Pros and Cons of a Cybersecurity Business

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Esther Strauss

Cybersecurity is a booming market, as companies adopt new security practices to stay ahead of hackers. If you’re considering starting a cybersecurity business, there are pros and cons to consider before deciding if it’s right for you.

To learn more about how to start a cybersecurity business, check out this post

Pros of a Cybersecurity Business

1. Massive Market

As we mentioned, cybersecurity is booming. The global cybersecurity industry is worth more than $150 billion and is expected to grow a whopping 125% by 2026. The market is being driven by the increase in computer and internet usage, improved hacker skills, and various regulations.

Additionally, Machine to machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) connections are increasing the need for cybersecurity, driving demand in the market. The need for cloud security and information security is also boosting demand.

In 2020, the average cost to businesses as a result of hackers was $8.64 million and had increased steadily during previous years. Demand for cybersecurity services will therefore remain high for the foreseeable future, as companies are willing to pay for those services to prevent losses from security breaches.

2. Excellent Profit Potential

For analysis and installation of cybersecurity systems, prices vary from $1,000 to upwards of $10,000. Ongoing security monitoring ranges from $1,000 to $10,000 per month, so clearly, you can build up quite a monthly revenue stream. Ongoing costs are also relatively low, with gross profit margins for cybersecurity businesses of between 70% and 80%.

Because of these numbers, cybersecurity businesses are often a target for investors, so as you grow your company you might be able to attract venture capital, with the goal of being acquired in 3 to 5 years. Acquisitions bring big payouts, so your money potential could be enormous.

3. Start Small

You can start your cybersecurity business from home for less than $10,000. If you already have technology systems in place that you can use for your business, your costs to get started are far less. Even as a solopreneur you can make a good living and have money to put back into the business to grow. Eventually, you can get a space and hire staff, to begin to grow your operation.

Cybersecurity is one of the few businesses that you can start from home and rapidly grow into an investable company. Imagine your small investment in a home-based business turning into a multi-million acquisition payday within 5 years!

4. Make an Impact

With a cybersecurity business, you’ll be providing huge value to businesses, potentially saving them millions of dollars that might be lost from security breaches. Making businesses more secure, and thus in better financial positions, means that you’re also contributing to building a healthier overall economy. This is good for everyone, not just businesses.

Cybersecurity can thus be a gratifying business to pursue. You’ll know that you are contributing to society, and making everyone more financially secure, as well as cyber secure.

Cons of a Cybersecurity Business

1. Education Required

Becoming a cybersecurity expert takes extensive education. While you can take a host of online classes for very little money, you’ll have to be very dedicated to self-study to build the necessary skills. Alternatively, you can pursue a formal degree, which will take several years and come with a price tag. If you don’t have or obtain enough education to really be an expert, you’re not likely to be successful.

Additionally, because technology is always evolving, continuing education will be required. This will be a never-ending process, as cybersecurity technology struggles to keep up with hacker technology. This means ongoing time and money that you’ll have to spend so that your business can keep up with the competition.

2. Competitive Market

A booming industry also means a competitive market. There are tens of thousands of cybersecurity companies, including some very large companies, to compete with. It may take some time for your small cybersecurity company to break into that market. This makes it even more important for you to have extensive education to give you credibility and to make sure that you can offer outstanding services to businesses so that you’ll retain customers.

You’ll also have to invest in some marketing to get noticed and go knock on a lot of doors. Your best bet when you get started is to call on local small businesses directly to sell your services. This, of course, takes another skill set. Not everyone is good at sales and marketing, but you’ll have to learn to be good at it to be successful.

3. Mistakes Can Be Costly

In this litigious day and age, if you make a mistake that costs a business a significant amount of money, you could be sued. This is nothing to take lightly when losses can significant. When a data breach happens, often consumers will file suit against the company, which may in turn file suit against your company.

For these reasons, it’s important, first of all, to set your company up properly from the beginning. If you just run your company as a sole proprietorship, you’ll be personally liable for any claims against you. This means your personal assets, including your home, will be at risk. If you set up your business as a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation, you will have personal liability protection. Your business can still be sued, but you will not be personally liable. By the way, you would need some help from LLC services in case you wanted to manage your finances like a pro to grow your business.

You also need to make sure that your business is fully insured, particularly with professional liability insurance, which protects your company from losses incurred by errors.

In Closing

It’s important to understand these pros and cons so that you know what you’re getting into by starting a cybersecurity business. It offers unlimited opportunities, but you may encounter some challenges along the way. By starting a cybersecurity business, however, you’ll be providing a valuable service that benefits everyone, and that has its own rewards.

Promotion of Videos on YouTube

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Alexander Fallen

Getting your videos to the top positions in YouTube is the dream of every YouTube channel owner. But the thing is that YouTube itself doesn’t advertise what factors influence its ranking choices. But it also does not deny that promotion is carried out according to certain algorithms.

If you can’t just read YouTube’s rules and laws to see what factors influence the ranking, it doesn’t mean that no one knows anything about the secrets of promotion on this video hosting site. Experts have done the research and, after analyzing the data on more than a million YouTube channels, have derived an approximate formula for video ranking by identifying the most influential factors. You will find the results of these studies in this article.

YouTube Ranking Principles

The main idea behind YouTube ranking is that the most interesting and useful videos get into the top lines of YouTube ranking. That’s done to benefit users and maintain video hosting’s reputation.

But how to understand what videos YouTube considers worthy of the first lines in the search results. What principles underlie its ranking? Let’s take a look at what factors, according to experts, will have the most impact on promoting videos.

