Cybersecurity & Ethical Hacking

Session hijacking is a technique used by hackers to gain access to a target’s computer or online accounts. In a session hijacking attack, a hacker takes control of a user’s browsing session to gain access to their personal information and passwords. This article will explain what session hijacking is, how it works, and how to prevent it from happening

A session hijacker can take control of a user’s session in several ways. One common method is to use a packet sniffer to intercept the communication between the user and the server, which allows the hacker to see what information is being sent and received. They can then use this information to log in to the account or access sensitive data.

Session hijacking can also be performed by deploying malware to infect the user’s computer. This gives the hacker direct access to the machine, enabling them to then hijack any active sessions.

Session hijacking can be either active or passive. Inactive session hijacking, the attacker takes control of the target’s session while it is still active. The attacker does this by sending a spoofed request to the server that includes the target’s session ID. This type of attack is more challenging to execute because it requires the attacker to have an OnPath (also known as “man-in-the-middle”) position between the target and the server.

Passive session hijacking occurs when the attacker eavesdrops on network traffic to steal the target’s session ID. This type of attack is easier to execute because all an attacker needs is access to network traffic, which can be easily accomplished if they are on the same network as the target.

Different Types of Session Hijacking

There are several ways to prevent session hijacking from happening:

• Use strong passwords and multifactor authentication. These techniques protect accounts from being accessed by hackers if they manage to steal a user’s session ID (Alkove, 2021).
• Only share session IDs with trusted sources. Be careful when sharing links or sending requests to websites, as these may include session IDs.
• Use a VPN. A VPN helps prevent attackers from intercepting traffic, making it more difficult for them to steal session IDs (McCann & Hardy, 2022).
• Keep software up to date. Make sure to keep operating systems and software up to date with the latest security patches to prevent attackers from exploiting vulnerabilities to access users’ sessions.
• Take cybersecurity training. Cybersecurity threats are constantly evolving, so it’s essential to stay informed on the latest attack techniques and how to prevent them. Consider getting certified in various cybersecurity domains, including ethical hacking, incident handling, and penetration testing.

Dangers of Session Hijacking Attacks

There are many risks associated with not taking steps to prevent session hijacking. Some of these dangers include:

• Theft of personal information. Session hijacking can give hackers access to confidential information, including passwords and credit card numbers, leading to identity theft or financial fraud.
• Malware infection. If a hacker can steal a user’s session ID, they may also be able to infect the user’s computer with malware (Marino, 2021). This can allow them to gain control of the target’s computer and steal their data.
• Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. A hacker who gains control of a user’s session could launch a DoS attack against the website or server to which they’re connected, disrupting service or causing the site to crash.

Prevent Cyberattacks as a Certified Ethical Hacker

With the increase in cyberattacks, it is more important than ever for cybersecurity professionals to have the skills and knowledge to protect organizations from these threats. The cybersecurity industry is growing rapidly, and those learning the latest hacking techniques and strategies have many future career paths. There are many job opportunities available in this field, and the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals is expected to continue to grow.

For those interested in a career in cybersecurity, EC-Council’s certified ethical Hacker is a great place to start. The ANSI-Accredited  C|EH credential validates an individual’s ability to identify, assess, and mitigate threats to organizations. One of the most popular ethical hacking certifications, it is recognized by government agencies and companies worldwide. Visit EC-Council's website   for more information on the C|EH program and EC-Council’s many other cybersecurity

What is Freelancing

A freelancer is a skilled professional who is neither an employer nor an employee. He supplies online labor temporarily under a contract/deal of services for a fee.

So, everyone can be a freelancer or freelance worker as it does not require any additional features before freelancing. Especially, if you are someone who loves freedom and flexibility and doesn’t want to work under someone then freelancing is an ideal situation for you to become independent.

Types of Freelancing 

Two types of freelancing

Traditional Freelancing

In traditional freelancing, the employer posted a project in non-traditional freelancing marketplaces called Upwork, Guru, Freelancer, People per hour, and many others but these are so popular and have high competition. Once the employer posted a project, the freelancer comes to this site t first go through the client’s project description and then send him a proposal called a bid. The employer sees the bid’s response and chooses the best one of many freelancers. The employer contacts him Freelancer has done his job as best as he can and gets paid for this project.

Non-Traditional Freelancing

Now the non-traditional freelancing marketplace is called Fiverr. In Fiverr freelancing, freelancers have to feature their services called Gig. Employer comes to this site and does searches for whatever he wants, visits the packages and services displayed/ provided by different freelancers, and the best one of many freelancers. . Employer contacts him Freelancer done his job as best as he can, and get paid for this project.

Before freelancing you need to follow some key points and then get started

To become a successful freelancer, you need to follow some inspections.

