Author: Alexander

  • Keeping Your Business Safe From Hackers in 2017 [INFOGRAPHIC]

    Resolute cyber hackers have many tools at their disposal to cause havoc in your systems while remaining undetected for a long period of time. More than a few high-profile companies have learned this the hard way. 2017 has been the year of high-profile cyber-attacks, with a growing list of victims that include the NSA hack, CIA’s Vault 7 data leak, Macron email hack, the Petya ransomware attack – the list goes on.

    It is fair to say that cyber-attacks are on the rise. Yet, it is interesting to find that many businesses openly admit that they lack sufficient defenses against such attacks, despite the damaging financial and reputational repercussions.

    Whether it is a denial of service attack, ransomware or email leak, investment in customer data protection and advanced early-detection systems is key for businesses.

    You may like to visit software directory to compare IT & security software after you have a look at the rundown we have compiled in the infographic below, outlining what you need to know about the looming cyber security threat businesses face.

    This infographic is based on ‘How to raise your organization’s security maturity level‘ by Bloor Senior Software Analyst, Fran Howarth. (Some data has been updated and new data has been included in the infographic.)

    Nabeel Khalid | Marketing Manager at CrozdeskBased in London with over 6 years of experience in Digital Media and Marketing, Nabeel is a regular contributor to the Crozdesk Blog.

  • It’s time to move websites to HTTPS

    It’s time to move websites to HTTPS

    CleanTalk has become a Comodo SSL Partner and we started to provide SSL Certificates.

    It is the best way to have your web services in one place to manage they.

    There are a number of reasons for the accelerated adoption of HTTPS

    -Improving SEO
    -SSL Provides Trust
    -SSL Provides Authentication
    -Protects your and your visitor’s information
    -Chrome browser will show your Domain URL as “Secure”

    So, if your website does not yet support the SSL technology it’s time to make the move.

    One of the most important factors in creating a successful online business is your clients’ trust. And one way to achieve it is providing your website safety using SSL certificate, which guarantees that all your clients’ data, logins, passwords and personal information will be transferred securely between your web server and browsers of the users.

    Also, Google announced that having SSL certificate is the most simple thing to do for webmasters to improve their SEO. It also said that they “can make a decision to amplify” signal as they want to «encourage all webmasters to switch HTTP to HTTPS increasing Internet security for everyone».

    Learn More about CleanTalk SSL

  • CleanTalk Security for WordPress: More informative log

    We added new parameters in the Security FireWall Log.

    CleanTalk WordPress Security Log shows a list of all the network requests blocked in the course of loading the page. Each request is displayed in its own row.

    All of these requests will have next string:

    -Page URL to which the request was sent.

    Security FireWall blocks all requests from the most active IP addresses where massive spam and brute force attacks come from.
    Security FireWall may significantly reduce the risk of hacking and reduces the load on your web server. All security logs are stored in the cloud for 45 days.

    Your security log is here https://cleantalk.org/my/logs?cp_mode=security

    Notice: Page URL is available starting with plugin version 1.17
    Download the latest version here:
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/security-malware-firewall/

    Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions or comments.

  • New Feature for CleanTalk Security Service

    New Feature for CleanTalk Security Service

    Hello!

    CleanTalk continues to develop Security Service and launches new option “BlackIPs Database”.

    Our Cloud Service processes millions of requests every day and we know which IPs have suspicious activity in real time.

    BlackIPs Database — is the database of the most active IP addresses where massive spam and brute force attacks come from. When IP starts attacking a few websites they are immediately added to the blacklist. IPs that stop attacking are being removed over time and that time is relatively short — usually about 2 weeks.

    This option will be a powerful way to improve the Security Service for your websites.

    Blocking a bad IP completely is more effective and safer than just blocking its malicious requests because you don’t allow it to gather information about the target website it is about to attack.

    BlackIPs Database is included in the standard package of Security Service and does not require any additional payment, just enable this option in your CleanTalk Dashboard -> Settings then mark the option “Use CleanTalk database of dangerous IP addresses”.

    If you need to add exceptions for IP addresses or subnets, you can add them to white lists that have higher priority and will not be blocked.

    In 2 weeks we will add new parameters to Security Service Log that will show blocked requests and Page URL which the IP address was trying to get access to.

    CleanTalk Real-Time BlackIPs Database is one of the greatest security features.

    We work every day to continuously improve and evolve our services.

    Let us know if you have any suggestions or comments.

  • Anti-Spam Log Update: Forwarding requests to email

    We are happy to announce a new function for the anti-spam log. This will make managing your records more convenient and functional.

