Booters and Stressers: What you need to know about DDoS for hire?

Think back to when you were a kid. No matter how well-adjusted and even-tempered you were (or weren’t) there was at least one other kid you just could not stand. You hated his face, his hair, his teeth, the way he talked, the way he looked at you, and the way he just existed. Remember the way he’d eat his sandwiches? He ate his sandwiches like a jerk.

Chances are, though, that no matter how much you couldn’t stand him, you didn’t go marching over to throw a dozen eggs at his house. The chances of getting caught were too high. You’d get in trouble. Everyone would know you did it and your parents would be mortified.

But what if there had been a machine you could have secretly put a dollar in from several blocks away, and it would have rolled up in front of that kid’s house and started firing eggs? All that mess and damage, with none of your fingerprints on the eggshells. It would have been a strong consideration, right? That business model all grown-up is how a group of people running services called Booters or Stressers are making a pretty sweet little profit offering DDoS attacks for hire.

DDoS and Booter basics

DDoS is the acronym for a distributed denial of service attack, which is so named because it denies the use of a website and its services to legitimate users by suspending or disrupting the services of an internet-connected host. Booter services – which is a term that can be used interchangeably with Stresser services –offer DDoS attacks to anyone willing to pay for them.

With a Booter, users typically pay a fee and are given access to a user-friendly platform from which they can choose their target and get to DDoS-ing. To give you an example of the cost-friendliness of this lovely service, one sample Booter charges $40 USD/month for an unlimited number of DDoS attacks lasting one hour.

What DDoS can do?

The main area where the egg-firing machine analogy falls apart is in the potential damage. Even with a super-powerful egging machine, the worst possible damage is probably a broken window. But a DDoS attack? One hour of a DDoS attack can cost an organization $40,000. That’s not even mentioning the software or hardware damage that can be done, the IP theft, financial data theft, loss of revenue and loss of consumer trust that can happen.

In order to inflict damage, a would-be DDoS attacker with access to a Booter service doesn’t even have to unleash the attack. DDoS ransom notes where someone demands a set amount of money in exchange for nothitting that website with a DDoS attack are becoming increasingly common.

 

Ransom note – potential damage for website and potential profit for attacker

(Source + Hi-Res image: Incapsula)

Who does that?

DDoS attacks are wildly common, and Booter services are popular enough that there are plenty of them online with their numbers always growing. That begs the question: who is it that’s using these websites?

The answer is depressing because your website could potentially be made a target by just about anyone. Business rivals are an obvious choice, but when you factor in the chance to make fast money from a DDoS ransom note, your potential attacker net widens considerably. Kids who don’t know who you are and have never visited your website before might be keying your url into a Booter.

While many Booter-for-hire users are unsurprisingly gamers who pay the Booter fee in order to DDoS Minecraft servers and similar websites, there have been some high profile attacks from the people behind these services. The Lizard Squad, famous for their attacks on Sony Playstation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live, claimed those major attacks were simply advertisements for their Booter service.

Could a Booter get to your website?

DDoS attacks have been found to affect 45% of organizations – that’s very nearly 1 in 2. And with Booter services and DDoS ransom notes gaining popularity, that number could very well rise. If you’re considering whether or not you should look into professional DDoS mitigation, and you haven’t yet decided that you absolutely should, consider this: you could pay for months of DDoS protection with what you might end up paying in a single ransom.

It isn’t nice to think that your website could fall victim to a DDoS attack. It’s even worse to think that the attack might come from someone hiding behind a Booter. While you ultimately may not have plugged a dollar into that egging machine due to your own principles, there are plenty of people out there who don’t mind being cowardly in order to unleash a DDoS attack or make a quick buck on a ransom note. That’s the reality your website is living in.

Is Your Wi-Fi Network Secure? 5 Ways to Ensure Your Business Documentation is Safe

Wi-Fi is integral to a business as it provides access to the Internet for your entire company, including those at computers – without wires cluttering up the space and those on laptops – allowing them to work freely around the office.