Views. YouTube promotion is also influenced by the number of views and their duration, i.e., how long you managed to keep the viewer’s attention. Among the means to attract views is buying them (this page — https://popularitybazaar.com/youtube-views/ — is an example). Most often, videos up to 15 minutes long are ranked higher. But you shouldn’t conclude from this that all your videos should have such a length. Keeping users’ attention longer might contribute to your popularity.

Video optimization. You can read about optimizing your YouTube channel elsewhere. Here, let’s say briefly: videos optimized by keywords have a clear advantage over competitors. Use popular search queries in the file you upload as a video, the title and description of the video, tags, and subtitles.

Likes and dislikes. You’ll be surprised, but both likes and dislikes bring a high ranking to the channel. YouTube considers even a high number of dislikes a positive factor because it shows interest in your videos.

Comments. A very important factor for ranking is users’ comments on your videos. Involve users in the discussion, encourage them to express their opinion, try to engage with them actively, and YouTube will surely give you credit for that.

Subscribers. Don’t think that the more numerous the channel’s army of subscribers, the higher its position in the rankings will be. This factor has almost no effect on promotion. New small channels have the same chance to move up to the front positions in the rankings as old YouTube channels with a huge audience. And the number of subscriptions to the channel caused by people watching the video can strengthen your rankings.

Conclusion

By attracting users with useful and high-quality videos, motivating them to debate on a topic of interest to them, and optimizing your channel, you promote your project and attract YouTube viewers. YouTube is sure to appreciate it, ranking your videos according to its own, unadvertised algorithm.

4 Reasons Why Businesses Should Use WordPress in Today’s Market

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Charlene Brown

In today’s technological world, it is more important than ever for businesses to have a strong online presence. With so many different platforms and options available, it can be difficult to know which one is the best fit for your business. WordPress is a content management system that has been around for over a decade. It is used by millions of people all over the world, and it is the most popular platform for building websites. There are many reasons why businesses should use WordPress in today’s market, but we will discuss four of the most important benefits here.

It Is an Open-Source Platform

WordPress is an open-source platform, which means that it is free to use. You can download it and install it on your own server and use it to build a website, or you can use a WordPress hosting service. Either way, you will not have to pay anything to use WordPress. This is a great advantage for businesses because it allows them to save money on their website development costs. It also offers white-label WordPress development services.

This means that the company will develop a WordPress site for you and hand it over to you once it is complete. You can then add your own branding and logo to the site, and start promoting your business online.

Easy To Use

Another great benefit of WordPress is that it is very easy to use. Even if you are not familiar with web development, you will be able to create a beautiful website with WordPress. There are thousands of themes and plugins available, so you can customize your site to look exactly the way you want it to. Some themes are even specifically designed for businesses, so you can find one that perfectly suits your needs.

Plugins are also very useful because they allow you to add functionality to your website without having to write any code. And if you ever need help, there is a large community of WordPress users who are always willing to lend a hand. WordPress maintenance is minimal, and any issues with the site are always easy to resolve.

SEO Friendly

WordPress is also a very SEO-friendly platform. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is important for any website because it helps your site to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This means that it is easy for your website to be found by search engines like Google, which will lead to more traffic and more customers. When you use WordPress, you can easily install plugins that will help you optimize your site for the search engines, which can further improve your website’s ranking. Plugins like Yoast SEO and Google XML Sitemaps are two of the most popular SEO plugins for WordPress. Yoast SEO will help you to optimize your website’s title and meta tags, while Google XML Sitemaps will generate a sitemap of your website that will help Google index your site more effectively. Google indexing is important because it helps your website to appear in Google search results. Some plugins are even specifically designed to help with SEO, so you can choose the ones that are right for your business. This is a great benefit for businesses because it can help them get more traffic to their website, which can lead to more sales and customers.

However, if you are not aware of the complexities that come with creating a successful website and don’t have enough experience, consider investing in customized WordPress website development to get a dynamic site that meets current industry standards but also brings a unique flavor to reflect your brand or personality.

It Is Secure

Last but least, WordPress is a very secure platform. It is regularly updated with security patches to ensure that your website is safe from hackers, and there are many different security plugins available. You can also install them and they will help to keep your site secure. The two best security plugins are Wordfence Security and Sucuri Security. This feature is important for businesses because it helps to protect their website from online threats. However, no system is perfect, and it is important to remember that you are responsible for securing your own website. You should always keep your WordPress installation and plugins up to date, and you should use strong passwords for your administrator account. Another way to protect your website is to use a security plugin like Wordfence, which will help to block malicious traffic and protect your site from attacks. These can be useful for businesses because they help to keep their website safe from online threats.

WordPress is a great platform for businesses because it is an open-source platform, easy to use, SEO friendly, and secure. If you are looking to create a website for your business, WordPress should be at the top of your list. It is a great way to get started in today’s market.

So, these are four of the most important benefits of using WordPress for your business website. If you are looking for a platform that is, above all mentioned, cost-effective, then WordPress is a great option. Contact VezaDigital today to learn more about how we can help you create a successful WordPress website for your business.

Where You Can Pay with Bitcoin

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Tom Polters

People usually buy cryptocurrencies for investment, but it is not a requirement that you have to trade Bitcoin. Bitcoin can also come in handy for travel or everyday life. Many eshops and land-based merchants accept this virtual currency as payment.

Bitcoin (BTC) is the most widely used digital cryptocurrency. It was created in 2008 and is not controlled by any world government. Bitcoin is freely exchangeable and each transaction is recorded in a public ledger called a blockchain (which guarantees anonymity). The payment itself is then made almost instantly.

Visit bitcoin360ai online to learn more about crypto.

Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million coins – there will never be more coins in circulation. The last bitcoin is expected to be mined around 2140.

A unit of bitcoin is referred to as a coin (1 BTC) and has 8 decimal places. The smallest unit is unofficially called a satoshi. This is one hundred millionth of one bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC).

How to Pay with Bitcoin

Bitcoins can already be paid for on many e-shops, for example in the USA. And not only e-shops. One of the most famous companies that are accepting bitcoin are Microsoft, Overstock, Twitch, PayPal, Rakuten, CheapAir and Tesla. You can add Bitcoin to the Starbucks app as a payment.

In addition, dozens of stores are adding more every day. An e-shop can have payment set up as one of the payment methods. Then you just need to copy their BTC receiving address for your goods and confirm to send the amount. Services like BITPAY will then convert the bitcoin payment they receive in the terminal at the current exchange rate into the local currency.

Small shops, for whom this method can be complicated, also solve this by, for example, emailing you their BTC address, you send bitcoins to it, and the address essentially serves as a variable symbol. The merchant and the customer can track the movement of BTC publicly on the Blockchain, for example.

The easiest way to find out where to pay with Bitcoin is to use the so-called bitcoin map. This online or mobile app shows shops and restaurants that accept bitcoin. Some of the most well-known one is map.bitcoin.com.

Bitcoin as an Official Currency

The very first country, which accepted Bitcoin as an official currency, was El Salvador. Before the actual introduction of bitcoin as an official currency in El Salvador, the government purchased 400 units of cryptocurrency worth US$20 million.

After bitcoin became El Salvador’s official currency, a decline in value soon followed; it depreciated by around 19% in 24 hours. The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, also suffered a decline.

However, the Salvadoran government took advantage of this recession by making another bitcoin purchase: this time it was 150 bitcoins for around $7 million.

Surveys of Salvadoran citizens have shown that there are many opponents of this controversial decision. Around 1,000 people even gathered in the capital to express their opposition in the form of a protest.

El Salvador is not the only country in the world that will have Bitcoin as an official currency. Another one could be the Kingdom of Tonga. It wants to push for a decentralized currency for its people, following the example of El Salvador. Lord Fusitu’a, a former member of parliament, has come forward with the information. According to him, it would “copy” a procedure that has proved effective in the case of the aforementioned El Salvador.

Digital Transformation in 2022 – What It Takes to Transform Your Business

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Scott Fluent

If you’re looking for the fastest, most effective, and most secure way to grow your business and expand your operations, digital transformation should be your highest priority. Defining what it means to digitally transform your operations is quite challenging as the definition would differ from industry to industry.

Overall, it involves integrating and implementing digital technologies into every aspect of your organization. It fundamentally changes how your company functions and interacts with consumers. However, while it may sound like something simple to achieve, it’s far from it.

Digital transformation requires tremendous tech knowledge and cross-departmental cooperation with your organization to effectively match your business goals and culture with rapid application development models.

With all that in mind, let’s discuss what it takes to transform your business digitally and take it to the next level.

Process transformation

From AI, machine learning, APIs, and data analytics to cybersecurity, networking, and other technologies, reinventing business processes to reduce cycle times, improve quality, and lower cost has been a primary concern for many businesses.

Many organizations have implemented robotic process automation to eliminate repetition and simplify processes. Process transformation is the first step toward digitally transforming your business that can create tremendous value in your organization, regardless of your line of work.

Business model transformation

The next phase of the digital transformation of your business is changing how it delivers value in your industry. It focuses on the foundational building blocks of your company and allows you to change your business model into a more customer-centric, omnipresent powerhouse.

In other words, it defines how you create and market your products and services, and how you interact and engage with your consumers.

Organizational and cultural transformation

Redefining your business capabilities, talent, processes, and mindsets for the digital business landscape are essential to breaking the chains of traditional business models. You need flexible workflows, scalable operations, top-class decision-making, and the ability to make moves in an instant.

To do that, you’ll need the following things:

Greater reliance on various modern-day business ecosystems;
Bias toward learning and testing;
Decentralized decision-making process.

Agile workflow development and instilling collaboration are surefire ways to change your organization and shift employee focus to the immense potential of data. Your employees shouldn’t depend on the tech equipment to deliver results when they have all the data in the world in the palm of their hands.

Approaching digital transformation

Measuring your digital success is crucial in the first few months of your transformation. However, you shouldn’t remain idle and wait until your digital success catches on. Instead, try to leverage all the advantages you can.

Start by harnessing the power of all digital solutions at your disposal to develop an all-encompassing digital strategy. Keep in mind that this can’t happen overnight. Focus your new strategy on making rapid implementations and changing your culture by shifting focus on data.

You’ll need an effective, centrally managed network to develop an innovative, data-driven enterprise network that ensures your website and all other channels of customer interaction are as responsive as they should be.

SD-WAN solutions are the best technologies for connecting devices and users across all your points of interaction. Once your digital transformation starts yielding positive results, you’ll soon identify new digital goals and targets that will potentially change the final destination of your organization.

Keep in mind that each customer interaction is generating data, and this data can prove to be an invaluable source of insights that can help to achieve your business goals. That’s why it’s important to shift focus from equipment to data.

Why do you need digital transformation?

Digital transformation offers access to top-class data that holds all the answers you need and helps deliver real value to your consumers. Digital transformation is the best way to cope with the ever-increasing inflation and ensure economic survival in an overwhelmingly competitive digital landscape.

It allows you to adapt to rapid changes in the digital world, address disruptions to supply chains, answer customer demands, and cope with the fluctuating market. Investing in such a monumental change is a safe way to ensure your business thrives in these turbulent times. Your transformation should match your company’s specific demands, challenges, and industry.

