Think you’ve secured yourself against online hackers with a foolproof password?

Well think again because with the number of cases of reported hack attacks on the rise, hackers are getting even craftier at cracking those codes.

But fear not, here at DpiVision we’ve been busy trawling the Internet to find out ways to keep hackers at bay and we’ve stumbled across web geek John P’s top tips on protecting yourself from online crime.

After extensively researching the subject, John’s pretty clued up on how to smash those passwords you and I reckon are rock solid, and now he’s using his knowledge to help fellow friends online.

His first tip is to ditch obvious passwords like your partner, pet or sibling’s name.
Lose naming your password after your hometown, school or favourite football team, and don’t use date of births.

Secondly, use a different password for each log-in you set up.

Many people make the mistake of using identical or similar passwords for all online accounts, meaning that hackers don’t need to attempt to take on steel-ringed websites like banks, they can just hack into the softer site you used years ago to buy your aunt that hat.

Pay particular attention to the difference between using only lowercase characters and using all possible characters (uppercase, lowercase, and special characters – like @#$%^&*). Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.

John has also compiled a list of tips to toughen up your password:

1.    Randomly substitute numbers for letters that look similar. The letter ‘o’ becomes the number ‘0′, or even better an ‘@’ or ‘*’. (i.e. – m0d3ltf0rd… like modelTford)
2.    Randomly throw in capital letters (i.e. – Mod3lTF0rd)
3.    Think of something you were attached to when you were younger, but don’t choose a person’s name! Every name plus every word in the dictionary will fail under a simple brute force attack.
4.    Maybe a place you loved, or a specific car, an attraction from a holiday, or a favourite restaurant?
5.    You really need to have different username / password combinations for everything. Remember, the technique is to break into anything you access just to figure out your standard password, then compromise everything else. This doesn’t work if you don’t use the same password everywhere
6.    Since it can be difficult to remember a ton of passwords, John recommends using Roboform. It will store all of your passwords in an encrypted format and allow you to use just one master password to access all of them.
7.    Once you’ve thought of a password, try Microsoft’s password strength tester to find out how secure it is.

To read John’s full blog, visit http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/26/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords/

The current economic situation represents the greatest adversity to face the North East for decades. The North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC) is working to ensure that all businesses in the region receive the vital support required to provide stability to their businesses during this period.

It is vital that the region’s businesses stand firm during these turbulent times and at the NECC they feel it is their responsibility, as your regional Chamber of Commerce, to provide a firm foundation on which businesses can meet the challenge of recession head-on.

Please find a help guide below with topics that include:

• Controlling Costs
• Improving Cash Flow
• Increase Your Marketing
• Maintain Service Levels
• Preparing For the Up Turn
• General Tips

Top tips for business during the economic downturn (PDF)

With the credit crunch biting hard many businesses are finding it tough to keep themselves afloat.

But Business Link is dishing out some top tips on how to keep going in the current climate. By taking a few simple steps like managing your efficiency, cash-flow and debts, as well as looking at employment opportunities and carefully considering your finances, you can tighten the reins on your business and ride through the recession.

Please find some more information below with some useful online tools and advise:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/advice…

The team at Dpivision Ltd have been sharing their top tips on how to successfully sell online.

In a series of articles published on www.webretailer.com, we give a step-to-step starter guide to help online sellers get set up.

We are dishing out details on how to choose a payment provider and the best way to accept payments online, including options for taking card payments and how to unearth the best deal.

Deciding what e-commerce platform to choose can also be hard in a market that’s saturated with products.

In this article, we look at what you need from an e-commerce platform, and how to select a suitable package and web host.

In the third piece, we give hot tips on choosing a domain name and the importance of getting it right so your business is branded correctly.

To take a look at the articles we wrote below:

Starting Out
http://www.webretailer.com/articles/

Choosing a payment provider
http://www.webretailer.com/articles/choosing-a-payment-provider.asp

Choosing an e-commerce platform
http://www.webretailer.com/articles/choosing-an-ecommerce-platform.asp

Choosing a domain name
http://www.webretailer.com/articles/choosing-a-domain-name.asp