However, it is imperative that your network is secure, because if it isn’t you are throwing the door wide open to hackers – putting your business documentation at risk! No one is safe from this; a range of companies have already fallen victim to hackers, including multinational firms such as Sony.

Wi-Fi is one of the easiest ways for hackers to gain access to your business, much easier than you may think! In fact, hacking unsecure Wi-Fi ‘is child’s play’, according to the results from an experiment conducted using public Wi-Fi, by online privacy and security firm HideMyAss! The firm asked a seven-year-old to hack a network, which after watching a video tutorial, took a mere ten minutes and 54 seconds to infiltrate.

Although this experiment was conducted using public Wi-Fi, the premise is the same if your company Wi-Fi is unsecure. It is also important to note that staff working on portable devices, shouldn’t use public Wi-Fi. Hackers can set up a fake Wi-Fi network that looks official, and then simply take your data once you are connected.

But, how can you ensure your Wi-Fi and therefore your business documentation is safe?

Passwords

If your current password is ‘password’ or ‘12345’, or you simply haven’t changed the default one, change it immediately! The longer and more complicated the password, the harder it will be for hackers to gain access. It is also a good idea to change this regularly and not use the same password across many different services.

Use WPA2 encryption

Turn your wireless router’s encryption on. Avoid WEP encryption as it can be cracked in minutes. Use WPA2, which introduces a new AES-based encryption for better security.

Use a complex passphrase

There aren’t many known weaknesses with WPA2, however it is susceptible to attacks when used with a simple passphrase. The ideal phrase would use at least 25 characters including a mix of upper and lower case letters, numerals and symbols.

Disable WPS

 If your Wi-Fi router supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) you need to disable it. Created as a way for users to add new devices to their network, the WPS pin is an 8-digit number printed in the label of WPS-enabled devices. However, this is susceptible to brute force – with hackers being able to crack the code of vulnerable devices in as little as four hours. This would then allow them to recover your passphrase and make changes to your hardware.

Set up a guest network

Don’t allow visitors access to your private Wi-Fi network. If you want to be able to offer guests wireless Internet access, use one that is segregated from your company’s main network, so they can’t get into your computer or files or see your traffic.

As secure as your Wi-Fi network is, you may want to consider document storage for your really sensitive data. With business documentation, not only could it getting into the wrong hands, causing embarrassing and costly issues for your company, but there are is data protection legislation to comply with. Services such as Kelly’s Document Shredding will also ensure that you are aware of review dates, at which point you will be able to change the date or request its secure destruction.

How to protect your business from a DDoS attack?

Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attacks are on the rise. One 2014 study found that many respondents reported being hit multiple times within a 12 month period. It’s an increasingly prevalent and serious problem, where a basic DDoS infrastructure attack with the potential to disable a website in a matter of minutes can be bought online for as little as £30 or so. There are numerous ways to combat them. The most popular and effective way for SMEs is to employ an external data centre that has the technology to detect and deal with DDoS threats in real-time, such as these 100TB bare metal servers.

What is essentially going on with a DDos attack is the denial of service to legitimate users by an assailant directing immense volumes of traffic to a company’s servers, flooding and disabling the website. This is usually done by taking control of swathes of vulnerable PCs spread around the world using malware to create botnets, without the knowledge of the owners. It has even been suggested that there are now ‘armies’ ofinfected computers available for hire by the hour – a frightening thought.

There is a wide range of reasons why a company may be targeted by a DDoS attack, from an extortion attempt (pay us or we’ll keep your site offline) to political activism, to damaging the reputation of a rival. Sadly, in many cases it’s simply because some digitally-savvy teenager in his bedroom is bored and wants to stir up some trouble and maybe build a little reputation for himself.

The traffic can be obviously false, or made to look like legitimate requests. For instance, if an e-commerce site is able to deal with 50 users at a time logging in, then all a DDoS attacker needs to do is send 50 log in requests at the same time to prevent any real customers getting to their accounts.

Keep this up for a long period of time and there will be no actual sales made. The server is flooded, and the network connectivity fails. High-profile attacks that have hit the news recently include several Dutch government websites being mysteriously taken down simultaneously, and a hit on the Microsoft XBox Live gaming network by the notorious Lizard Squad, which was seemingly born from a grudge.

