With that in mind I became aware that one of my sites (albeit dormant) was involved in a phishing scam. I received a message from RSA.com on behalf of Citibank bringing my attention to the event. Little did I know that it was the beginning of a string of infections that brought my server to a standstill. This particular server holds about 33% of my virtual inventory… so it was a big deal being offlline for over 24 hours. I must give kudos to HostForWeb.com though, they are THE BEST at customer support….. I am a high maintenance customer yet they have been nothing but prompt and courteous during my entire tenure working with their company, which has been several years.

They did a security scan of my server (something I should be doing on a regular basis anyway) and discovered exploits in a plugin that I have been using for quite a long time….. here is a partial transcript of what they found…. I’m not going to bad mouth the plugin until I gather more information, but from my research I am not the only one who has had difficulties…. they have been accused of several shady practices… but again, I don’t have enough info to support any claims… I just know that my server was shut down for at least 24 hours while this mess was cleaned up….

{HEX}php.generic.cav7.391 : /home/ab25/public_html/rulz.php
{HEX}php.cmdshell.cih.214 : /home/ab29/public_html/vide.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/bus1/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.php
{HEX}php.cmdshell.cih.214 : /home/cc5/public_html/vide.php
{HEX}php.cmdshell.cih.214 : /home/fit2/public_html/vide.php
{HEX}php.generic.cav7.391 : /home/fit2/public_html/rulz.php
{HEX}php.generic.cav7.391 : /home/ip47/public_html/rulz.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/mycon/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.php
{HEX}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.14 : /home/mydonut/public_html/wp-content/themes/simpsons-donut-10/functions.php
{HEX}php.include.remote.436 : /home/mydonut/public_html/wp-content/themes/simpsons-donut-10/header.php
{HEX}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.14 : /home/mydonut/public_html/wp-content/themes/simpsons-donut-10/footer.php
{HEX}php.include.remote.436 : /home/mydonut/public_html/wp-content/themes/simpsons-donut-10/theme_admin.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/mydonut/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/mydonutr/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.php
{HEX}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.14 : /home/mygolf/public_html/wp-content/themes/THATgolf/footer.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/mygolf/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.php
{HEX}base64.inject.unclassed.7 : /home/mymarket/public_html/wp-content/themes/blue-zinfandel-enhanced-20/footer.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/mymarket/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.php
{MD5}gzbase64.inject.unclassed.429 : /home/ourtrip/public_html/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/easy-adsenser.ph

All is well but I’m in the process of removing this plugin from my entire network….. which has proven to be  very tedious.

So what have I learned from this mishap?

1. I wish there was a “black list” of sorts that a plugin can get on if there has been anything shady going on with it. You put your domain at risk if you deal with a bad plugin.   I think I may create something myself….

2. This reaffirmed in my mind that if you can afford it and have the necessary scale,  that you’re better having someone create the plugins needed (there are about 10 core plugins I use)  that way there is complete control of the code.   Once you have the code,  hire someone else to check it to be clear there is no funny  business going on.   Have checks and balances so to speak.  When you install free plugins, there is often a reason they are free.

3.  HostforWeb is awesome and top notch in customer service… trust me,  I’ve been with MANY providers.

4.  It’s important to have redundancy….  If I had these sites on another server or vps so when I had a problem with one,  it switched to the other I would have very little down time… Of  course the problems I found on one server would have to be fixed on the other one…     I could focus on the biggest ones and not necessarily all of them…

5.  Double check everything and everyone!  Have a checks and balances system in place, something I have actually been working on!

For God’s sake,  think twice before giving that cute Facebook app permission to access your information!  Don’t assume that Facebook is doing their job at protecting your online safety!

Security is a big deal online and I think sometimes we don’t take it seriously enough….  We allow online scripts and apps to access our Facebook and other social media passwords all along being exposed to the threat that we may have given them the keys to the kingdom.  In my case, this exploit just needed my master server password…  how it got it?   I’m not certain,  but it could have been everything from a root kit installed on mine or one of my partner’s computers to a facebook app…..   think you’re SAFE  because you primarily  use a Mac or Mobile device?   Keep thinking that…. but you are certainly WRONG.    In the end,   be careful out there and never assume anything,  it’ll get you in trouble every time!

My point is,  don’t get discouraged because you think “it can’t be done”,  ” someone else has already done it”, “their smarter than me”… blah blah blah.  In the end,  they are all excuses.  We live in a world where information is right at our fingertips…  It is possible to get almost instantaneous feedback…  We live in the best era for the creative mind to be alive.     Do you have access to a computer and the internet?   If not,  why not?   Cliche,  but  the world is your oyster,  their is absolutely  no excuse but the excuses you give life to.  As you can tell,  I despise excuses with every ounce of my being.  Below is a post from Forbes Magazine I thought was very interesting titled “Ten Myths About Entrepreneurs Debunked”  I thought  it was quite interesting….  Enjoy.

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers-forum/548720-439-1st-week-one-kindle-book-kindle-case-study-kindle-killer-formula-proofs-inside.html

Current: USAMobileWeb.com

Beta Version:  USAMobileWeb.com

Of course I don’t have the time to run this kind of site… I plan on getting it up and running, hiring some inexpensive labor in the beginning then scaling up. I have spent awhile getting the site set up and still have some work to do.. It will be a nice addition to my family of websites. Go ahead and give it a try… I am still working on the phone however…  The infrastructure for this site will also be used to build a “virtual meeting” site similiar to gotomeeting.com.   What I’m building will serve many different purposes… it is the same technology,  simply wrapped in a different package.    I will discuss the new project in more detail sometime later in the week.

