Anti-virus software on the increase Top ten virus threats reported

Fake antivirus applications are on the increase according to a report from GFI Software. In its top ten collection of the 10 most prevalent threat detections encountered during the month, the insecurity experts found that there was a new wave of or rogue AVS.

Growing since the start of the year, last month brought a significant spike in new variations of rogue AV, the report said. Christopher Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software said that while the velocity at which rogues were successfully propagating may have slowed toward the end of last year, they are certainly back now, and they remain a popular tactic among cyber criminals.

Many rogue AV programs are being distributed via spam containing malicious links to the Black-hole exploit, a tool used by cyber criminals to target unpatched vulnerabilities in software applications from industry leaders like Microsoft and Adobe. Users infected by rogue AV may be redirected to fraudulent websites, have their systems hijacked by software appearing to scan their PCs or plagued by messages warning of viruses and other PC security risk. These scareware tactics trick users into providing credit card data to purchase non-existent protection.

To make matters worse rogue AV utilities are continually tweaked in an attempt to avoid detection, with newer variants of these malicious applications propagating every 12 to 24 hours.

The outfits 10 Threat Detections for February are:

Detection Type Percent

Trojan.Win32.Generic Trojan 35.63

GamePlayLabs Browser Plug-in 3.66

Yontoo Adware 2.79

INF.Autorun (v) Trojan 1.41

Trojan.Win32.Ramnit.c (v) Trojan 1.02

Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen Trojan 0.94

Virus.Win32.Sality.at (v) Virus.W32 0.94

Worm.Win32.Downad.Gen (v) Worm.W32 0.92

Trojan.Win32.Jpgiframe (v) Trojan 0.87

GameVance Adware (General) 0.87

1 posts categorized " Search Optimization "

Using Savvy Terms to Show Up In Search! 

 

We often get calls and emails from sellers who have put great effort in their Product Detail Page, but cannot understand how neither they nor their potential buyers can find the products on the site.  It’s very simple – you must help the buyer to find the page.  The key to doing this is to think like a buyer.  The first step is...Savvy Search Terms!
Creating a Product Detail Page does not end with the image and technical details.You may create a really informative and enticing page, but it will not drive sales if buyers cannot locate it. Making the page searchable is probably one of the most important elements of creating a Product Detail Page on Amazon.  It is also one of the most common things that sellers neglect to do.
Entering Search Terms or keywords may seem like a tedious exercise but remember that any effort put into the rest of the page is wasted without them.  Some sellers will enter 5 terms only, when they have the opportunity to enter more.  Make use of the space you have.  You can separate search terms in each line provided using commas followed by spaces. For example:

“Boots, brown, brown boots, shiny”
As the title is already automatically used for helping buyers to find products, you will not need to repeat it or the brand name in the terms.  Be sure however that you have a good title including: Brand, Item description; Line; Colour; Size; and Quantity.
What would a buyer enter to find your product?  Is there a season or holiday your product relates to?  Is one of the words in your title commonly misspelled – e.g. “desert spoon versus dessert spoon”.  If so, enter both. 
Remember also that entering only one or two words will not be of much use if there are many versions of your product on the catalogue.  If I enter “dessert spoon” into the search bar, I currently get about 61 results.  If your spoon is silver, and you haven’t entered this term, you could be losing out on a sale.  Entering “silver dessert spoon” only returns 2 results!   “Brown shoe” – 5,000+ result, “brown patent shoe” – 27!  Adjectives as search terms can also add value to your listings.  You can test different terms to see what works best to surface your product. 
Search Terms can be entered under ‘Your Product Info ‘in ‘Add a Product’, under ‘Classification in Seller Desktop’ and ‘search-terms1 - search-terms5’ in the templates.

Next time, we will look at Browse Nodes, an important partner to Search Terms.  Employing both of these techniques will ensure that buyers will find those listings quickly and easily.
Happy Selling :)
-Philippa

 

Facebook results: 'the social media bubble bursts'

Facebook’s disappointing first results as a public company are a sure sign that the ‘social media bubble’ has burst, according to technology analysts.