Successful DDoS attacks can damage revenue, brand reputation and customer service, which is why they’re increasingly on the agenda of politicians and cyber-police, but unfortunately the most prolific attackers are able to cause havoc virtually undetected, or will base themselves in a country that won’t easily cooperate with Western law enforcement. That means that for now, the best defence for a company is to make itself as unattractive a target as possible.

So, how to protect your business from a DDoS attack? While many such attacks are by brute force, that can belie the level of sophistication involved. Any company relying on a standard firewall approach is inviting disaster – firewalls were not designed for this purpose and will rarely be able to cope with this influx of traffic, going into meltdown instead.

Some companies may install devices that are designed to detect and mitigate DDoS traffic, yet these are expensive to purchase and keep operational, as they require specialist staff and ongoing maintenance to keep up with new threats. They are also not infallible when faced with huge amounts of traffic, so when one factors in the likelihood that they may only be used infrequently, they do not make for a good solution to have sitting around idle most of the time.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) routinely offer some DDoS protection, with more bandwidth available to cope with large traffic volumes, but they carry with them disadvantages such as being unable to protect Cloud services, or network links from other providers than themselves.

That’s why for a lot of businesses, the preferred option is Cloud providers that have huge amounts of bandwidth available to them, multiple forms of hardware and software to filter and scrub traffic, diluting a threat before it is directed to the client’s own servers, and dedicated engineers with a lot of expertise in dealing with DDoS attacks.

But while they are probably the most effective form of protection, they can still be bypassed, and so the ideal solution is a web application protection combined with on-premises protection. Another useful tip is for companies to use multiple data sources, and compartmentalise customer data so that not all can be compromised at one time.

Not every DDos attack can be prevented, but with appropriate defensive measures, the effects can be limited. This is not a problem that’s going away any time soon, and any company, regardless of the nature of its industry or size, should be aware of the risks out there.

5 Ways To Tighten Your Online Security

Cybercrime is now firmly at the top of the agenda for government and police, as well as all businesses and consumers that are switched on. But in an ever-changing landscape of online threats, how best to ensure that your IT security is fit for purpose? Here are some useful pointers…

Protecting your identity

We all know the risks of identity theft, but it’s not just your personal identity that you should be concerned about. Prudent UK domain name registration through your web hosting company can prevent devious operators from occupying web addresses similar to your own and either effectively holding them to ransom, or using them for purposes you might prefer them not to. What that means is that if you hold the .com address for your brand name, you would probably want to secure a series of other domains such as the .co.uk, the .biz, the .net, as well. These can all be redirected to your main address, allowing you to pick up more traffic.

DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are becoming ever more prevalent, and the targets widespread. The TalkTalk attack in October 2015 was the latest high-profile case, but just recently theUK academic IT network Janet was hit by a massive DDoS assault that is still ongoing at the time of writing. You should be aware not just of the risks of DDoS attacks, techniques to prevent or mitigate their effects, and how to deal with customers and the media if you are affected, but also that a DDoS attack may not be the end of it. In fact, such invasions are often nothing more than a smokescreen for something more malicious, such as the theft of sensitive corporate data or customer credit card details, while your IT department has its hands full. Whatever the size of your business, whatever the nature of your industry, never assume you’re safe.

Update Software

Whatever software your business uses, from Windows to Adobe, make sure that patches are installed whenever they become available, especially when they specifically relate to security issues. Software releases are often quite ‘buggy’ unfortunately, and there are hackers who will go through every line of code looking for a way in. Once they find it, it becomes a race against time. So assign an IT team-member to check that all devices are routinely patched.

Data Centres

You can consider storing your more sensitive files on an off-site server owned by a dedicated data centre. This gives you peace of mind that your most important data is safely backed up should the worst happen, and easily accessible. The other aspect to consider is that data centres often have a lot more resources to put behind IT security than your own company might.

