Security

Want Security? Abandon FTP for SFTP
Monday, December 19th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE Security through obscurity rarely works as well as one would hope. Instead, you run the risk of being hit by an anonymous hacker who found you through a random vulnerability scan. In the old days FTP was the best option...

dedicated serverencryptionfile transferFileZillaFTP





The Benefits and Limitations of Firewalls
Monday, November 21st, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE When a firewall works, few notice it or even remember that it is there. When someone fails to have an adequate firewall or does not have one at all, it gets a lot of attention, once the inevitable attacks occur....

DoSfirewallhackerportsscripts





How Important are Web Application Updates?
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE When it comes to your personal computer, you probably constantly get reminders about updates. Some proprietary and open source web applications will also remind you when it is time to update, but website still suffer from attacks that stem from...

bugcmsContent Management Systempatchscript





4 Web Application Security Tips
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE Today’s websites almost always use web applications of some form. The days of static HTML pages are long gone. We depend on scripting languages, databases, and other tools to dynamically generate our websites as they are requested. As a result,...

application firewalldatabasespatchedscripting languagessecurity





How to Password Protect a Web Directory
Thursday, October 6th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE On a modern website, you can often use your content management system to password protect a particular page. In some cases, however, you may want to protect a directory that holds general documents, pictures, videos, or other files. Furthermore, using...

apachedirectoryencryptedhtaccesshtpasswd





Do You Need SSH with Shared Hosting?
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE One the benefits of a shared hosting account is that the operation of the server, by and large, is managed by the web host. Your website itself is still your responsibility, but pretty much everything else is up to your...

command lineconfigurationhtaccessphp.iniSecure Shell





What Is a DDoS Attack?
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE One of the major security threats an Internet-connected server might encounter is a DDoS attack. It is a violent, often faceless, intrusion on a server that can leave all of its websites paralyzed. DoS stands for denial of service, and...

agentsattackDDoSdenial of serviceDoS





Using SSH for Secure File Transfer
Thursday, September 8th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE Transferring files to and from your web server is one of the most important tasks you will do. Although most websites these days have content management systems that allow you to create dynamic content from within your web browser, there...

copydirectoriesFile Transfer ProtocolFTPpermissions





4 Deadly Security Practices
Monday, August 22nd, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE The Internet is filled with thousands of miscreants waiting for the right opportunity and means to hack into your server and do all sorts of evil with your websites. There are plenty of ways in, from OS vulnerabilities to web...

brute force attacksguessable passwordshackersloginroot





5 Free Open Source Security Tools
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011Tavis J. Hampton  
ARTICLE Network and server security can be expensive, but not having good security is even more expensive.  Fortunately, you can have the best of both worlds thanks to the many free and open source security solutions that are available to web...

APFfirewallintrusion detectionlinuxlogwatch