By Emma Barnett, Digital Media Editor

Yesterday the social network’s shares slumped to a record low after its maiden results as a publicly traded company showed its growth had slowed.

The Californian company had been under intense pressure to deliver strong results given the almost 30 pc drop in its share price since the $104bn (£66bn) flotation in May.

Although revenues climbed 32pc to $1.18bn in the second quarter, beating analysts' estimates, it failed to convince investors who had seen saw revenues climb 45pc in the first quarter. At the same time its spending on sales and marketing more than tripled to $392m in the period.

Ian Maude, head of Internet at Enders Analysis, described Facebook’s first results as the moment which investors finally "got to see the money and the real state of affairs".

“This is the proof that there is a social media bubble,” he said. “Those investors who piled in at $38 were on a hiding to nothing. Revenue growth even before Facebook’s IPO wasn’t there to support that valuation. People bought shares at those inflated prices based on the idea that Facebook was the new Google. It isn’t.

“Google’s display revenues alone this year will be larger than Facebook’s entire revenue.”

Having sold shares at $38 each on May 17, they tumbled as much as 12 per cent to $23.75 in extended trading in New York. David Ebersman, Facebook's chief financial officer, said that "we are disappointed how the stock is trading".

As had been forecast, the cost of share-based pay plan for employees saw Facebook report an overall loss of $157m for the quarter. But as founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance on the company's conference call with Wall Street analysts on last night night, the focus was squarely on how quickly the social network site will be able to drive revenues.

Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's highly-regarded chief operating officer, were at pains to stress that the company had introduced several initiatives to squeeze more revenue from a base of users that grew 29 per cent to 955m by the end of the quarter. That included the launch of advertising known as ‘sponsored stories’ in the newsfeeds that Facebook users get when they access their accounts. By the end of June, they were generating about $1m a day in advertising, with half of that coming from mobile devices, said Sandberg. Total advertising revenues rose 28pc to $992m in the quarter.

However, Maude said the biggest problem confronting Facebook was mobile.

“The issue is Facebook’s revenue growth which has slowed down over the last 12 months and the real worry is it’s not going to be able to turn it around. Plus the revenue per user is pretty flat.

“But its biggest problem is monetising mobile. As more and more of its users access Facebook on mobiles, the social network must prove it can monetize mobile if it is to dramatically grow revenues. So far it has not proved it can monetise the small screen. Sponsored stories are a start, but we are very sceptical about display adverts on the mobile screen.”

Last night Zuckerberg denied reports that Facebook was considering building its own phone, arguing it "wouldn't make much sense for us". 

Facebook said the number of users of its and apps for smartphones and tablets was growing quicker than the number of adverts it is serving up because it has not developed its mobile advertising strategy.

“We believe this increased usage of Facebook on mobile devices has contributed to the recent trend of our daily active users increasing more rapidly than the increase in the number of ads delivered,” a Facebook spokesman said at the time.

However, Vanessa Barnett, technology and media partner at law firm Charles Russell, sees the social network's maiden results as a public company in a more positive light. She said: “The high level picture is that [Facebook’s] revenue is up, hitting 1.18 billion dollars. That is a business success, whichever way you cut it.

"There will be many Facebook 'Grinches' that linger on the two key negatives (margin down from 53 per cent to 43 per cent and that costs and expenses up by almost 300%) but their schadenfreude would be entirely misplaced. Margin will for the moment be trickier because there is less space on mobile to view ads. Costs and expenses are obviously up because of payments arising out of employee share schemes and the IPO.

"I see the results very positively and in the context of the internet market as a whole. Everyone is using Facebook, everyone is going mobile in terms of how they connect with their friends and how they consume information and content. Facebook has become a utility in our daily lives and now it's really about how Facebook executes on that.

"The results reveal some positive data that Facebook is heading in the right direction, in particular there are impressive statistics on return on investment in advertising, which 49% of audited campaigns returning five times spend. This is impressive. Alongside that Facebook continues to innovate for users, for example, purchasing Instagram, launching Facebook Exchange - all steps towards success and growth.”