Browse Smart

With the spread of mobile devices, it’s easier than ever for hackers to get into company IT networks. If you’re in a public space such as a hotel or airport, don’t use the public WiFi, even if it’s free, because it may not be secure – in fact it probably isn’t. Never click any links or open any attachments in emails you’ve been sent if they look suspect, even if you are certain of the sender. And treat social media with caution, especially in the workplace, as this is not a common way for hackers to find a route into your network.

Collective Responsibility

You should impress upon people that the responsibility for network security does not rest entirely with senior management, or the IT team, but on everyone involved with the business, including customers and suppliers. One of the simplest and most effective ways to keep online security tight is to insist on passwords being updated regularly, and for them to be set as combinations of numerals and upper/lower case letters.

Any suspicious incidents, or people on the premises, should be reported, and no devices of any kind should be connected to your network unless authorised and with effective antivirus software installed on them. You could even insist on this with clients visiting your offices – it may be inconvenient for them but it will certainly convince them that you take security seriously.

5 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid

Social media has revolutionized the way people use the internet and interact online. As more and more people from across the globe are using social media for connecting with each other, the number of businesses using the social media for marketing and internet advertising is also rising. More than 90 percent of marketing professionals consider social media as one of the best tools for their marketing strategy. However, a large number of online marketers fail to leverage the optimum potential of social media because they use it in the incorrect manner.

Here are the 5 common mistakes which most of the online marketers make while using social media for marketing and advertising.

[Image Credit- ShutterStock.com]

Repeated Posting of Same Content

If you are limiting your social media posts to only a few types of content, then you might not be able to grab the attention of your target audiences. It is vital to share valuable, interesting and engrossing content each time you post on your social media page to make your target users read your posts and ensure the brand success.

Not Interacting With Your Followers

Most businesses only use social media for one-sided communication and only share what they have to say. But, if you use social networking websites to listen to your followers, and interact with them by replying to their comments, questions and queries, you will certainly be able to achieve better results and generate quality leads for your business.

Not Targeting the Right Market

One of the most underlying principles of marketing is to target the right set of people and the ideal markets in order to achieve measurable results. This principle also implies to social media. Always post content based on what your target users want to read, share and know instead of what you want to post. Develop your social media personas and derive insights about the preferences of your customers & prospects to know what they expect from your brand.

Direct Promotion of Businesses or Products

Most of the internet marketers mistakenly consider social media advertising to be same as the direct advertising done using the newspapers or TV commercials. Probably, this is one of the biggest social media marketing mistakes you are making. Social networking sites are an ideal platform to interact with your target audience, and thus you should use social media platforms to educate them about your industry, the products you offer and how they can bring positive results. Today, people make informed decisions and therefore, it is vital to provide them genuine information instead of direct marketing of your products.

Not Building Relationships

Social media are primarily focused on building relationships and thus, you should also use it to develop long term relationships with your followers. Make them understand that you care about them, their needs and want to aid them with high quality genuine services. This will make a great impact on the credibility and fellowship of your brand. Consequently, you will be able to achieve patronship for your brand.

Avoid all the aforementioned mistakes to get the most from our social media marketing strategy.

Importance Of Twitter For Promoting The Business And Marketing

Today, we are living in the modern world which will enable you to get latest technology to support forever. In addition, there are plenty of folks are staying connected with the social media and the latest updates to get news immediately. However, the social media is very essential for the folks to get the latest news to share and communicate without any ease. In fact, most of the folks are using Smartphone and make them to share any news over the Online. In addition, this will be very easy for them to connect all over the world and get plenty of features to use forever. However, this consists of a wide range of benefits to the people to share and upload latest technology and other things with a simple manner. Of course, the Twitter is the most essential social media tool where millions of people are having an account and able to share their messages by tweet it. In addition, it will be very useful for sending and tweet comments on customer business. So, you need to create an account on Twitter and post your business for promoting it. Therefore, you need to know about the importance of the Twitter to use forever. You can buy twitter followers review to get initial boost in this social media.

