

Regards,

Bummer Hosting Staff Writer

http://www.bummerhosting.com

Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card details or other sensitive personal information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity via e-mail. Electronic communications purporting to be from popular web sites, payment processors, Banks, or other organizations and businesses, are commonly used to lure unsuspecting victims. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.

Before the advent of the internet, many of these scams were carried out by corrupt telemarketers, which were known as phone scams or marketing scams. Since the creation of the Internet and electronic communication, this scam now continues online. AVOID GETTING HOOKED!

Have you received emails with something similar to the following?

1) “We suspect an unauthorized transaction on your account. To ensure that your account is not compromised, please click the link below and confirm your identity…”

~OR~

2) “During our regular verification of accounts, we couldn’t verify your information. Please click here to update and verify your information…”

~OR~

3) “Attention: We received an unusual Response code from this email address requesting for deactivation…Warning!!! In failure to verify your email account within 48hrs on receiving this notification, your account will automatically be deactivated…”

These are all examples of a scam called “phishing” — which involve Internet fraudsters who send spam or instant messages to lure personal information such as: credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security number, passwords, or other sensitive information from unsuspecting victims.

Some scammers send an email that “appears” to be from a legitimate business or a place you have done business with, asking you to call a phone number to update your account or access a “refund” or asks you to click a link to update or confirm your personal information. Most use a phone system called VOIP, or Voice over IP, which allows them to hide their true phone number and does NOT accurately reflect where the scammers are coming from.

If you need to reach an organization you do business with, call the number on your financial statements or on the back of your credit card. Do NOT respond to emails you receive that appear supicious. AVOID GETTING HOOKED!

* Do NOT reply to the email or instant messages asking for your personal or financial information.

* Do NOT click on links within the email or instant message.

* DO NOT cut and paste a link from any suspicious message, into your Web browser — phishers can
make a link look like it goes to one place, but in actualality they can send you to a different site.

* Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software, as well as a firewall, and update them all regularly. Update your software regularly. Some phishing emails contain software that can harm your computer or track your activities on the Internet without your knowledge. Anti-virus software and a firewall can protect you from inadvertently accepting such unwanted files. Anti-virus software scans incoming communications for troublesome files. Look for anti-virus software that recognizes current viruses as well as older ones; that can effectively reverse the damage; and that offer updates. A firewall helps make you invisible on the Internet and blocks all communications from unauthorized sources.
It’s especially important to run a firewall if you have a broadband connection. Operating systems (like Windows or Linux) or browsers (like Internet Explorer or Netscape) also may offer free software “patches” to close holes in the system that hackers or phishers could exploit. (ZoneAlarm, Ad-Aware anti-spyware, AVG Anti-virus)

* Do NOT reply to the email or instant messages asking for your personal or financial information.

* Do NOT click on links within the email or instant message.

* DO NOT cut and paste a link from any suspicious message, into your Web browser — phishers can make a link look like it goes to one place, but in actuality they can send you to a different site.

* Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software, as well as a firewall, and update them all regularly. Update your software regularly. Some phishing emails contain software that can harm your computer or track your activities on the Internet without your knowledge. Anti-virus software and a firewall can protect you from inadvertently accepting such unwanted files. Anti-virus software scans incoming communications for troublesome files. Look for anti-virus software that recognizes current viruses as well as older ones; that can effectively reverse the damage; and that offer updates. A firewall helps make you invisible on the Internet and blocks all communications from unauthorized sources. It’s especially important to run a firewall if you have a broadband connection. Operating systems (like Windows or Linux) or browsers (like Internet Explorer or Netscape) also may offer free software “patches” to close holes in the system that hackers or phishers could exploit. (ZoneAlarm, Ad-Aware anti-spyware, AVG Anti-virus)

* Do NOT email personal or financial information to anyone. Email is VERY INSECURE.

* If you order online using your credit card or personal information, be sure the URL is secure (”https://)
This “s” stands for secure.

* Take the time to review your credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorized charges.

* Be cautious about opening an attachment or downloading files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them. (Often times, you, or people you know, have been hacked and do not even know it. It is NOT uncommon to have an email APPEAR to be coming from someone you know OR a legitimate company, but in fact it is NOT. Sometimes what is posted in the Return address, could be a coverup, unbeknownest to the legitit person or company that is displayed in the return address. Be Aware!)

* Forward the “phishing emails” to http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/07/newspamemail.shtm – AND to whoever the company, bank, or organization that was impersonated in the phishing email. There are anti phishing groups, ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies that use these reports to fight phishing.

* You should harden all of your passwords by using a combination of letters and numbers in your passwords. Using upper and lowercase letters as well as numbers is even better. Hackers run what can be called, dictionary attacks, with special software, so you should avoid using only letters in your passwords.

(The examples listed above can be defined as phishing for personal/sensitive/credit card information or fraudulent email scams.)

If you are selling goods, services, digital downloads, etc… over the Internet, you will most likely need to have an SSL Certificate installed on your domain. If not, your billing portal MUST have an SSL, (https://). The “S” stands for secure and means sensitive data will be encrypted.

An SSL is an acronym for secure sockets layer. It protects transmissions over the World Wide Web from spectators by encrypting the data while it gets transmitted over the Internet. SSL works through a certificate that authenticates a certain domain. Click here for more information on SSL Certificates

If you offer payment only by PayPal, or by a third party billing company, then the SSL will not be needed, as it should already be provided by those companies. How do you know? You can check this by going to your checkout form and looking at the URL for the “https://” inside the address bar. If you do not see the “https://” in the URL when you are ready to enter in sensitive billing info, then you need to be aware. This goes for yourself, as well, when making online transactions. Do not add your sensitive credit card information to a site to buy ANYTHING unless you see the “https://” in the URL of the page where you enter your sensitive information.

Having said that, if you are using your own online merchant account to charge your clients/customers online, then you will need an SSL Certificate installed for your domain. Still unsure? Contact our Sales department, or submit a billing or tech support ticket to find out. Tell us exactly what you are wanting to do, what billing software or billing company you plan on using, and we can help you further.

For current clients who would like to order an SSL Certificate for installation on their site, simply login to billing and create a ticket with your request. Let us know what domain you will be using the SSL on. There is no extra charge for installation of an SSL certificate for our current webhosting clients. The only fee for our current clients is the fee for the SSL Certificate itself. We will install it for free.  Click here for SSL Pricing .

Click here for more information on SSL CERTIFICATES

Click here for our Sales Department

Click here for Tech Support

Click here for Billing Support

During this time, all Bummer Hosting Solutions employees will be attending their annual training seminars. This is a continuing effort in order to provide you with the best customer, internet and tech support possible.

Please schedule any changes to your web hosting services prior or after these dates. As always, 24 hour emergency support will be on duty for network or server issues.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but with increased knowledge we will be able to serve you better than ever before!

Regards,

Bummer Hosting Staff Writer