Conclusion

The only way to move forward in your industry is to embrace the advantages of the ever-evolving technologies. The more the world moves towards the online business landscape, the more your organization depends on data capturing, processing, managing, and analysis.

Data defines a business today, and it offers all the insights into your consumers, market, industry, and competitors. Digital transformation is the most effective way to use those insights to your advantage and stay ahead of your competitors.

This New SaaS API Handles Image Uploading and Resizing

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Allen Brown

A lot of businesses rely on online spaces, websites, and blogs in order to reach their customers. Regardless of whether it’s a large corporation or a small business, the use of visual imagery and design is essential in order to create a strong brand image, which will inevitably be successful. But creating the perfect imagery doesn’t come easy, usually, it takes a lot of time and energy to produce enough content – especially if the imagery is used on multiple websites and social media platforms. That’s why businesses are seeking easy alternatives to make this process quicker and easier. Here’s how this new SaaS API handles image uploading and resizing, and how this can come in handy for your business!

The importance of resizing images

Images come in all shapes and sizes – sometimes they are perfect, but in most cases, they need altering in order to fit into a certain frame. Regardless of its product imagery, illustrations, stock images, or whatever you are dealing with, alterations are inevitable! Resizing is extremely handy and it can save you the trouble of taking multiple pictures or creating separate pieces, you can use the original with a little altering. But if you are working on multiple platforms and have to do a handful of these alterations, it can get pretty exhausting, not to mention time-consuming. Resizing in bulk is definitely something to look into if you are dealing with a lot of imagery that needs alterations. So having software that can help with this is a must!

What is API?

Not a lot of people are aware of API, but they unintentionally use it every day. Essentially, API is short for application program interface and it’s helping two software work seamlessly. Regardless of whether it’s searching something on your phone or using an app, there is a link that connects everything, and that link is usually an API. As you can see from this Image Upload API guide, it’s not something complicated to understand. Also, businesses benefit from this, especially when using multiple different software -this is quite common, especially if the business is divided by different roles and sections, using multiple different software is inevitable. So communication is necessary amongst that software in order for everything to run smoothly.

What is SaaS?

Software as a service or SaaS for short is a helpful tool that’s meant to help businesses reach success faster overnight. Its core lies in taking something and turning it into a usable format for the business. The great thing about SaaS is that the price is not set in most cases, it all comes down to the usage. In this case, it’s all about image resizing and uploading, so the amount of storage is directly connected to the monthly price tag. There are multiple ways to pay for this kind of service software, it all depends on if the user is personal like for hobbies, if it’s a scaled usage, perfect for medium storage, or if it’s for blogger corporations with a high level of usage. Also, it’s important to note that the SaaS interface is web-based, so it’s easy to use and good for businesses of all scales.

Why should you get the SaaS API?

Every SaaS-based company needs to have a good API system first in order for everything to run smoothly. When it comes to running multiple operations at the same time, in order to do it seamlessly there needs to be something that’s going to moderate it. There are also lots of API strategies to choose from, and this can help with the overall workflow optimization not to mention make everything sync up, which is necessary if you want to boost your efficiency.

Essential features

There is a reason why some businesses can benefit from this kind of thing, especially with a variety of different features that are offered. Not only is this SaaS API uploading images it can resize and edit them, making things that much more efficient for the business. If you are handling imagery for blogs and websites, it can take a lot to go through lots of imagery and size them up or down by hand, so opting for something quick and easy is key.

Resize, crop, optimize

Alpha transparency, optimization, cropping, upscaling, and cropping – basically, all the essential things to alter any kind of imagery to your liking. With a little help from AI, you can get precise results and get perfectly cropped and compressed images for your needs. It’s also important to add that multiple different formats are also convertible and optimized, to fit your blog or website! It’s a win-win!

Boosts performance

Performance is essential if you want to run a successful business, and you don’t want to make your clients wait. Download speed is everything nowadays, so it’s important to have a fast downloading speed, no matter where the users are located! This SaaS API handles this pretty well, allowing people all over the world to get their hands on imagery in seconds. Regardless if you are using imagery for your blog or website, or if you are the link between the customer and a certain image, it’s good to see people being brought together from all over the world because of the utilization of this tool that allies new laws and regulations!

Monitor traffic

By using a SaaS API, you can monitor traffic and storage, which can be a helpful analysis later on. You can easily see a dashboard with all the needed information, telling you the monthly and daily usage. You can easily see what period is booming, and when is the quiet period and create a strategy with that analysis. This is also extremely useful for identifying trends and optimizing the current strategy – it’s all about finding what users like the most and adapting to it!

Remote work

Mobilizing the workflow is essential, especially if you are running a small business and trying to push it to a wider range of clients. The great thing about SaaS API is that regardless of what type of platform you are using, using this tool is extremely helpful overall. On the other hand, security breaches are not common, and using SaaS API can actually boost the level of security and provide you and your clients with a safe space.

Easy to use

If a tool is easy to use and also efficient in multiple ways, it’s definitely a good tool! Whilst things are always adapting and evolving, so is technology! Most SaaS APIs have a clear and precise workplace, especially the interface. The interface is everything, you want to be able to easily handle a tool, even if it revolves around AI, you’ll still need to do lots of things manually. So if someone is unsure on whether or not your business is doing a good job, you at least have a SaaS API on your side to do the work in mere seconds!