Connect with customers

Obviously, the Twitter has millions of users to connect and join to get tweets and follows with ease. In fact, there are plenty of folks are creating the account on twitter and eagerly shares something which is useful for the society to use forever. Therefore, it will connect with other customers and eagerly looking to connect with customers to share without any ease. However, you can also interact with existing customers who will give information and tweets with a simple manner. Therefore, you can upload your business on Twitter and promote it forever. Professional marketing team works for social promotion for big companies. They use to buy followers you may also try it but don’t buy fake followers it may make you down so don’t even think about it.

Build relationships

However, there are plenty of followers will accessing with your account which will be very useful for promoting the business without any ease. Also, it will enable you to grow the business and bring forth the effort to the customers to promote it. Nevertheless, you can add marketing strategies for your account which will be very easy for the followers to watch your business firms. You should also post your updates and tweets that your customers find interesting and useful forever.

Create a brand name and tweets it

Furthermore, there are plenty of folks will enable your business to promote in higher level to use forever. In addition, this will have to post your business with product and name, objectives to helpful for them. It also avoids too many tweets for your business firms and will create span for your business. Therefore, you need to avoid those activities to tweet and get positive tweets for promoting the business forever.

Promote your company blog

The Twitter will allow you to promote the business which will be very useful for the folks to manage their business with safe and secure manner. In fact, it consists of positive tweets which will enable you to increase the followers and promote higher business firms forever.

Social Media and Your Nonprofit: Creating a Win-Win for Everyone

If you’re a non-profit, you might not think you have much of a need for social media, but you’re wrong. Social media can help you expand your reach while meeting your goals. Here’s how.

Increased Name Recognition

Like any for-profit business, your non-profit needs name recognition. No, you don’t need to sell a physical product, but you do need to sell your cause. It’s your cause that sets you apart from other non-profits, and it’s why people give to you.

Some non-profits use Ad Magic, for example, to brand their organization on custom playing cards. They increase their name recognition every time someone plays a game of poker or pinochle. Other brands use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to raise brand awareness.

While promotional items can be used on their own, they work incredibly well with social media, and the fact that you can connect directly with people who are impacted by your organization, or affected by your cause, is amazing.

For example, let’s say you run a non-profit whose aim is to raise awareness and fund treatments for a particular type of cancer. Those people who are affected by that cancer would be your first connections. These would be people you would want to make your fans.

From there, they would spread your message far and wide across the network, helping you boost your brand recognition.

Maintaining Relationships

It’s much easier to maintain relationships with donors on a platform where social interaction is the norm, and where the conversation is two-sided. It also helps that you don’t own the platform. Users often feel that third-party social media sites are “neutral ground,” and that brands are on an even footing with individuals.

That’s important when you need to maintain a conversation, and not a one-way communication channel, with people who have donated to your cause in the past.

Connecting With New Supporters

When potential donors see you interacting with existing donors, they may become inspired to become new donors themselves. A lot of this has to do with the organic and spontaneous nature of how social networking works.

Endorsements from existing donors occur when those existing donors share your message onsite, or when they “like” your status updates. On Facebook, for example, users can share status updates with their friends.

When they do, those friends are introduced to your brand. And, the more they share, the more impressions they make on their friends. This is how an organization’s message spreads.

Share Your Non-Profit’s Impact

You’ve heard it time and again: you need to be routinely sharing your non-profit’s impact. What have you done for your community? What have you done for your cause? Telling this to your supporters, and sharing your message with potential donors, encourages existing donors to keep on donating and it might just earn you new donations.

Social media gives you multiple ways to show off your organization and the impact it has made.

And, donors care about this stuff. One study showed that 71 percent of individual donors want to know the effectiveness of an organization. The second thing they want to know about is the organization’s financials.

Likewise, 78 percent of people aged 20-35 said they would stop donating if they didn’t know or understand how their donation was making an impact. So, if you want your organization to continue, you need to really focus on this, and social media is the perfect platform for it.

Jake Townsend works in a senior role for a nonprofit organization .He likes to share his insights online and has already offered his thoughts on a number of different websites.