You need to identify your skills. There are so many skills offered online such as web development, graphic designing, content writing, software development, and many more but these are popular and highly competitive.

• Practice that skills as much as you can because the freelance marketplace is the survival of the fittest and smartest person.
• Most importantly you have to work on your communication skill as skills alone will not make you successful, you have to learn soft skills too.
• Remember your customer is the king so go the extra mile to hook up your clients
• Also, remember your success as a freelancer is dependent ob=n your client’s retention.

Conversational Marketing

Conversational Marketing is a method of engaging with website visitors and converting leads via dialogue-driven activities. This style of inbound marketing puts a focus on interactions with the consumer, not simply one-way transmission by the brand. Conversational Marketing aims to create relationships with the consumer by building trust through conversations and by making the buying experience as smooth and easy as possible.

Conversational Marketing solution

Conversation starter

This is the message that usually appears at the bottom right-hand corner of the website to encourage website visitors to click and engage. The button appears together with a message that can be personalized to fit the exact action, landing page, or product.

Lead capture tools to qualify

After clicking the conversation starter, users then enter a short conversation with a lead capture tool. like a chatbot. This process is where the chatbot will ask a series of simple questions in real-time to understand if the user needs customer support, sales assistance, or looking to make a transaction. This is a good opportunity to inject some personalization and make the potential customer feel like they’re in a real, meaningful conversation with the brand.

The chatbot "often tied to a social media account" qualifies the leads and either completes the sales process "in the event of a simple purchase intent" or gets the user to the right person to deal with more complex questions and requests. The concept is to segment assisted and unassisted sales as quickly as possible, providing value for the user as they are able to either complete transactions quickly or they can reach an expert on the sales team without changing their device or channel.

Social Media Management and Marketing

Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. People discover, learn about, follow, and shop from brands on social media, so if you’re not on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you’re missing out! Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.

Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular social media networks to achieve your marketing and branding goals. But it’s not just about creating business accounts and posting when you feel like it. Social media marketing requires an evolving strategy with measurable goals and includes.

• Maintaining and optimizing your profiles.
• Post pictures, videos, stories, and live videos that represent your brand and attract a relevant audience.
• Responding to comments, shares, and likes and monitoring your reputation.
• Following and engaging with followers, customers, and influencers to build a community around your brand.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing:

With such widespread usage and versatility, social media is one of the most effective free channels for marketing your business today. Here are some of the specific benefits of social media marketing:

• Humanize your business: Social media enables you to turn your business into an active participant in your market. Your profile, posts, and interactions with users form an approachable persona that your audience can familiarize and connect with, and come to trust.
• Drive traffic: Between the link in your profile, blog post links in your posts, and your ads, social media is a top channel for increasing traffic to your website where you can convert visitors into customers.
• Generate leads and customers: You can also generate leads and conversions directly on these platforms, through features like Instagram/Facebook shops, direct messaging, call to action buttons on profiles, and appointment booking capabilities.
• Increase brand awareness: The visual nature of social media platforms allows you to build your visual identity across vast audiences and improve brand awareness. And better brand awareness means better results with all your other campaigns.
• Build relationships: These platforms open up both direct and indirect lines of communication with your followers through which you can network, gather feedback, hold discussions, and connect directly with individuals.

Marketing Strategy

• Knowledge of your audience: What platforms they use, when they go on them and why, what content they like, who else they’re following, and more.
• Brand identity: What is the message you want to convey to your audience? How do you want them to feel when viewing your content?
• Content strategy: While there is a level of spontaneity on social, you’ll need a structured content strategy to be able to have a consistent voice and produce quality content regularly.
• Analytics: Quantifiable insights will inform your strategy, including who you’re reaching, the right content to share, the best time to post, and more.
• Regular activity: Social media is a real-time platform. If you want to use it to grow your business, you need to post regularly, stay on top of engagements with your business, engage back, keep up with trends, and maintain accurate profiles.
• Inbound approach: Don’t use social media to pitch your business. Focus on adding value through useful and interesting content and building up those around you. This, in turn, will organically promote your business and others will promote it for you.

Marketing Plan

1. Choose your platforms: Choose based on your target audience, platforms popular for your industry, as well as your bandwidth. Only take on the number of platforms you can actively keep up with. You can always start with one and then add on more slowly as you get the hang of them.
2. Set goals and objectives: These should be simple and task-like to start, like a post once a day for a month, get your profiles set up, or do a competitive analysis. Once you get into a rhythm and gather insights, you’ll be able to set more specific and strategic goals like increasing your following by X% or publishing X [content types you’ve found your audience likes] per month.
3. Report and adjust regularly: Use each platform analytics to identify which posts generate the most engagement, whether you’re getting more followers, and to see your audience demographics. Harness and scale up what works and nix what doesn’t.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using key leaders to drive your brand’s message to the larger market. Rather than send promotional content directly to consumers with traditional digital marketing tactics, such as email marketing and display ads, influencer marketing relies on outside individuals known as influencers to deliver a message.