Pros

Like with anything else, there are certain pros and cons to consider before getting your hands on this kind of thing. Starting with the obvious, altering images and image extraction is extremely helpful. Some SaaS API types offer more. Especially the paid options, whilst others are a bit restrictive. Not to mention the fees are reasonable, even if you need to edit or upload images in bulk. The fee is depending on the number of images, but even so, it’s much cheaper in the long run. Faster loading and download is also a plus and it’s always welcomed when doing something like this.! An easy interface and quick usage is also another extremely important thing, you want to make sure that your employees are well aware and want to easily work just with this kind of interface.

Cons

With pros, there are some cons that should be considered. Depending on the size of the building and the number of employees some people might be against using SaaS API for imagery, even if it’s deemed easy to use and something useful. While the price is set in stone at the beginning, it can vary depending on the amount of imagery you need to go through. On the other hand, some SaaS APIs are not compatible with the latest social media platforms and blogs that are using imagery, this can be applied to WordPress and similar software, sometimes it’s compatible and sometimes it’s not. While it is proven to work and it’s good for the majority, these things are still a big deal and it should be considered before jumping into installing this kind of program.

At the end of the day, this is proven to be a good thing to have, regardless if you are a beginner business owner, entrepreneur, small business, or something much bigger – the imagery is key and it can sell the product immediately by standing out from the crowd. These changes are seemingly sheer and unnoticeable for the users, but as someone who is running the website or blog, it can be extremely important and almost essential to have such a useful program. Utilizing this kind of tool in your routine will only make it better. Especially long term when your business starts to blossom even more! So SaaS API is definitely something to consider!

Watch Out for PayPal Scams

Posted on March 20, 2022 by Matt Outreach

It is critical that online transactions, particularly financial ones and those involving the exchange of private and extremely sensitive information, are approached with a high level of caution. This means, whenever you are required to enter a username, password, or other information to access an important account. After all, the loss, theft, or compromise of this data can easily affect our lives in a very negative way. Namely, when it comes to financial transactions millions of people use trusted and well-established online companies such as PayPal.

Cybercriminals and scammers are also aware that millions of people use PayPal where they keep money, card information, names, addresses, and more. Such ill-intentioned individuals or groups are always on the prowl to compromise victims by orchestrating schemes, scams, or attacks on vulnerable entry points. For these reasons and many more which we will cover below in-depth, you must understand the many risks out there and pay attention to PayPal scams.

What is PayPal?

PayPal is one of the largest payment processors in the world, and probably the most widely-known online payment processor, with an estimated 500 million accounts registered across almost 400 million active users. PayPal began its life in the late 1990s under the name Confinity, and was quickly purchased by eBay at the time for $1.5 billion in 2002, although PayPal is now holding on its own. In fact, PayPal was purchased and sold more than once. Over 85% of online buyers prefer PayPal for its stability, security, and smoothness. The average user also conducts 40 transactions per year, and the average PayPal user has an estimated $480 in their accounts on average. In the U.S PayPal accounts for 25% of online transactions. The company has averaged almost $6 billion in revenue each year. Furthermore, PayPal is constantly innovating, for instance now entering the digital asset markets and allowing users to easily buy cryptocurrency. It is probably the most trusted payment platform in the world and as such has a lot of weight on its shoulders because of its solid, decades-old reputation. A company with so much power and responsibility has to have top-notch security and privacy measures, not to mention protecting their own databases filled with customer information and all kinds of money.

How to Avoid PayPal Scams

As one of the most widely used companies in the world that are constantly registering growth, PayPal, is a giant bullseye for cybercriminals and scammers looking to find victims and prey on their accounts in various creative ways using several tools at their disposal. Since PayPal is an online platform, the risks are automatically present simply because it operates in the risky realm of cyberspace. Any online platform of this size has to take into account server security, access security, and customer compromise. It is not always easy to secure such a large platform and protect all customers meanwhile offering a streamlined high-class experience, particularly from socially engineered scams such as email phishing. Several other examples of such risks are as follows;

Hackers claiming there is a problem with your account
Promotional offer scams
Awaiting money scams
Advance payment scams
Shipping address scams
Accounts being directly hacked
Alternative payment request scams
Overpayment schemes
Pending payment schemes
Fraudulent charity schemes

As you can see, there is no end to the creativity of money-hungry scammers and criminals. This is that which has them scrambling for solutions and that which motivates them most. Quick profits are also what can turn scammers and cybercriminals into merciless killers, unfortunately, such is the nature of money and power. All of these schemes can be orchestrated across several platforms, particularly via email, and social media websites such as Facebook or Instagram. It does not end there, though, as you are also vulnerable to SMS scams, and the hacking of your WiFi hotspot.

The top three most common PayPal scams are what is widely known as ‘problem with your account, ‘promotional offer’, and ‘money waiting’ scams. Not surprisingly, all three of these involve socially engineered email phishing techniques. This is simply because this is the simplest, least effort way to make a quick profit. All three of these scams will involve an email (obviously from a fake sender) that is either urging you to do something or trying to emotionally involve you in clicking a link or downloading an attachment in the email. This is what is known as a ‘phishing’ (fishing) email that tries to bait the user into complying.

What you can do to avoid all of this is quite simple, however easily overlooked by millions of people that entrust their devices, the security of their devices, and the intentions of others to an irrational extent. Here is what you need to understand and turn into a habit;

Be suspicious of every email you receive, and always, always check the sender’s email address because email addresses can be easily spoofed and mimicked today
PayPal emails that do not address you by name are 100% fraudulent
Never interact with any emails urging you to provide sensitive information or download software
Do not click on links in an email before you confirm the above information
Always choose your shipping method
Block package rerouting with your shipping organization
Never deal with anyone else other than verified buyers and sellers online

Remember the adage “if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a duck.” So, if you ever suspect something is off, your instincts may be trying to warn you. For this reason, it is critical that you also set up spam filters in your email accounts, use antimalware and antivirus software, conduct your transactions with a VPN activated in the background, and never use a public WiFI hotspot to access PayPal or purchase items online. Adding to that, heed the recommendations above and you will avoid %99 of problems millions of uninformed users face daily.

