AtlantaEvent.com NewsFlash - Have you been WebJacked?

Jeff Glaze - Editor This E-mail is Privacy Certified Visit Privacy-First.com for details. Click here to buy my e-book.

Editors Notes: Greetings, If you are new to the NewsFlash since the last mailing, I usually start with a greeting, then the good articles follow. It has been a busy summer for me at Mostcool Media, we have had a lot of new clients, new referrals, and one problem project that caused me to find it necessary to fire a client and cancel the project. If you have subscribed to the newsflash for some time, you may have seen my article "Hey Mr. Client - You're Fired" . If you never got to read it, click here to read it on an articles web site. I am including in this issue an article about your security if you have your own web site or online accounts. This is a MUST READ for anyone who has their own web site! You may not know what is happening on it! So, lean back, put on your reading glasses and get ready for more information to take your business to the next level! Thanks for subscribing, thanks for using AtlantaEvent.com, and have a great week. Be sure to visit AtlantaEvent.com often and tell everyone about it. If you would like more info on Privacy-First™ e-mail certification ( logo at left ), click for details. Jeff Glaze - Editor P. S. You too can advertise in this newsletter call 678-508-5975 for details. Special Offer For NewsFlash Subscribers Mostcool Media and Atlantaevent.com Present Our Early Fall Business Directory Listing Blowout From Now until October 15, 2006 you can purchase your Premium Business Directory Listing on AtlantaEvent.com for the low one year rate, and have it featured on the site FOREVER! Click Here For Rates.

You know the words, Hijacking, Carjacking, Lo jack, but you may have never heard of Webjacking. In fact if you search for it on the web, you will find about 1,570 references to it. In fact most people who have been webjacked, never even realize when it happens to them and some never find out!

Recently one of my clients experienced an extreme case of Webjacking. The company hosting her web site was attacked by a hacker in Turkey (the country) who replaced all of the home pages on an entire server with his own. Not only did it wreak havoc with the hundreds of sites hosted on that server, it totally shut down all of their email accounts. This happened over a month ago and they are still struggling to overcome the problems.

The worst part of this attack was the hosting company is one of the top 50 in the world! Their security is top notch, yet they got hit and hit badly.

Recently, I found two of my websites hacked by someone who had accessed the sites and modified the code of the home page to add something to it. I am not sure exactly what the code did, but I am sure I never added it to the pages.

Hackers are internet terrorists. Some do it for fun, some for the international recognition and some do it simply because they can. Some hackers are trying to crash the internet. Some are doing it to steal personal information. Whatever the reason, there is little that can be done to stop them but there is something that CAN be done.

This information is of importance to those who have one or more of the following:

The first and most important way to protect yourself online is the username and password of your online accounts. These must NEVER be simple. Usernames are often an email address. Sometimes they are assigned by an online service, in most cases we may not have a choice what our username is. If you do have a choice, a username should always be a combination of letters and numbers. The same goes for passwords and whole words or name should NEVER BE USED!

Example: never use something like rover1234. This can be broken by a random password generator which tries all the combinations of a word and sequential and random numbers in a matter of seconds. Just like on a spy movie or TV show.

I know it is difficult to remember usernames and passwords for all of the online accounts you have, that is why you often use the same username and/or password for all of them. Big mistake. If one account gets hacked, the hacker now has the username and password for all of your accounts.

You may ask yourself how they would find all of your accounts? Hackers are programmers. They write programs that do the work for them. These programs are running 24/7 checking critical accounts, trying all combinations of words and letters until they get into an account. Once they get in, the information is stored as a viable user/pass and the search begins for any account where that info might work.

If they find one of yours that works for them, they will, over time, find many of your accounts. The hosting company I spoke of earlier claims that their entire server was hacked because someone had a simple username and password.

If you have your own hosted web site: Your site may have been modified without your knowledge. The way you can check this is to view the source code of the page. To do this, go to your web site. On the home page, right-click off of the main area of the page, being sure not to click on an image. A menu will pop up. On that menu choose "view page source". A window will then open and you will be able to see the source code for your web site. On the first line there should be a tag like this <HTML> or <html>. If there is any thing but this on the first line, contact your web master or designer immediately and ask them to look at the code of your page and see if there is anything unusual there.