10 Best and Worst Countries to Start a Business

Every year World Bank, World Economic Forum and many other institutions release their report indexing various countries around the world on the basis of ease of doing business.

If you are a small or medium size business owner then you must read this article because it gives you an idea how countries are placed when it comes to doing ease of business.

Some countries have tougher regulations and higher tax rates but there are others with less regulations and lower tax rates.

We tried our best to give you an honest list where we rank 10 Best and Worst countries for starting a new business.

The criteria we have used to rank these countries are on the basis of tax rates and regulations imposed by the government.

So let us start with the 10 best countries for starting a business.

1:- Singapore

Whether you are looking to start a small or big business, Singapore is the number 1 country for starting a business. So what makes Singapore number one in the list.

Well the tax rates are as low as 18.4% and the cost of starting your new business is just .6% according to the World Bank. What makes Singapore even more attractive place to start your business is swift and transparent judicial system. You can also easily own a property. That is why Singapore is the best.

2:- Hong Kong

Although Hong Kong is not a country, a city state with population of over 7 million people.

If you know it used to be number one but is slipped to Number 2 spot. The per capita income is over $55,000 and the city is based on free trade and low taxation. Although the city do support minimum wage but still it is a capitalist country.

3:- South Korea

The third in our list is South Korea again because of the tax rates. Tax rates are 33.2% much higher than Singapore but still better than other countries around the world. Cost of starting a business is 14.5%. However the per capita is only $27,000 which is quite less than any developed countries.

One of the great benefits is the judicial system because cases can be filed and conducted entirely online. Very few nations have this.

4:- United Kingdom

What makes United Kingdom totally special is cost of starting a business. You can start a business with a cost of just .1% which is lowest in the world. However tax rates are 32% lower than South Korea.

UK has also reduced the corporate taxes in recent years making it more competitive with other countries. However the country has still to catch up with bureaucratic and regulatory conditions compared to Singapore and Hong Kong.

5:- United States

As you know US is the largest economy in the world and we listed it in 5^th position. If you have a great & unique business idea then there is no country better than US to start a small business.

The cost of starting a business is very low at 1.1%. It has a better credit framework with favorable reorganization and refinancing laws. However the tax rates are really not good. It is as high as 43.9%. Moreover starting a business is also not easy because many regulations.

6:- Sweden

Sweden is like a socialist country but it manages to be one of the best countries for starting a business. The first reason is low cost of starting a business at just .5%. However the tax rate is very bad at 49%. However Swedish government has taken certain steps like easing the regulation laws and other bureaucratic hurdles. In fact in certain ways it is much better than US.

7:- Norway

As you know Norway is one of the richest countries in the world with per capita of over $100,000. This makes the country to start a new business very easy. The cost of starting a business is .9% which is quite low.

However tax rate is still high at 39.5%. You can online register your business and bank account. But you might have to face tough regulations before you think of starting a new business.

8:- Denmark

Denmark is also a great place if you want to start your new business. The cost of starting business is as low as .2%. Recently the country has implemented various kinds of business reforms to boost the flow of FDI. The tax rate is quite low at 24%. You get all the documentation required for your business in minutes.

9:- Finland

Finland is really great when it comes to assist failing business. The country has best legal framework to support this. The cost of starting the business is just 1% but the income tax rate is high at 38%. But the great thing is government allows bankrupt companies to take new loans if they want to. The government has also reduced the corporate income tax in recent years.

10:- Macedonia

The last country in our list is Macedonia. Although it is a second world country with a per capita income of $5,000 but still we liked to include it in the list. It only cost you .1% to start your business in this country and the tax rates are as lows as 12.9%. Starting your business there could be just one step or one day away because all the documentations are completed in just a day.

So these were 10 best countries.

If you know I haven’t mentioned countries like Australia or New Zeeland in the list but they are also great places to start your new business.

According to me the best countries to start your new business is English speaking countries like US, UK and other Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Finland etc.

Now Let us see 10 Worst countries to start a business. Although you don’t need to know because you are not going to start business there but still I am giving you a list.

1:- Eritrea

Eritrea is an African country with lowest per capita income in the world. The country has no documentation process for imports and exports.