    This function allows you to forward requests to email if you marked them as “Not Spam” and you will get a copy of a message on your email.

    To enable this option, go to website settings and mark the option “Send a copy of the Anti-Spam log to my email.”.

    We would like to thank our users for all the valuable feedback they’ve given us to improve the service.

    We welcome your feedback.
    CleanTalk Dashboard

    Download our WordPress Plugins:
    Anti-Spam by CleanTalk
    WordPress Security & Firewall by CleanTalk

  • Critical vulnerability in our Jomla anti-spam plugin

    Hello!

    We should inform you about a critical vulnerability in our anti-spam plugin. It allows anyone to know your admin email.

    We’ve made the new release for Joomla anti-spam plugin and you have to upgrade your CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin.

    Please, follow the instruction here
    https://cleantalk.org/help/update-joomla3

    We are so sorry to cause this issue for you.

    Let us know if you have any questions.

  • WP Event Manager Plugin – Create Event Listing Website

    WP Event Manager Plugin – Create Event Listing Website

    WP Event manager plugin is “must have” if you want to turn your WordPress website into an event management portal. Event management plugins allow you to display all relevant information for events into one place.

    In this post, we will discuss WP Event Manager plugin which works perfectly with any theme. So, you can choose the theme that you like and use this event plugin to create your event website quickly.

    They also come with various features like the ability to sell tickets, create alerts, allow registration on website, front end event submissions, etc.

    From creating registrations, advance bookings, free-for-all events, to webinars, conferences, workshops and fundraisers, these plugins work to give you a complete system for creating, organizing and managing events.

    These plugins range from basic, feature-specific plugins, to high-end event management systems. Some are feature-rich, some are easy to use, some affordable and only a few combine all of that.

    Choosing an appropriate event plugin, depending on what you need and what you want, can be an exhausting task.

    Do you host a lot of events on your WordPress site? Maybe you want to create event listing WordPress website. Whatever the case is, you will need a reliable event calendar WordPress plugin.

    Why WP Event Manager Plugin?

    WP Event Manager is a lightweight plugin for event registration which makes possible adding event listing functionality to your WordPress site.

    Basically, with this plugin, you can showcase events and sell tickets for them. You can even let others submit their own events and charge for them. It is like a marketplace for events.

    It can work with any theme, it is easy to setup, and most importantly it is free. The free version has all necessary options needed to create event management system.

    The core plugin is free and always will be. It covers all functionality required to run a simple event listing site.

    Advanced functionality is available through add-ons. For features like selling tickets, create alerts, event search by location, you can purchase appropriate addon.

    You purchase only addons which you need. Addons extend the usefulness of the core plugin.

    Using WP Event Manager, you can create event portals where different event organizers and users can post their event listings to promote their events.

    Organizers can list their events on your website from the frontend. They have the option to include event description and location along with some details of organizing company.

    Before going live with the event, organizers can preview their event listing. If satisfied how it looks, the event organizers can submit the listing or can edit it if they want.

    The plugin can work with any WordPress theme, and the settings pages let you select how you want the events displayed.

    WP event manager plugin, which you can easily access on the WordPress, is one of the best event managing websites on the internet these days.  It works wonders with every kind of theme and hence, it can be used easily with any theme and you can check and then choose the theme that goes best with your required event. It is the most popular Events Management plugin for WordPress. It allows us to create events quickly and that to with very ease. It allows us to book as well as to manage attendees with just one plugin. The Members as well as the guests can create and manage their events and bookings without entering the admin area. This plugin can be accessed easily, on the WordPress and it can be used to design and form the desired event website. It provides a number of jaw dropping features and makes it easy for the users to work with it. Listed below are a few of the features:

    WP Event Manager Core Features:

    ▪     Fully Responsive

    ▪     Cross Browsers support ( Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera )

    ▪     SEO Friendly & Compatible with SEO plugins.

            Multilingual Translation – Internationalized Supported

    ▪     Completely ajaxified for super smooth browsing

    ▪     Add, manage, and categorise event listings using the familiar WordPress UI.

    ▪     Searchable & filterable ajax powered event listings added to your pages via shortcodes.

    ▪     Frontend forms for guests and registered users to submit & manage event listings.

    ▪     Allow event listers to preview their listing before it goes live. The preview matches the appearance of a live event listing.

    ▪     Each listing can be tied to an email or website address so that attendees can register to the events.

    ▪     Searches also display RSS links to allow attendees to be alerted to new events matching their search.

    ▪     Allow logged in organizers to view, edit, mark cancelled, or delete their active event listings.