They may find that all is OK, but to be safe, have them check it out. It must be checked from the browser and you must be connected to the web to see problems.

One last thing - Your domain name registration. Be sure to keep your account information up to date with your registrar. Be sure to mark your calendar for the week prior to renewing your domain name. Be sure to use only reputable domain registrars, even if they cost a little bit more (we suggest using godaddy.com). The reason for this? One of my clients bought their domain from a cheap registrar. When it came time to renew, the registrar did not notify them. Their domain expired and then the registrar notified them and told them for $185 they could keep the domain name. My client declined, hoping to get the domain back by reserving the name on Godaddy.

When the domain was totally expired, it was immediately bought by a company in United Arab Emirates. Upon investigation, i discovered that the registrar was owned by a company from the middle east. My client's web site was replaced overnight with a web site loaded with paid advertisements all related to the title of the domain name and was now "FOR SALE" by that company.

My client had to get a new domain name, meanwhile all of their marketing efforts contained the old web address. Everything they had done to promote the web site now pointed to the page full of paid ads, thus enabling the domain hijackers to capitalize on all of the previous owners promotions.

In all of this the end result is agony and expense for site owners and users. Do what you can to protect yourself both through your own site and those sites you use. Keep a book where you write down your unique user names and passwords, monitor your site code monthly to detect changes. Above all, be safe online.

Jeff Glaze is the creator of AtlantaEvent.com, this newsletter, a web designer, artist, author, speaker, and president of Mostcool Media, Inc..

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Balance and the business traveler has everything to do with staying "connected". As I indicate in my book, Work for a Living & Still Be Free to Live, we achieve a fluctuating balance by how we CHOOSE to stay connected with the critical areas of our life. Business travel can take a heavy emotional, physical and mental toll.

Let me suggest some ways to stay connected with these areas while "on the road":

Emotional

—staying connected with your home base and significant people. If you have children, depending upon their ages, consider the following: Take your child with you in your imagination. Ask them if they would select a SMALL toy of theirs that you could carry with you and so stay connected with them. Tape record a favorite story or a good night ritual which can be played before the child goes to sleep. With the child, track your travels on a map and together talk about some of the places or things of interest about your destination (lobsters in Maine; skyscrapers in NY, the lions at the Chicago Art Museum.) As an added bonus, you will have a new appreciation for the place where you'll be.

—Send post cards home to each member of the family (make up labels in advance and buy stamps). You only need to write one personal line. Doesn't matter that you'll get home before the postcard. You thought of them.

—Leave love notes for your partner (under the pillow/ with the toothpaste/ on the bathroom mirror). My husband leaves a message with the hotel operator to deliver "Bill loves you most!" Operators really get a kick out of delivering this message

—Have a different e-mail address for family members and send home messages

—Take a blank book and fill it with favorite pictures of home, family, friends, pet. Always take the book with you on your travels. (I do!)

—If possible, make separate calls to your spouse and your children. That way, no one has to share "air time".

Physical

—staying connected with your body. Be THERE. Don't keep two watch times. You'll be tempted to say "But I can't go to sleep now it's only 7pm in CA. or "I can't get up at 6:00—it's only 3AM in CA.

—Plan time (it won't just appear) for exercise of any kind. Bring shoes for running or walking. Bring exercise rubber bands for muscle tone. (Take up no room) Use stairs rather than elevator where possible.

—Bring any item which can easily make you "feel at home". This can be anything from a pillow case, a teddy bear, a small picture.

—If it's your style, bring herbal scents for the room; bath salts. One friend carries a device for drowning out sound. She turns it on and selects anything from ocean sounds to raindrops.

—Try a portable vaporizer. Clears sinuses and puts moisture back into the face.