The cost of starting a business is 38% and tax rate is just 9.2%.

2:- Libya

Libya an oil rich country is second in our list. After the fall of Gaddafi the country is in the grip of civil war.

The cost of business is also very high at 27% and the total tax rate is 22%. It is certainly not a right place to do business.

3:- South Sudan

The country came into existence in the year 2011. Because of its regulations doing business has become very difficult.

Documentations are also very time-consuming. The cost of doing business is just too high at 330%. You simply can’t do business here.

4:- Venezuela

The country is run by a social dictator with all sorts of regulations. The entire economy is nationalized and the cost of doing business is 88.7% and tax rate of 10%.

5:- Central African Republic

You would be surprised to know that CAP offers 0% tax rate but the cost of doing business is over 200%.

The poor infrastructure and connectivity does not allow doing any business here.

6:- Congo

Again lack of law and order and infrastructure makes it really difficult to do business in Congo.

The tax rates are 27.5% and starting up cost is over 30%.

7:- Chad

Chad is marred with internal conflict and high cost doing business at around 150%.

The tax rate is also high at 31%. Even though the government has made some reforms but still it is hard to do business.

8:- Haiti

After years of dictatorship Haiti has got least favorable business conditions.

The cost of starting a business is over 235% with tax rate of 24%.

9:- Angola

Angola has shown some improvement as compared to other sub Saharan African countries.

The cost of starting a business is 22.5% and tax rate is 21.7%.

10:- Equatorial Guinea

The last in our list is Equatorial Guinea with a per capita income of over $13,000 has over 20% tax rates.

Cost of starting a business is 99.4%.

So these were 10 best and worst countries for starting a new business.

5 Sneaky Online Shopping Tricks For Scoring Major Discounts

Shopping online can be a treat because there are a wide variety of items to choose from but the reality is that pricing tends to differ from shop to shop most of the time. If you really want to make the most out of your online shopping endeavor, we recommend you to use these great online shopping tricks to get the best prices out there.

Use discount coupons

Remember that coupons are there to deliver the best price reductions. Usually they are either offered by the site you want to purchase from, or they will be found on coupon sites, but either way it’s a very good idea to try and find discounts because they do come in handy and make the entire shopping experience more refined and interesting at the end of the day. It’s easy to find exclusive coupons on couponing sites for recharge, car rentals, grocery stores/brands. Like search for freecharge coupons and it will display list of sites with recharges codes, likewise you can also search for flight coupons etc.

Escape the dynamic pricing trap

Dynamic pricing is created based on how often you use the site. Usually the websites that see you visiting often will raise prices and that’s something to avoid. Erase the cookies from your browser before you visit the site because this way you won’t have to worry about any price reductions in the end. It’s a great thing to keep in mind if you want to obtain the best price. Use incognitive window.

Keep items in your cart

This is actually a very good idea because usually any website that sells items online will see that you are still undecided and they will mail you a discount code. You will need to wait a little bit until you get the mail back, of course, but considering how much you can save this is definitely well worth your time. Keep in mind the fact that you should always try to add multiple items in the cart as you might end up getting a deeper discount.

Sign up for mail alerts

 

Online shopping companies always tend to send coupons and discounts to people in their mailing list so you should indeed join such a mailing list. This will offer you a much better set of results in the end and it will make the experience more refined. Remember that some off the offers are single use offers, so if you sign up with multiple mails you can get multiple codes, which are valid for multiple purchases.

Compare prices online

 

There are many online price comparison tools that you can use and they can help you access some really nice results. Basically, this way you can see what online retailer has the best price for a specific item and thus the entire purchase process is a lot easier. This is a great way to save money when you shop online, so you should definitely keep it in mind.

At the end of the day, these sneaky online shopping techniques can offer you a nice set of results and a multitude of benefits. From saving money to getting deeper discounts and even receiving free shipping at times, it’s always a good idea to take your time when you purchase stuff online. Do that and remember that the more time you spend researching and finding coupons, the more money you will end up saving in the end!