Finally, in addition, here is how PayPal themselves can protect you (to an extent); Paypal Buyer Protection and PayPal Seller Protection.

4 Fast-Growing Industries to Start a Business In

Posted on March 17, 2022 by Scott Fluent

As the world continues to evolve, develop and change, there will always be a need for entrepreneurship to provide the products, tools and services that meet the demands of the consumer. That’s why a list of new business ideas can never be complete, there’ll always be new things added to it, new niches and new areas where investment dollars flock to.

Whether you’re a business owner looking to invest in a niche, or you’re a corporate worker looking to leave traditional employment and seek a career that’s more on your terms, you can find new opportunities in the countless industries that are growing tremendously. Here are 4 you should be paying attention to.

Cryptocurrency

The world of finance and money is going through a huge disruption thanks to the rise of cryptocurrency. This is set to keep growing and expanding as more and more people adopt the currency, and as it becomes ruled as transactional tender in everyday purchases. This huge potential for growth is great news for entrepreneurs who want to get involved in this space. From education to just investing in cryptocurrency, there are many ways you can build an incredible business in this influential space.

Real Estate Investing

Real estate remains the best way to build passive wealth, and right now is the perfect time to start building your own long-term portfolio. Many people who really want to escape the 9 to 5 trap and truly build a business start with real estate. You don’t have to have a whole lot of money to get started – there are many creative capital-raising strategies that can provide the initial investment that you need.

That includes borrowing money on an existing asset, raising money from your social circle, or building a relationship with smaller, local banks. The wisest way to invest is to buy-and-hold for the long-term so you can see a large increase in your initial investment.

Ecommerce Businesses

As the saying goes, “when there’s a gold rush, sell shovels”. At this moment in time, one of the most lucrative business opportunities is in ecommerce. Creating an ecommerce company is easier than ever today. Finding manufacturers, wholesalers, and dropshippers isn’t as complicated as you might think. And furthermore, setting up a website is easier than ever, and if you design with ecommerce merchandising in mind, you can create a great user experience.

For people interested in building their own businesses, this is probably one of the best times in history to make it happen. There’s so much happening in the world of technology and every single day, it carves out new opportunities and ways of making money.

You can very easily take advantage of all this and build your own brand and reputation. If you have some great ideas, you can start gathering the knowledge you need or even start building a team that can help you start building the foundational pieces of your business. Entrepreneurs are a very important part of moving humanity forward and improving the products and services we rely on every day. If you decide to take on this awesome responsibility, you can create a great life for yourself. Keep in mind that how you structure your business is a fundamental part of starting an e-commerce company. Depending on your products, services or objectives this may vary completely.

Artificial Intelligence

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a rise in the use of AI, and this is set to continue on an upward trajectory. That’s because AI technology has the potential to improve so many areas of human life. AI can be used to make retail better, it can help serve consumers with exactly what they need. There are so many ways you can get involved in this space if you have the technological chops or a really great idea to make the industry better.

Using Analytic Dashboards for Businesses

Posted on March 17, 2022 by Evelina Brown

Today, the world is moving towards more and more information. So if you’re going to be successful in your business, then you need to be able to access the target data fast. You need to know what is happening right away – if your competitor is growing and starting to capture your business customers.

But the problem is that if you’re only capturing the information in your company through a spreadsheet or by talking with your employees, you’ll never be able to keep up with your competitors. When you have lots of data coming in from different sources in different formats, it’s no longer possible to just put everything into one system and see how the numbers are progressing.

To address this problem, we are going to dive into business analytics in this post and focus on a specific type of data grid. Thus, you will know how to keep track of your business progress in real-time and transform marketing operations.

The Four Business Analytics Models

To be able to run a business, you should have the information you need. Everything is easy. If you don’t have that data, you won’t be able to make smart decisions. In other words, the more information you can get your hands-on, the better. However, everything should be structured and visualized in a way that is the most comfortable for you. It’s like being an airline pilot. You can fly around in the sky, going back and forth between continents. But if you don’t have the information that you need to get you there, it’s pretty much just a big exercise in flapping your wings.

Using Business Dashboards

One of the most exciting technologies for business leaders today is “the business dashboard,” a real-time data visualization and analysis tool that enables them to quickly get to business insights and spot trends, therefore, improving overall performance.

The business dashboard has come a long way since it was introduced in the early 2000s. New grids have more sophisticated charting and data analysis capabilities. They are able to collect and visualize big data (data beyond those found in relational databases) and track “customer” interactions (from customers visiting a website, for example, to in-person interactions with a call center representative).

Benefits of Using Business Dashboards

A business dashboard is a very important tool for managing, planning, and monitoring business resources. It is a central control station for your operational activities. It provides management with the ability to review, analyze, compare, and forecast business processes and performances in order to improve the efficiency of operations, achieve business objectives and ultimately generate a return on investment. Here are some of the benefits that you get when implementing business dashboards.

