UK Police Arrest 2 Over ZeuS Trojan

British police said today they have made Europe's first arrests in the battle against an online Trojan which threatened to compromise thousands of computers in the UK.

The ZeuS or Zbot Trojan, a type of sophisticated malicious malware, is believed to have infected and accessed personal information from tens of thousands of computers around the world.

The Trojan was configured in a way that when installed in the systems of infected computers, it recorded users' online bank account details and passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information, including passwords for social networking sites, before causing the computer to forward data to servers under the control of distributors.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PceU), said on November 3, they arrested a man and a woman, both 20 years old, in Manchester. Both suspects have been released on bail pending further investigation.

"The ZeuS Trojan is a piece of malware used increasingly by criminals to obtain huge quantities of sensitive information from thousands of compromised computers around the world," said Detective Inspector Colin Wetherill of the PceU.

"The arrests represent a considerable breakthrough in our increasing efforts to combat online criminality."

Police said computer users' should take the following measures to protect against malware:

 

* Run anti-virus and anti-spyware software - Always run these softwares and keep them regularly updated.

* Windows update - Enable automatic updates to keep the operating system patched against known vulnerabilities.

* Patch software applications - In addition to the operating system, it is essential to keep software installed in your system patched against known vulnerabilities. Security patches are usually free and can be downloaded from the software vendors.

* Use a personal firewall - A full firewall can protect your computer from unauthorized access when configured correctly.

* Follow good security practices - There is no substitute for common sense when you are on the Web.

 

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Utilizing the secrets of Opt-In lists

Emails are replacing regular mails from the post office. Not only because it is cheaper, since you do not need to buy a stamp, it’s also definitely faster. Emails can be sent in as fast as five seconds, depending on the server, anywhere in the world.

No doubt emails are being used to distribute news letters, promotional mails, and other stuff. How then would you be able to round up email addresses to send those marketing mails you have? Here is where an opt-in list comes in.

An opt-in list is a directory of email address you can send to those mails to. Though it seems to be easy to find email addresses, if you are talking thousands in numbers, it is going to be hard. Besides, you have to determine the recipient of the email. You wouldn’t want your readers mostly male if you are selling lipsticks, right?

A good opt-in list should include the profile of the email address owner. Here are tips on how to create a comprehensive opt-in list for target market.

Create your website.
Creating a website is made simple nowadays. A lot of programs are milling about assisting regular computer users in making and maintaining websites in a real simple way. Some website creator just needs you to cut and paste, like that of a regular paint program. Several web hosting sites are available too. Some are even free. If you have a site of your own, you can ask visitors to register with you or sign your guest book as they leave.

Set up a promotion or a freebie.
Not all the best things in life are free, as they say. But you can definitely try to give something out for sure. You can see this done all over the web. Free screensavers, free games, free download of programs. And what do they need from you? They just ask for an email address, your name and a little something more about you. Then you can place a check box on the registration form for sending of email. For sure, you can think of something to give out as well.

Write and write some more.
There are some web magazines where in readers can submit their writings for a particular topic. If you had a chance to do so, add a link to your article providing information about what you are trying to promote. Some readers of your article may enjoy your work so much they’d like to contact you, so don’t forget to leave your email address too.

Pose an easy opt-out option.
People who like to join your opt-in list would, along the way may want to opt out of it somehow. People who are wary of joining may not join at all if they see that it would be near impossible to remove their email address from the listing. Show them that it is as easy to opt-out as it is opting in.

Check other’s strategy too.
It would be better if you can find a partner in generating an opt-in list. This way, you can split the expenses and both of you can share the list generated. It will be best to partner with a company that has a business similar to your own line. Both of you can profit more should that be the case.

Use offline ways too.
You can put up a small raffle preferably in a supermarket for a certain item they buy. You can place an email address opt-in part in the raffle entry to add to your list. This way, you’d also know the buying preferences of the participants if you mark the entries systemically.

Creating an opt-in list entails a lot of work and funds. You should outline how much you will spend in creating an opt-in list. People appearing at opt-in lists are sales prospects. They are those interested in a certain product that you may be selling. Obtaining an optimal opt-in list would boost your sales up so these tools are undoubtedly essential.

Acquire an opt-in list now or generate one. Either way, you are reaching to people that can be your one of your treasured customers for a long period time.

Increasing Sales Through Strategic Internet Marketing

The Internet has now become an important medium for product and service advertisements. Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements have also ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users? Here are a few tips.

1. Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers. Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers. Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.

Also, consider the website’s search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it. External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site. This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site. Check if many of your competitors have ads on this site.

2. Placing ads on some sites cost some money. However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site. This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking. This is similar to making a statement that your site’s content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked. If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses. There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4. Choose your domain name wisely. It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement. Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5. Make sure you have useful content on your sites. While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer’s confidence in your site. It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines. So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6. When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers. What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site? Also, use specific keywords or key phrases. Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7. Track your ads. Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC. There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales. You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits. It will help your marketing strategies a lot if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product specifications. Product specifications may not mean much to customers, unless they know what these stand for (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Many people say getting to the top of search engine results is difficult since millions of websites exist, which can be using the same keywords. While this is true, this doesn’t mean that your website has to stacked under your competitors’ websites when presenting search engine results. Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.