            RSS Feeds

    ▪     Event categories

    ▪     Easily create custom event field (e.g. dress code)

    ▪     Assign event locations and view events by location

    ▪     Widgets for Recents, Upcomming, Featured Events

    ▪     Plenty of template tags and shortcodes for use in your posts and pages

    ▪     Caching Support

    ▪     Developer friendly code, Custom Post Types, endpoints & template files.

    ▪     Singleton Javascript, Ajax & Save memory at client side.

    ▪     Debug Mode for Developers

    ▪     Actively maintained and supported

    ▪     Lots of documentation and tutorials

    WP Event Manager Addons

    The price of addons ranges from $19 – 39 for personal license and $49 – 99 for a developer. Licenses grant one year support and updates.

    Personal licenses are valid for a single site, while developer licenses are valid for multiple sites.

    You can see all addons and more information about each addon on WP Event Manager plugins list.

    1. Google Maps – To enable event search by location, you can use the WP Event Manager Google Maps addon. This will integrate the feature of the search through maps and locations. It also enables proximity search on your website.
    1. Registrations – This addon allows the visitors to register for an event on your site as an attendee. When they register, you can view it through the dashboard and also manage the registered participants.
    1. Sell Tickets – This addon enables you to sell events tickets for displayed events. The registered users on your website are also able to sell their tickets. Using Sell Tickets, you can sell simple and variable ticket types.
    1. Calendar – Using this addon you can display an event calendar that lists the upcoming events on your website.
    1. Attendee Information – This addon provides the ability to collect attendees information. The event organizers can specify the attendee information that they want to be collected from the visitors who register to attend the event.

    Only on providing this information, attendees will be granted registration to book the ticket of the event.

    It is up to the organizer on what information they want to collect from the attendee. This addon lets the organizers specify what information they want to collect

    1. Event Alerts – If you want to allow registered users to get event alerts, you will need this addon. It lets users create email alerts based on the keywords, location, category, tags, etc.

    They can also choose the frequency at which they want to receive the email event alerts.

    1. Bookmarks – The bookmarks add-on allows the visitors, attendees or anyone to bookmark the events on your website.

    It is like wishlist in online stores. They can come back to site and find the event without having to spend time on searching it again. The bookmark can be saved with a note and only logged in users can bookmark.

     

    1. Embeddable Event Widget – If you want to display the event listings of your website to other sites quickly, you can use this addon.

    It will generate a code according to the requirement clauses you submitted (particular keyword, the specific location of events).

    You can paste this code wherever you want or into any website (it doesn’t have to be a WordPress site) to display the events.

    1. Sliders – For displaying events in a slider, this addon will come in handy. Sliders are responsive which means they will look great on mobile devices as well as on the desktop.
    1. Event Tags – If you want to improve event search and target more keywords, you can use this addon. It ads tags for the event post type.

    Tags are keywords related to your event. You can add tags that describe your event, event type, subject, or anything that is relevant to your event. User will then be able to filter events by tags.

    1. Eventbrite Integration – When you start your event listing website, it will probably be empty. You can avoid this by filing event listings using the Eventbrite Integration addon.

    All you need to get started is a publisher ID from Eventbrite. Eventbrite events include affiliate links and click tracking and are listed in a similar format to your local events.

    You can just pull the events by using the search parameters you define in the settings.

    1. Organizers – This addon lets you organize your organizer’s list and the events according to their organizer. You can display grouped and alphabetized list of all the organizers.

    It can also show total active events of each organizer and complete list of organizers.

    1. Contact Organizer – Allow your visitors to contact the event organizer.
    1. Export – You can export all the events on your website in CSV format. If you want you can export the events with all the fields or export the events with required fields only.

    In this way you can export only what you need.

    1. Print – This addon will enable print button on event detail page. By clicking the button, you can save the digital copy of the event page, or you can just print is by connecting a printer.
    1. iCal – This addon enables you to generate and download an iCal file of all the upcoming events on your website. Then you can import iCal file to Google calendar or any other calendar.
    1. Google Recaptcha – You can use Google Recaptcha at submit an event page to prevent spam. If the visitor fails to solve the captcha puzzle, the access to submit will be denied.

    Visitors will have a chance to make another attempt to solve the captcha.

    1. Google Analytics – This addon lets you track your site using the Google Analytics tracking code.
    1. Emails – Using this addon you can send an email notification when new user register.You can create your own email templates or edit and change the existing ones.

    They will override default WordPress registration email notifications.

    1. Event Logs – This addon allows you to view the debug information in your browser console tab. Thanks to this you can find and resolve any errors on your website.