You can also visit the project at MySupportSession.com

So what exactly are Google Glasses you ask? Apparently they look like the Oakley’s below:

Who doesn’t like a pair of Oakley’s?  These glasses won’t be your run of the mill glasses though.  They will be equiped with processing power.  Who would have known there would be glasses with processing power? Supposedly it will have on one lens a heads up display.  It is designed to overlay information over a transparent surface: think jet pilots seeing information on their cockpit windshields.  Also think “The Terminator” as illustrated below.

Wearers will be able to see incoming texts, temperature,  social network updates and I’m sure much more… including advertisements.  Just imagine in the future wearing your new Oakley sunglasses walking down the street and seeing advertisements tailored to you and your location. It is utterly amazing how transparent (and thus vulnerable by the way) we are all becoming..

So what about data input? Perhaps you can still use your phone to update your status and write emails, etc.  Perhaps in the future you’ll be able to dictate your communications into your Google glasses all while keeping your hands free… I still don’t advocate messing with your techno gadgets while driving, no matter how good of a driver you think you are or how ‘hands free” your gadgets may be.    You may be wondering about navigation… Google’s solution is a head tilting to point and click.  Get used to using your head as your mouse… for those of you just learning to use a mouse,  don’t get too comfortable.  Just be careful out there

I’m always wondering what technology will evolve into the next few years… Google may have something here.. can you imagine walking down the street one day interacting with your Google glasses? In the future I guess we can look forward to more distracted drivers… now images will flash in front of them while wearing their high tech specs… we will long for the old days when texting and driving were a problem. It’ll look like child’s play next to this. My advice: save your money and buy yourself a safe high tech car to protect your family with the new breed of goons that will be flooding the streets with their Google glasses. May be awhile… but it’s coming… technology is rapidly evolving. Better be ready..

While we are on the subject of gadgets and technology… technology can’t replace common sense… don’t text and drive or otherwise be distracted when driving a motor vehicle. I think many people don’t realize how vulnerable they are when behind the wheel of a car…. watch the video below to see what could happen…

First off I want to  be clear on what I mean by capital ….  I am not referring to capital as a physical asset in terms of this discussion.   I am referring to the cash or goods that are used to generate income by investing in different businesses (whether physically or virtually) or even an investment in a physical asset such as a house, apartment building or commercial property.  I am defining efficiency as using our available resources (namely capital) to their maximum potential and “squeezing” every penny out of each dollar spent in an effort to maximize income.  This is not the traditional definition of capital efficiency but this is the term I’m using to explain how we can leverage the power of the virtual economy, in essence  taking advantage of the nontraditional economies of scale  that the internet provides.

I am no stranger to outsourcing sites as Elance.com and Scriptlance.com.  I have been using them for a decade now….. I have used them from everything to hire someone to ghostwrite for me to develop a windows program that I resold.   Naturally,  I use them to this day.   These sites truly take advantage of  the virtual economy.   Price is driven by supply and demand and contractors are rewarded when they do a good job… when people positively critique them their demand naturally goes up which increases the price they can ask for their services.   It is a shame that these websites did not exist when I studied economics…  I just wonder if their is a class on the “virtual economy”…  It would be so interesting because it can be studied in such grave detail.   You can extract details from companies and find out their business model with one simple keystroke…  it is so much easier to find out what a company is about than it used to be.   You can easily extrapolate  their income based on studying their social reach and keywords they rank for in the major search engines.  It is now possible to do a zillion and one case studies for any business related topic you could possibly think of.

Before I go off on a “how the virtual economy” has changed peoples’ lives and standard of living tangent,  I want to discuss how the virtual economy can help you save money and maximize the output of your capital.  I’m not going to go into the problems of excessive  overhead and complexities of starting a typical offline physical business,  I’m starting to do that for the first time actually myself… and I intend on blogging about my experiences.   I will focus on starting a virtual business from conception to inception…  meaning from  the day the idea is conceived to the day you open  for customers.

For illustrative purposes,  I will open a web hosting business…. a business that hosts websites….   if you want a definitive idea of what it entails, check out this Wikipedia link. So what are the steps you would take before you start?  You are attracted by the residual income aspects of the enterprise and awe struck by the number of websites that are out there…  Furthermore there is this new thing called mobile hosting….  so you are convinced you should start this business and possibly dive into the latter.     How would the internet and virtual economy help you in this endeavor?  How would you maximize your capital efficiency (remember my definition above) to increase your new company’s income?  Yes, you can build your company with never doing the following:

1.  Leaving your house
2.  Actually having employees in your office and or even “seeing anyone”.
3. Make sales calls
4.  Rent office space (see #1)
5.  Worry about being robbed
6.  Talk to disgruntled customers
7.  Worry about employees calling in sick

Now of course,  you can do the above,  it just depends on what you want to do and your personality…..    You can hire people to work for you all online…. and you can do it on the cheap…  but depending on your business and your level of trust,  you can scale up to have a “real” employee if you so desire.  But the cards are yours to play…. Later in the week I will discuss the  ”How, When, What and Why’s” of starting your virtual business under the radar of anyone who knows you physically.