—Bring saline solution nasal spray for the airlines. Also, a small atomizer of water (some kinds are mixed with aloe). Body tissues become very dehydrated on flights. Drink more water than you ever thought possible.

—Always ask for a room away from the elevator and the ice machine.

—Unless you have great stamina, avoid red eye flights. Much better to come in rested to do work than stumble your way through a meeting.

—Find luggage that works for you. Weight, size, length of shoulder strap.

—Lighten the load: if an extended trip, ship home materials or clothes you won't need. Bring a pre-addressed packing slip. Concierge can help. Whenever possible, check your baggage. Carry only with you the necessities for work and personal hygiene and health. Wear clothes that could suit for your meeting should luggage not make it. There's far too much carry-on these days.

Mental

—staying connected with your psyche. Self- talk is powerful when traveling. Why become angry and upset at weather delays (over which no one can do anything)? Mechanical problems are a fact of life. If at all possible, never book yourself on the last flight to your destination. Always have a later flight. And if you can't make it, consider that you have been given a gift of time.

—Use time in flight to get caught up on journals, periodicals, etc. For me, a successful trip is when my briefcase gets lighter and the pocket of the seat in front gets heavier.

—See your destination with new eyes. Consider that you are an explorer. Try something new: a restaurant, a neighborhood, a museum, even the note the difference of people.

—Keep a small journal and write observations. This also lets you bring home "more than work" to share with the home front.

—Start the day quiet. Meditate. Deep breathe. Allow enough time to get ready before you leave the hotel.

Lastly, expect the unexpected and let go of the outcome. Do what you can for contingencies. Bring a cell phone, essential numbers and don't book the last flight out. Then relax into the uncertainty of travel. Stress comes from trying to control the uncontrollable.

Let it go.

Eileen McDargh is a powerful keynote speaker, recognized work/life leadership expert, and award winning author. Discover your organizational and personal resiliency factor with this free online survey eileenmcdargh.com/res_free_surveys.html Call toll free 877-477-4718

We design our life with specific goals, plans and actions for achievement. Yet, in a moment all can change. We are then left to ponder the question, “Have you chosen your life path, or has it chosen you?”

Even with the best laid plans there comes a time when our greatest achievement is to surrender to that which life has put in front of us. Surrender with a sense of acceptance not defeat.

Acceptance of the inevitable often leads us to our most profound achievements, left to discover a purpose that may have been buried deep within our spirit. Like the tides, achievement has an ebb and flow.

Our greatest achievements reside in the art of possibility. The possibility that regardless of what circumstances we find ourselves immersed in we maintain our beliefs, we continue to grow, learn and expand as a direct result of the situation.

Possibilities, like people, require nurturing and a place to grow. Our minds house all possibilities, but access to them calls for a particular kind of self-love and personal knowledge. Knowing how and when to call forth the possibilities of your day or your life is an art. There are no project plans, goal setting courses or prioritized lists that will teach us to reach into ourselves and elicit the possibilities of our being.

This is personal work; the personal work of self-care, both simultaneously powerful and fragile. Possibility must be cultivated until there is a strength that allows it to stand on its own.

No matter how much evidence we have that life is full of uncertainty there are those who do all they can to achieve constant certainty. It is the very uncertainty of life that has us love with intensity, live with passion and cherish the moments that may have passed unnoticed if each moment were guaranteed to be followed by the next. It is the uncertainty of life that pushes us to achieve.

Uncertainty may well be the catalyst to become our greatest self, achieving that which we otherwise would not have. It is that which allows the ordinary to become extraordinary, the average person a champion in their own right.

A champion is one who understands that time is fleeting and life is rich with possibility. A champion is a champion first in their mind and heart long before they are a champion in their sport. We are all champions in the making. All we have to do is believe.

Portions of this article are from the newest book by award winning keynote speakers, authors and entrepreneurs Kathleen Gage and Lori Giovannoni, entitled The Law of Achievement, Discover Your Purpose, Possibility and Potential. For a very limited time you can get your own copy and receive over 100 Bonus gifts worth thousands of dollars by visiting lawofachievement.com/special.htm