HACKER MEDICINE

Remember how quick it was to register your bank’s .com and other domains. You went to your registrar’s homepage, typed in preferred domain names, clicked a few times, entered billing information and you were done. Within a few seconds, you had confirmations and a new online home.

It will take a little more effort and a little more time to register new .BANK domains for your bank’s trademarks, trade names and service marks, but it’s worth it. Here’s why:

All .BANK domains will be verified by Symantec before the registration is confirmed; part of the enhanced security requirements for .BANK domains required by the .BANK registry fTLD.  Because this process cannot be fully automated, it requires that we talk to one or two people at your bank.

Verification ensures that only eligible institutions – banks, bank associations, regulators and certain core service providers – have .BANK domains. It also ensures that the person registering .BANK domains for your bank is authorized to do so. Verification protects the integrity of the .BANK gTLD and the integrity of the banks and other organizations that register .BANK domains. You can learn more about the verification process and Symantec’s role here.

During the registration process you will be asked for the bank’s contact information, regulatory ID number, and the government regulatory authority that charters your bank.

You registrar will also request the name and contact information of someone at your company who can verify the employment information of the registrant contact and the share the name and contact information for someone who can verify that the registrant contact is authorized to register the domains requested.

You can help make the registration process smooth and quick by following a few simple guidelines.

1. Make sure you have all the necessary information, including contact information for others at your bank, available when you start the registration process.
2. Tell your colleagues that they will receive an important call from Symantec, and why. It will only take them a few minutes to get us the information we need.
3. Finally, take a few minutes over the next day or two to see if your colleagues have received a call from a Symantec representative and were able to give us the information we need to verify your bank’s .BANK domain(s).

These few additional steps will help ensure that you get the okay for your .BANK domains as fast as possible. The process typically takes a day of two. It is not as fast as a click, but your bank’s new .BANK domains will set a solid foundation on which to build and maintain your online brand.

Attending to all of the day to day routines in running a small business can eat up so much of your time that you don’t have any spare moments (or energy left) to devote to actually growing your business. Everything seems to fall into the bucket of “get it done and out the door.”

We’re here to help.

There are only so many ways to reduce the costs of running your business no matter how silver-tongued your negotiations may be, and one person can only juggle so many hats when trying to be the owner, customer service manager, IT department, and graphic designer all rolled into one. (Whew!)

Take a breather and discover some easy things you can do tomorrow to help your business grow. Let’s get right to them!

Let your site visitors know their transactions are secure

People care about security—a lot. They also care about appearances. There’s a reason why your local bank always has employees dressed to the nines, cameras everywhere, and a security guard.  

Use this frame of mind when designing your website. With all of the stories of data breaches hitting the news, customers are more wary than ever about handing over their credit card information. They want to feel secure.

Assure them right up front by displaying a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Trusted Site Certificate in a highly visible location. Use it in multiple places, like your home page, login page, and buy page. It’s recognized worldwide and immediately assures people that they’re dealing with the right business—you.

Show visitors the green bar

Not all SSL certificates are created equally. EV (Extended Validation) certificates include a green bar where you type the URL. The exact appearance differs slightly depending upon which browser you’re using. No doubt you’ve seen this when visiting your financial institution online.

Now, your average customer isn’t going to think, “Aha! That site is using a certificate with extended validation. Cool!” But customers will recognize the visual cue (green means go), and they will have seen it at other sites known for their security and be assured they’re not on some phishing site.

Moving over to EV SSL certificates is painless and it’s an easy way to lump your small business in with the big boys for a fairly nominal annual cost.

Avoid cutting corners on security

To many small businesses, every dollar counts. But while you can save the freshly stocked break area for later, online security doesn’t fall into the “nice to have” category. It’s now essential. One data breach is all it takes to destroy everything that you’ve worked so hard to build up.

While the number of mega breaches decreased in 2014, according to the 2015 Website Threat Security Report, the overall number of breaches increased. As the report recommends, keeping your server configuration up to date and ensuring that old, unsecure versions of the SSL protocol (SSL2 and SSL3) are disabled, and newer versions of the TLS protocol (TLS1.1 and TLS1.2) are enabled and prioritized is the way to go.

Sound like technobabble gobbledygook? It isn’t hard to implement, and the digital stitch in time here could pay off far more than saving time later. Talk to your SSL salesperson and make sure you’re up to speed.

While you may not have the budget of some major corporation (yet!), these methods are some easy ways to tweak your SSL certificates and help you get the most mileage out of them.