    WP Event Manager Plugin Review

    As already mentioned, with WP Event Manager you can create WordPress events listing site. This event management plugin allows frontend and backend submission of events for free.

    Organizers of events can list their events on your website from the frontend. They need to fill event description, location along with some other details. You can also entirely disable frontend submissions.

    Before organizers make their event listing live, they can see how their event listing will look once published. The preview will be the exact copy of the submitting event. If they are not happy with how it looks, they can edit and correct.

    For managing events, you have an Event management dashboard where all the events available are listed. The dashboard is easy to manage and simple.

    You just need to login to your account and go to event dashboard to have a look at all events. From there, you can control the status of all your events or edit, add new, or

    delete existing.

    Users can filter event listings by keyword, location, event category, event type and event ticket price.

     

    Single event listing page contains information like metadata, event overview, organizer description, organizer details, event venue, event date, time and location.

    WP Event Manager can be translated into any language.

    If your desired language is not currently translated, partially translated or needs correcting, you can edit or create a translation file.

    That file will automatically be used when you are viewing the site in that language.

    WP Event Manager Settings

    Before starting to create events, you can take a look at setting options where you can configure the plugin.

    You will see a tabbed interface indicating accessible settings.

    Setting tabs are divided in Event Listings, Event Submission and Pages settings.

     

    1.Event Listings Settings

    The event listings tab includes has the following settings:

    • Listings Per Page – How many listings will be shown per when using the events shortcode
    • Cancelled Events – If enabled, cancelled events are hidden from archives
    • Expired Listings – If you want to hide expired listings
    • Categories – Enable or disable categories
    • Event Types – Choose whether to enable event types
    • Ticket prices – Option to set ticket price for events which are not free
    • Multi-select Categories
    • Multi-select Event Types
    • Category Filter Type
    • Event Type Filter

    2.Event Submission Settings

    The event submission tab includes the following options:

    • Account Required – If you disable this option, users who are not registered (guest) will also be able to submit listings.
    • Account Creation – Users without an account on your site will be able to create an account by entering their email address on the submission form.
    • Account Username – If enabled username will be generated for the user based on email address.
    • Account Role – Which role will have users who registrate.
    • Moderate New Listings – If enabled, you can moderate new event submis They will not be active until you approve them.
    • Allow Pending Edits – If enabled, submissions awaiting admin approval can be edited by the user.
    • Delete Expired Listings – Expired listings will automatically be removed after 30 days if this option is enabled.
    • Listing Expire – You can set event submission expiry time.

    3.Pages Settings

    The pages tab includes the following settings:

    • Submit Event Form Page – Select the page where the form will be located.
    • Event Dashboard Page – Select the page where the dashboard will be located.
    • Event Listings Page – Select the page where the event listings page will be lo

    How to add an event in WP Event Manager plugin?

    To add the new event, select “Add New” link under Event Listing menu item in the admin. You have to give the event name in the post title. To write event description, you have to use visual editor just below the event title.

    In the sidebar, there will be two options named event categories and event types if you enabled those in Event Listings settings tab. You can select single or multiple event types and event categories.

    After completing, just click on Publish to make your listing live.

    The above image is an example of the submitting event from the backend.

    The submitted events are listed in table format under Admin->Event Listings.

    To modify an event listing click the event listing title or edit button icon. By doing this, you can alter the event and event information.

    WP Event Manager Plugin Final Words

    Handling events can be messy if you’re using the wrong plugin. Though there are some WordPress event themes that you can use to create your event site, a plugin brings you flexibility because once you use a theme and set your site properly, you get stuck to the theme; you can’t do much regarding design.WP Event Manager plugin can really make a difference with all its functionality.

    It’s a great solution to event organization and saves you and your customers time. Although Event Manager works great as a free plugin, it also has more features in the form of addons.

    A free version can make user users aware of the upcoming events, and a premium addons can do much more than just informing about the event.

    They can be used to provide more in-depth detail of the event as well as they can be utilized for selling tickets for the events.

    This plugin can be used with any WordPress theme, so you will have the choice to change your theme and bring in a different feel to your site whenever you wish to, and it will help you to move ahead with time, and the design of websites keeps on changing with time.

    If you are interested in WP Event Manager plugin, you can get it free on WordPress plugin repository or check official site for more info and documentation.

  • Email Notifications when administrators are logged in

    Email Notifications when administrators are logged in

    Do you want to receive a notice each time a user with administrator rights is logged into the WP Dashboard?