A dashboard allows you to provide a transparent, visual, and real-time insight into your business operations;
Dashboards provide an overview and allow management to quickly and easily access the reports and information needed to make informed decisions. It allows you to view and share all data and metrics in one place, helping to reduce the time taken to access, understand and respond to data and information;
A dashboard is a central control station for your operational activities. It provides management with the ability to review, analyze, compare, and forecast business processes and performances in order to improve the efficiency of operations, achieve business objectives and ultimately generate a return on investment;
A business dashboard allows business users to easily monitor business processes from a central location. It is a centralized repository of information about your business. The data is usually stored in a relational database; however, there is a growing trend for companies to use a NoSQL database and even to host the data on a virtual server;
A business dashboard lets you provide management with a high-level view of current and historical operations by displaying an accurate representation of the business data. The reports generated by a dashboard can be used to collect useful information about the state of the business;
A dashboard may be viewed as a performance chart that is used to measure performance and monitor progress. The dashboard is also used to forecast the possible outcomes of different variables.

All in all, a business dashboard is more than just a fancy name. It’s a tool you can use every day to run your business efficiently. When you get into all the ways it can benefit your business, it will feel as though you’ve just created the best part of your business by adding a few small yet powerful tools. You don’t have to wait until next week for your business dashboard to start saving you time and money.

How to Choose a Web Design Company

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Evelina Brown

A website is the face of a company. It influences its competitiveness, sales, customer engagement, and brand awareness. That’s why it’s vital to pay careful attention to your website. According to Google, users form an impression of a website within 50 milliseconds. Thus, a neat and catchy user interface is worth investing in.

If you already have a website you want to improve, conduct a UX design review to identify user interaction gaps. Once you have all of this information in one place, you can come to a potential vendor with a precise request and avoid confusion.

To choose the right web design company with high-quality web design services, start by making a list of your current business goals, defining your target audience, and listing the issues you want to fix.

Conduct research on recognized websites

Start your research on websites like Awwwards, Clutch, Dribbble, and Behance. These are trusted resources within the IT industry with directories of verified freelancers and agencies.

Clutch and Awwwards are aimed at constructive critiques, reviews, and evaluations. Dribbble and Behance are social networks for designers and design companies to post examples of their works.

Visit a web design company’s website

The website of a candidate web design company is a business card. Therefore, it should look credible and appealing, deliver a great user experience, and provide smooth navigation.

Study the portfolio

A portfolio presents a company’s variety of skills and professionalism. To properly examine a portfolio, you should take three crucial elements into account:

Variety of expertise

The variety of projects a company has completed in different industries will show the company’s flexibility. If the designs vary from product to product, it means that the company takes an individual approach to each client’s needs. It’s great to find case studies with descriptions of clients’ pain points and how the company solved them, especially if these relate to issues you have on your website.

User experience

Check out the websites from a company’s portfolio and try their features to test the quality of the company’s UX design expertise. A website should be intuitive and straightforward. Points to consider:

Landing page experience
Navigation simplicity between services
Ease of determining the website’s purpose

Successful case studies

The best indicators of a web design company’s professionalism and quality are reviews of satisfied customers. If you find them on unbiased sites, they’re even more valuable. Consider searching for testimonials and ratings on third-party platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms. It is an important aspect of finding site architecture and design services.

Investigate social media

Check out a web design company’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Facebook is more informal and employee-oriented, while LinkedIn is more professional and business-oriented.

As the biggest social network, Facebook is useful for raising brand awareness, promoting products and services, and building trust. Things to check out:

Contact information and address
Corporate culture
Community investment
Client interactions
Everyday company life in photos
Page customization

Companies use LinkedIn to attract both clients and employees. Also, it is a perfect website to show a company’s authority and provide evidence of expertise. Points to pay attention to:

Contact information and address
About us section and business story
Team members (including skills and previous experience)
Brand hashtags and posts mentioning them
Customer reviews
Consistency with posting and updating
Expertise
Solutions to clients’ pain points

By analyzing a company’s presence on these social networks, you’ll see clients’ levels of engagement and trust.

Check a company’s deliverables and workflow

A company’s workflow gives you an understanding of how they will approach your ideas. It sets clear expectations and highlights the benefits you’ll get as a result of each stage of web design process. At RubyGarage, we have a refined workflow accepted by leading agencies. Each stage has its milestones with clear deliverables and deadlines.

1. Project discovery

In the beginning, we define your goals and pain points, outline a solution strategy, and study the needs of your target audience. To ensure the creation of a competitive and viable product, we provide a competitor analysis report, customer personas, and a customer journey map. We also research design best practices.

2. Ideation, information architecture & prototyping

After conducting research, we gather suggestions for solving your pains and create a user flow, sitemap, and other components of the product structure. Then our designers develop website wireframes and mockups.

3. UI design

We create a solid UI solution to bring your idea to life. The UI is not only about aesthetics but also about user acquisition and retention. We establish a visual language to deliver mockups and graphics according to your business needs.

4. Testing

Finally, we test and analyze your concept. As a result, you get a usability and analytics report.

Examine pricing policies

The pricing policy differs from company to company — some charge per project, others per hour. There are advantages to both models.

A fixed price includes fewer risks. For example, if the final variant of the design doesn’t meet your expectations, you won’t have to pay for the changes. It’s a convenient pricing model for a company with a strictly limited budget. Fixed price is usually chosen for clearly defined scopes of work and MVPs, as these projects are small, short-term, and have predictable deadlines.

Per-hour pricing is preferred by vendors, especially if the scope of work is unclear or likely to increase. You may be worried that designers can prolong work, thus getting paid more. To avoid any trust issues, use time tracking tools. The advantage of hourly pricing is that any alterations can be added on-demand at any stage of the project.

Put the company to the test

After you find a couple of suitable web design companies, assign a test task for each. After it’s completed, you’ll see their approaches and the quality of their work. This will help you decide if you’re ready to cooperate with a particular web design company.

