4:31pm

Greetings and Salutations!

I hope this Friday is treating you and yours as well as possible.

I have a few different topics I wanted to cover, and I figured I might as well write them up while I wait for the sun to set.

No… I am not a vampire or any other form of nocturnal, intelligent undead. It just so happens that it’s easier for me to write my stories at night than during the daytime. Yes, I understand I’m writing this during the daytime.

My so-called mind works in mysterious (and occasionally dysfunctional) ways. Deal with it.  🤣

Right, then!

First Topic: Web Browser Extension Vulnerability

I watched a YouTube video about a recently published security exploit for web browser extensions. It is wickedly easy to fall prey to, so I want to get the word out as much as possible in the hopes that peoples’ awareness will reduce the impact if bad actors do decide to utilize this.

Here’s the video…

I’m going to assume/pretend you watched the video at least up to the point where he starts showing old pictures of himself.

The key takeaway here is that, as easy as this is to fall for, it’s also wicked easy to protect against… with a little conscious thought and awareness.

In the video, the security researchers used 1Password browser extension as an example. I happen to use and love 1Password as a password manager and highly, highly recommend it. If I were to ever receive a prompt requesting me to re-authenticate using all of the information shown in the video… my email address, my secret key, and my password… after using the extension for a while, I would delete all extensions I have installed and re-download them.

It’s that simple… as long as I’m aware of this potential hack. Knowing the position of the extension icons is key, too. Those positions never change unless you remove or disable extensions… or something else does.

As with many security situations, a little awareness and forethought can go a long way to mitigating or outright blocking the bad actors’ desired outcome.

Topic 2: Site Emails

I’m testing a new SMTP plugin for my site. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol, and it is the method through which email servers and applications send email from Point A to Point B. the plugin I’m testing is FluentSMTP, and if it works well, it will take over all email sending duties for both my personal site (where you’re reading this) as well as my publishing company’s site (Knightsfall Press).

This is the first step in my mission to streamline my workflows across both sites.

I currently use Kit (formerly ConvertKit) as my Email Service Provider for my sorely neglected author newsletter. I switched to annual billing back in… November, I think?… and have since discovered a plugin that would allow that same functionality from the management backend of my publishing company’s website. Yes, I’m talking about FluentCRM. I recently helped a writer friend set it up for their author newsletter, and I’m waiting to hear what they think of it.

If it is as good as the hype on the website seems to make it out to be, it will do everything I need/want at a fraction of the price of Kit.

I may go ahead and make the switch after I send one last newsletter through Kit. I feel I owe it to my subscribers to warn them that the FROM email address will be changing. rmk_newsletter(at)knightsfallpress(dot)com –> rmk(at)newsletter(dot)knightsfall(dot)press

That’s a big change. I’ve been using the same FROM address since I established my newsletter back in 2019. I’m honestly loathe to change it, but to get the best performance out of Amazon Simple Email Service (which FluentCRM uses to actually send the emails), the FROM email address needs to have the same domain as the sending domain.

I suppose I could do newsletter.knightsfallpress.com, but honestly, I like the idea of bringing my newsletter email domain in line with the rest of the company’s identity, which I have since centered around knightsfall.press.

Well, I think that’s all I have for you at the moment. If you’re reading this, thanks for sticking with me.

I hope the days treat you and yours well. Stay safe out there.