New Technology For A New Decade

The nature of the internet and its ever-changing landscape requires us to continually reinvest in our systems and services in order to keep pace and provide our clients with best in class solutions. Our goal is to provide our clients with the fastest and most reliable service available.

In 4Q 2020, Stratatomic completed the transition to a new web hosting server that brings the latest technology, speed and performance to all Stratatomic hosting clients. The new host server is monitored 24/7/365 for performance and security and is powered by an Intel Xeon 8-Core vCPU and SSD drives for maximum speed and reliability. The web server is powered by a Linux operating system and Apache HTTP Server technology, which is the backbone of the internet and used by many of the largest eCommerce firms and government agencies, including Amazon, Google, IBM, NASA, NYSE, the US Department of Defense, and many more. Stratatomic's managed web hosting service provider is SSAE-16 Compliant and Safe Harbor Certified.

Stratatomic website hosting solutions connect to the internet backbone through OC3 and multiple T3 lines to Cogent, Comcast, Equinix, Level 3 and Verizon with N+1 redundancy and Tier-1 premium bandwidth. With guaranteed 99.9% uptime, our connection to the internet is among the fastest and most reliable available, backed by unparalleled service and support that you can depend on.

Change is a constant in the internet and technology industries. That constant change means we must continually evolve and grow along with it. Keeping your website running smooth, fast and secure is something we take very seriously. As more business moves online each day, new threats to security emerge that are always looking to wreak havoc on anything that is connected to the internet. Most of these threats are completely automated, powered by robots that never sleep and exist solely to seek out and exploit vulnerable websites and systems connected to the web.

When Robots Attack

According to the 2020 edition of Imperva's annual report, "bad bot" traffic rose to its highest ever percentage of 24.1 percent of all internet traffic. Eerily, 37.2% of all traffic on the internet last year wasn't human.

The United States outstrips all other countries as a generator of bad bots. In total, 53.4 percent of bad bot traffic came from the US, followed by the Netherlands and China. The most blocked country by IP is Russia, together with Ukraine and India.

A total of 73.6 percent of bad bots are classified as Advanced Persistent Bots (APBs), which are able to cycle through random IP addresses, switch their digital identities, and mimic human behavior.

An example of this is mouse mimicry, in which the bot is able to simulate mouse events a genuine visitor may perform on a website domain. These tactics are used to try and appear as a legitimate user for the purposes of ad fraud, as well as brute-force attacks against online accounts, competitive data mining, transaction fraud, spam, and phishing campaigns. So-called "bad bots" can be tasked with performing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, they can scrape and steal data, they may be used to automatically publish fake content or reviews, install malware, create a malicious SQL injection, and also skew advertising and visitor metrics. On average 30,000 new websites are hacked every day, according to Forbes.

Focus on Security

If all of this is news to you, or keeps you up at night, you can rest assured that Stratatomic has built our business around these 3 core tenants: Security. Design. Performance.

As part of our increased Security protocols, we've implemented a number of changes that we're glad to share with you (or at least those we can talk about).

• All Stratatomic websites now include 256-bit HTTPS encryption for secure web traffic and insecure HTTP connections are no longer allowed.
• All Stratatomic websites now employ HTTPS best practices, including HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) connections and OCSP Stapling which enhances the privacy of a website's visitors and improves the website performance.
• The Stratatomic web server includes Web Application Firewall technology powered by ModSecurity for enhanced protection.
• The Stratatomic web server incorporates IP Address Banning by Fail2Ban to detect hacking attempts and combat bad bot behavior.

Different x Design

Security. Design. Performance. You simply cannot have one without the other. That is why every Stratatomic website is custom coded, optimized and tested to achieve 100% W3C Validation, guaranteeing that our code is completely error-free and designed from the ground-up to provide you with the fastest, most secure and best looking website that can be created at any price. In 2020 we celebrated 20 years in business, and we are happy to report that not one Stratatomic website has ever been hacked during the past two decades. Our exclusive WebAdmin™ CMS has likewise experienced zero hacks or failures. And over the past 5 years, our web server has provided steady and reliable 99.9876% uptime. Our latest investment in the newest state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure showcases our commitment to keeping our valued clients on top of the game.

Our methodologies are different because we strive to be better. This stands in stark contrast to our competitors, most all of whom rely on common WordPress systems that are easy targets vulnerable to constant attack. According to statistics from 40,000+ WordPress websites in the Alexa Top 1 Million, more than 70% of WordPress installations are vulnerable to hacker attacks. According to a recent study by Sucuri, out of 8,000 infected websites, 74% were built on WordPress. In fact, a Google search for "Wordpress hacking" will return more than 36 million results.

All Stratatomic websites are completely custom coded, using standard web technologies that results in a better mousetrap. Using WordPress or such systems is a non-starter at Stratatomic, because they are inherently insecure and cannot achieve the results that we do.

Better Security. Better Design. Better Performance.

That attention to detail has earned Stratatomic various awards and accolades for outstanding web design and development, including a 2019 Horizon Interactive Award (email/e-card), 2019 Horizon Interactive Award (Corporate & B2B website), 2018 Interactive Media Award (Best in Class), 2017 Interactive Media Award, 2016 WebAward, 2015 Interactive Media Award, 2014 Horizon Interactive Award (responsive website design), 2014 Horizon Interactive Award (email campaign), 2012 Horizon Interactive Award, 2010 Interactive Media Award, 2008 WebAward, 2007 Interactive Media Award, 2006 Horizon Interactive Award, and 2005 WebAward.

WebAdmin™ Moves Forward

Our exclusive WebAdmin™ Content Management System was also recently updated in 2020 to give it a facelift and a responsive, mobile-friendly interface that now works on all your devices. Stratatomic’s proprietary WebAdmin™ eCommerce and site-management technology has securely and reliably processed online sales transactions for customers around the world for more than two decades. Today, WebAdmin™ enables clients of all sizes to effectively manage their own site content or storefront and is the power behind websites that receive millions of impressions per year and average thousands of clicks per day.

If you aren't utilizing our proven WebAdmin™ CMS to power your website, contact us today and let's talk about how we can integrate this powerful technology to enable eCommerce, database, ERP and custom solutions designed specifically around your business.

Email Gets Upgraded, Too

Another benefit we're excited to offer our clients is a significant upgrade to our email hosting services. All client mailboxes have increased in size from 2.5GB to 25GB - a 10x increase in storage capacity. Additionally, comprehensive setup instructions are now available online for all devices, and an improved client portal makes managing your email, contacts, settings and spam filters easy and convenient.

Thank you to our valued clients for your continued business and support, and here's to a new decade of putting design and technology to work for you.