PSPINC Official Company Blog

Disabling TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1

Aug

The reason for disabling TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1
The TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol is used for encrypted communications on the Internet, but vulnerabilities have been identified in TLS protocol versions 1.0 and 1.1. In order to improve security, we have decided to disable TLS 1.0/1.1 connections to our service systems.

Under normal circumstances with modern browsers and operating systems, this is not a problem as browsers will default to the most recent version of TLS which is TLS 1.3 or TLS 1.2. However, there are certain types of attack that can trick a browser and server to lower the TLS version to the lowest possible one, which can then be compromised.

Will this impact me?
If you are on modern OS and modern browser, this change will not affect you. However if you are using an older browser or operating system, you will need to change your browser settings or update you system/browser if it can’t support TLS 1.2.

Microsoft Edge
TLS 1.2 is automatically enabled in all versions of Microsoft Edge.

Google Chrome
TLS 1.2 is automatically enabled in Google Chrome version 29 or greater.
- Update Google Chrome

Apple Safari
TLS 1.2 is automatically enabled in Safari version 7 or greater.
- Update to the latest version of Safari

Mozilla Firefox
TLS 1.2 is automatically enabled in Firefox version 27 or greater.
- Update Firefox to the latest release

The following are a couple of online tools which can check your browser compatibility:
- SSL/TLS Capabilities of Your Browser
- How's My SSL?

We will update the deployment date for the shared web server as soon as it is determined.

Update:
- We will disable TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 on the shared web servers on September 1st 2022.
- We will disable TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 on WebdeStats (Web Access Statistics) on September 14th 2022.
- We will disable TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 on Mail servers on October 5th 2022.

Disabling the old TLS for mail server and using the latest TLS version will help prevent spoofing, unauthorized data interception, and tampering.
If you are using older email software such as Outlook 2007 or earlier or Thunderbird version 30 or earlier, please use a newer version of your email software.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

How Voice Assistants Are Changing Marketing

Aug

Are you one of the many people who use a voice assistant like Siri, Amazon Alexa, or Google Assistant? Insider Intelligence predicts that 123.5 million adults will use a voice assistant at least once a month in the U.S. this year. While this technology isn’t particularly new anymore, it is still rife with opportunities from a marketing perspective that many are unaware of as well as not taking advantage of.

For example, people largely use voice assistants to get quick answers to their questions. Voice assistants, as a result, emphasize what’s called featured snippets. If you type a question into a search engine, you’ll get an immediate answer. And that’s because, at the top, there will be some bolded text that should answer your question. But that text is pulled from a specific website. That whole section is the featured snippet. And for voice assistants, that’s where they pull their answers from. And website owners, in turn, will get a bump in website traffic.

How It Affects Marketing

From a marketing standpoint, this only enforces the need for great search engine optimization (SEO) for your site. If your site is well optimized, it’s more likely it’ll pop up as the first search result, making it the most relevant to Google’s algorithm. If you’ve optimized your site well enough, it’ll show at the top when users search certain queries and you’ll receive better results. And luckily, we here at PSPINC have a lot of experience helping customers with their website SEO.

But voice assistants have more marketing potential for business as well. For example, did you know you can order a pizza from Domino’s using Amazon’s Alexa? Well, you can. And with it being an Amazon product, you can also order products off of Amazon with just your voice. The biggest benefit that voice assistants offer is convenience. And it's a convenience that’s just unmatched when compared to other platforms.

So, while voice assistants have gained popularity over the years, it still isn’t used as a marketing tool on a wide scale just yet. But those who are, reap the benefits they provide. And advertisers predict this will change in the next few years. While it doesn’t exist yet, voice assistants could integrate sponsored ads by having advertisers pay to be mentioned first when users ask a question like, “what Italian restaurants are near me?”. With Spotify already personalizing its ads based on what users listen to, it’s not too big of a stretch.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business