    We added this option to our security plugin. Now you can receive notifications if you want to know about an unauthorized entrance to your WP Dashboard.

    Notification will be sent only when a user was able to authorize entering login and password. If you are logged into the admin panel from the saved session, then the alert won’t be sent.

    You can enable the option “Receive notifications for admin authorizations in your CleanTalk Dashboard. Choose “Site Security” in the “Services” menu, then click “Settings”.

    Download Security & Firewall by CleanTalk.

  • A new online tool to automatically boost the best Facebook posts

    Over the past years, the demand for boosting Facebook posts has increased dramatically. With Facebook decreasing the organic reach continually, Facebook marketers need to pay for getting the desired reach and support engagement. In Facebook, you can no longer boost all new posts automatically. Neither you can set up rules that would select the posts that will be boosted.

    How Boosterberg Idea Originated

    Digital marketing agencies, Facebook marketers and marketing managers in organisations had to go to Ads Manager and boost each post manually by clicking the Boost Post button. This approach has taken a lot of time, and what is worse, they did not typically have enough information to decide what budget should they allocate and which posts should they boost. If they dug into the analytics and selected the best posts, it took them hours that could be spent more efficiently. To solve these problems, Boosterberg tool has been developed to take the burden away from Facebook marketers. It is an online tool, or SaaS software, that enables automatic boosting of Facebook posts. Once a user creates a new account, he will select a Facebook page and create a set of rules for it. Once they are saved, all new posts will be evaluated, and based on the criteria and their performance, they will or won’t be boosted. Everything is fully automated, and there is no need to check anything in Facebook Ads Manager anymore manually. There are basic or advanced settings to be used and several presets, and individual triggers are available to fine-tune the campaign. With Boosterberg, everyone can become a Facebook Advertising Pro. Moreover, Boosterberg has launched a Facebook Ads Academy for its fans and users, publishing the new expert advice on Facebook advertising practices written by Boosterberg staff members and other experts on social media marketing.

    Developing Boosterberg

    The development started approximately two years ago. At the beginning, two digital marketing agencies – PS:Digital and Kremsa Digital team up for this project to develop a platform that would help them to manage their Facebook clients more efficiently. PS: Digital was spending dozens of hours weekly just assessing the posts of their clients, selecting the best ones and boosting them. This is how the idea and specifications of Boosterberg came to live: We need to have a tool that automates this process of boosting Facebook posts. After searching on the market and finding nothing useful, a decision was made to develop an own tool. From the beginning, the primary aim was to save own time and make the process more efficient, however, Boosterberg was developed with the vision of its commercialisation from the beginning. Since the main development was ready and the project was tested by users outside PS:Digital and Kremsa, a long time went by. Moving the product from an alpha version to beta version, which was offered for testing to several other digital agencies, took about 12 months. In this time, mainly usability was tweaked. The product was already used by the two founding agencies in their real projects, however, the user interface was not optimised for using it by a third party. Several rounds of testing the user interface were followed by implementation of the findings and testing it again. In October 2016, the redesigned website was launched and the content was fine-tuned to reflect the current state of the product. In November 2016, a promotion was started to drive traffic to Boosterberg website and get people from all over the world to sign up for the trial. By this time, the major development was finished and the product development was switched to a maintenance mode which also includes further improving usability and some details and implementing new features based on the long-term product roadmap. In the roadmap, requests from Boosterberg users are considered along with the possibilities of the development team and rentability of the implementation.

    Teaming up with Clean Talk

    With the launch of Boosterberg, its support team needed to cover high numbers of requests, both from website users and new Boosterberg clients. Except for the standard contact form, there is an option to chat with Boosterberg representative directly using live chat. Registered users have different kinds of support available in their Boosterberg account as well. Also, the possibility of posting comments by unregistered users on the website requires a lot of support staffs’ attention. To make the time spent with the support as efficient as possible, Boosterberg has decided to implement CleanTalk as an ultimate solution that minimises the amount of spam, both in emails and comments. CleanTalk was recommended by Andrej Miklosik, who is in charge of SEO for Boosterberg and has a positive experience with the CleanTalk WordPress plugin from numerous installations. As he states, “We believe that implementing CleanTalk is the best way to move forward and optimise our time-to-support and experience for our website users.”

  • Strengthening brute force protection

    We added the new logic to prevent brute force attacks. Service will check your log in status once per hour and if some IP’s have 10 and more attempts to log in, then these IP’s will be banned for next 24 hours.

    It makes the brute force protection tougher and doesn’t waste the server’s resources on these IP’s.

    Download Security & Firewall by CleanTalk.