Influencers are individuals with moderate to large fan followings on top social media and content marketing platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. In addition, many of these influencers operate and maintain a blog.

influencer marketing as part of their promotional strategy, they must target, connect with, and properly compensate influencers. Often, influencers will create sponsored content featuring the brand and product/service to share on their respective social media channels and blog.

• Drive social media engagement on their brand channels
• Gain quality backlinks for their online content
• Generate consistent website traffic
• Foster a connection with targeted audiences
• Improve awareness of a brand or specific campaign   

Goals:

• Increasing your social media following by X% over a specific period of time
• Improving the amount of website traffic from a specific online source
• Raising the number of brand/blog mentions online
• Adding more quality backlinks to your blog link portfolio

Tools:

Followerwonk by Moz

Followerwonk is a free tool from Moz which allows users to search for Twitter influencers based on a number of filters including topics, followers, and social authority.

UTM Parameters

UTM Parameters are tiny bits of code added to the end of a website URL to help marketers track results. Use these parameters when working with influencers to identify how much traffic their content drives to your website or blog content.

BuzzSumo

Buzzsumo is an in-depth content marketing tool that allows you to research topics, influencers, and so much more. This robust tool helps marketers find ideal influencers based on keywords, hashtags, and social media metrics.

SEOquake

If using influencer marketing for SEO and link-building purposes, you’ll want to know more about the influencer’s website. Seo quake is a browser add-on that delivers robust information about websites with a few simple clicks.

CrowdFire

Crowdfire enables users to identify people to follow based on interests, industries, and more. In addition, this tool is great for influencers who need to manage their personal social media following and unfollow irrelevant or dormant accounts.

BuzzStream

As one of the leading blogger outreach tools, Buzzstream is an essential asset for influencer marketing strategies. With BuzzStream, brands can analyze influencers, reach out for opportunities, and manage relationships in one place.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation tools can make your life easy by managing customer relationships, tracking your leads, and streamlining your marketing workflows. These advanced tools can also come in handy for social media marketing which is a crucial part of any marketing strategy. 

When your business is growing, and the number of visitors on your online platforms is increasing, it can be challenging to keep track of the leads. Staying connected with customers and meeting their needs is, however, imperative for the success of your business.

Automated marketing can help you improve the customer experience and reduce the burden on your resources. That is of great value to small businesses where time and budget are of the utmost importance. 

Marketing Automation Tools 

1. Marketo: Automate and manage your marketing campaigns 
2. Drip: Manage contacts and purchases with ease 
3. HubSpot: Generate new leads and manage existing leads 
4. Pardot: Automate your marketing and manage your sales 
5. AgileCRM: Track, manage, and strengthen relationships with customers 
6. Mailchimp:  Communicate with your clients and leads 
7. Hootsuite: Manage your social media marketing

Technical part On-Page SEO

Sign up for Google Search Console 

A search console is where you can monitor your site's performance, identify issues, and monitor backlinks. This is also where Google will communicate with you should anything go wrong. Here are the key things you should set up and regularly check in Search Console.

Set your preferred domain:

your site shows up in search results with the www prefix or without it.

HTML improvement:

This is where Search Console will recommend any improvements to your meta descriptions and title tags, as well as inform you of any non-indexable content.

Links to your site:

Here you can see the domains that link to your site and its content the most, as well as your most linked web pages.

Manual Actions: 

Google will inform you if it has administered a manual action to your site or specific webpage.

International targeting:

Make sure you are targeting your preferred audience based on language and country.

Index Status:

This lets you know how many pages of your website are currently included in Google's index .you can quickly see any worrying trends, as well as any pages that have been blocked by robots or removed.

Crawl errors :

This report shows all the errors that Google has found when crawling your site over the last 90 days.

Robots.txt editor :

This is where you can edit your robots.txt and check for errors. The bottom of the page reveals your errors and warnings.

Sign up for Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is a free service that tracks and reports website traffic. Providing insight into the demographics of the site visitors, the performance of a specific campaign, and how long people are staying on your site. Make sure Google Analytics or the analytics package you are using, is set up and ready to go from day one so you can measure and analyze traffic to your site.

Test Site Speed 

Use Google's own site speed test tool to check how quickly your website loads and implement any changes it recommends.

You Website Is Mobile Friendly :

your website and its content are equally optimized for any given screen size or device? Bear in mind that Google has stated that responsive design is its preferred method of mobile optimization. look through our thorough mobile-friendly checklist to help fix any problems.