To sum up

A trusted web design company is hard to find, so choosing a design company can be challenging. Follow this guide for a quick and productive search.

How to Improve Communications in Your Business

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Cassandra Kosmayer

If there is one thing that keeps a business running well, it’s proper communication. This means communication between your team and your system. Training, implementation, and improved security are all going to make a massive difference when it comes to productivity and compliance within your business. However, what do you need to do to improve it?

Replace Outdated Systems

Communication makes or breaks your business. It is an ever-changing field, both technologically and humanly. On the one hand, the PSTN switch off in the US and UK means that some old equipment needs to be retired. On the other hand, new technologies like OTA 5g can bring lower-cost systems online that replace older hard-wired technologies.

Secure Your Communication

In order to avoid your communication channels becoming a liability, you must endeavor to encrypt and secure them. This means securing all types of communication, from emails to voice calls to texts. The good news is that there are all-in-one systems available that cover everything from encryption to vault encryption, all while securing endpoints. Security measures like those at ghostchat.net use post-quantum encryption using 521bitECC, Double Ratcheting, and Extended Triple Diffie-Hellman, as well as AES 256bit PGP email encryption and offering a TLS encrypted network your business will be secure.

Build an Integrated System

Communication is often thought of as something solely for people. The fact is the most effective communication in your business isn’t going to be between people. It is going to be between your software and systems. Automation can improve efficiency, can help you run smoothly, and can reduce dead time. You can reduce overhead and improve profit margins simply by having an integrated system that can communicate.

This means that your inventory system can set up automatic alerts and even place orders automatically when you are low. It means integrating new clients and offering better, personalized services easily.

When it comes to communication, work out how your systems can communicate more effectively, and you will have a much better business overall.

Train Your Employees

While learning on the job often means learning while you go for the best results, always invest in a proper training regimen. This will include communication skills. Refreshing every employee on how to properly communicate clearly and respectfully will make a massive difference when it comes to your company and the interpersonal relationships within your company.

Part of this training must include how to use the tools properly. Even something as simple as filing can get complicated if you do not have a uniform system. All of this is part of communication, even if it isn’t direct. Create set standards so that everyone can speak the same language, and you will have a much more efficient workforce.

Create an Effective Brand Persona

Finally, look at how you can improve the communication with your customers. Everything from customer service complaints to social media needs to have guidelines to follow. This keeps the communication focused and uniform. It can also work to help protect your employees by giving them scripted responses when it comes to dealing with complaints or questions.

Being able to convey a message effectively and uniformly will cut down on communication and make even small businesses feel larger and more professional. You will need to tweak these measures as time goes on and be able to adapt depending on the customer for the largest levels of success.

4 Ways to Prevent Cyber Attacks from Happening to You

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Costa Lamprou

The birth of the Internet remains one of the most pivotal moments in human history. In fact, the World Wide Web continues to provide people with unfettered access to information, entertainment, learning, and so much more.

Like any technology, though, it has some drawbacks, the most notable of which are cyberattacks. According to IBM, cyberattacks are unwelcomed attempts to steal, expose, alter, disable, or destroy personal and financial information through unauthorized access to computer systems.

Understanding the different types of attacks — and the stages involved — will help you defend yourself better.

Ways Cyberattacks Can Occur

Phishing

Phishing attacks are attempts to steal consumers’ passwords and sensitive financial information. During these attacks, scammers create fake hyperlinks to send victims via email or text messages that appear to come from a reputable source.

Malware

Malware refers to any intrusive software developed by cybercriminals to steal data and damage or destroy computer systems. Some prominent examples include viruses, spyware, adware, and ransomware.

Credential Stuffing

A credential stuffing attack occurs when an attacker obtains valid log-in details for one system and then tries to compromise additional accounts/systems using the stolen information. These attacks assume that most users reuse their identities and passwords across many platforms.

4 Ways to Prevent Cyberattacks From Happening to You

1. Sensitize and Train Your Employees

Your employees are common targets for cybercriminals looking to steal data. To safeguard your company, train your employees to be wary of bogus emails that ask for personal information or access to certain files. These links can appear authentic to someone who has little or no context about phishing or how it happens.

Before clicking on any links in an email, first:

Hover over them to view the URL.
Examine the sender’s email address.
Contact HR and be mindful of providing any requested information.

2. Take Wi-Fi Security Seriously

While Wi-Fi-enabled devices are seamless and effortless to use, they’re not free from cyberattacks. When connecting to a Wi-Fi network, know that any device can become infected. If yours becomes compromised, then the entire system is at risk. Thus, to safeguard yourself from attack, be mindful of not connecting any devices to public Wi-Fi networks.

3. Install a Firewall

One of the most effective strategies to defend yourself against any cyber assault is to install a web application firewall. Now, you may be asking yourself, “What is a web application firewall?” A website firewall will block any brute force attacks on your network and/or systems before they can cause damage.

A WAF, or web application firewall, helps secure online applications by screening and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. It’s most commonly used to protect web apps from hackers. When a WAF protects a web application, it establishes a barrier between the web application and the Internet.

4. Don’t Reuse Passwords

Using the same passwords repeatedly can put them all at risk if a bad actor manages to get their hands on one. That’s why you should create different passwords for each application you use to increase your security. Not to mention changing them regularly to reduce the chances of someone guessing your password from a previous one.

Keep Your Business Safe

While having burglar-proof windows doesn’t mean your home is free from all danger, having that protection in place is better than nothing. The truth is, you can never be 100% foolproof against cyber attacks. However, you can severely limit your exposure by taking these and other essential steps. Heeding this advice will increase your awareness and better safeguard yourself against cyber attacks.