Archive for April, 2009

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Are you at risk of a cross-site scripting attack?

by FireHost Evangelist on April 28th, 2009

xss-threat3In basic terms, cross-site scripting (XSS) is a popular method of attacking a website’s application vulnerabilities by injecting target websites with malicious code. The goal is typically to embed a program which steals data, leading to credit card or identity theft. During these attacks, affected websites appear perfectly normal to visitors, who continue to use the website as they normally would.

Consider this example:

Mary frequently visits an online shopping website. One day, hackers use a cross-site scripting attack on the website, embedding malicious code. Mary returns to the website and buys a pair of new shoes, unknowingly passing her confidential information to hackers. Before she realizes what happened, someone has stolen her identity and ruined her credit.

Every business owner has more important things to do than mitigate a very public theft of your customer’s personal data, so make securing your customer data a priority today.

Unfortunately for consumers and businesses, many hosting providers don’t take effective measures to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on their clients. If your hosting provider doesn’t address cross-site scripting attacks (XSS) properly, your company’s website could easily fall prey to hackers and expose your customer’s personal information.

Security is the primary focus at FireHost. We pride ourselves on providing industry-leading secure hosting, which includes a WAF to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS). This hardware security device stops hackers from exploiting web applications, securing your website, business, and customers from cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

To discover more about our secure hosting and prevention of cross-site scripting (XSS), contact a FireHost Agent today.

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FireHost Brings the Power of Google to Your Website

by FireHost Evangelist on April 24th, 2009

Google Search AppliancesIt’s becoming difficult to imagine modern life without the internet. In less than a decade it has become ingrained in our culture, with millions of people shopping, communicating, learning, working, and even loving, on the internet.

While a matter of personal preference for many, Google is at the core of our internet-driven culture. Need a recipe? Google it. Need directions? Google it. Need an email account? Google it. Need a picture? Google it. 

The examples of Google’s ability to facilitate your web browsing needs are virtually limitless. You can find nearly anything you need using Google, which is why it’s become the leading search engine on the internet.

 In fact, there’s a good chance most of your visitors discover your website through Google.

Realizing the business value of accurate, relevant search results, Google has developed a cutting-edge hardware, the Google Search Appliance. The Google Search Appliance gives businesses the opportunity to add a powerful search feature to their website, using Google’s own search engine technology.

Your visitors are empowered to find what they need on your website, complete with the familiar layout of a Google search results page which can be customized for your website look and feel as well as content. You even have the option to schedule daily web-crawling and updating of your site’s content with Google directly. When you provide your visitors with Google-powered, relevant search results, they will be more likely to find what they’re looking for, purchase your goods or services, and return to your website later.

FireHost brings the power of Google Search to your website as part of our robust line up of secure web hosting product and services. We can integrate the Google Search Appliance into your website now. If you’re ready to Google-power your website, contact a FireHost professional today.

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Is Consumer Web Hosting Sufficient for Small Businesses?

by FireHost Evangelist on April 21st, 2009

cheap webhostingSelecting a hosting provider is one of the biggest decisions a company makes when developing and establishing an online presence. With thousands of choices available, it can be tempting to jump into a contract with a cheap hosting provider and hope for the best. After all, it only matters that your company website is on the internet, right? Not quite.

Those five dollar hosting plans may be fine for smaller, personal websites, but you will not be satisfied for long if your livelihood depends on your website. Cheap web hosting companies typically put artificial constraints on space and resources. This may suffice if you only need enough space for a few static pages and bandwidth to cover a handful of visitors every month. However, for SMB’s that have bigger goals for their company, cheap hosting is not the answer.

Companies need more bandwidth to serve customers and more storage space for high-quality content. If your company hopes to market internationally, then there are benefits to establishing a content delivery network, so your international prospects visit a website optimized for an exceptional experience, no matter where they are located around the world.

You should also consider a host who provides secure e-commerce hosting and dynamic database security as an additional measure for insuring both you and your clients’ personal information is protected.

If online marketing efforts are successful, your website may experience the DIGG effect and become suddenly popular through the social networks. As your business succeeds online, your web host should provide burstable bandwidth on high performance servers in a redundant network infrastructure, so prospects and clients are never negatively impacted by website performance. Remember, your website is an extension of your business and your brand. An unsecured, poor performing website may have the same impact on a prospect as bad customer service over the phone.

FireHost caters to businesses of all sizes and special needs by providing enterprise-level hosting solutions such as Google Search Appliance, Exchange email services and Telligent Community Sever to help your business flourish.

Securing data is imperative and should never be left up to chance to save a little money. There is a measurable price on turning site visitors into customers, creating real value to fast and secure web hosting. Don’t roll the dice on a cheap, consumer-grade hosting plan, contact a FireHost professional today.

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FireHost Secures National Breast Cancer Foundation’s Telligent Support Community

by FireHost Evangelist on April 17th, 2009

nbcf community secured by FireHostInspiring the courage needed to win the battle with breast cancer, the National Breast Cancer Foundation provides funding for free mammograms and supports mammography programs in medical facilities across the country.

NBCF accomplishes their mission through initiatives such as the National Mammography Program, their educational video Beyond the Shock, and the MyNBCF online community. Providing NBCF with industry-leading secure managed hosting, FireHost epowers breast cancer survivors and supporters to share their stories and offer encouragement to women and families of patients and survivors via online forums, news groups, video galleries, and blogs.

“With Telligent Community Server, I know what’s going on in the MyNBCF community as it happens, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

- Kevin Williams, NBCF

The MyNBCF online community accomplishes this great work using Community Server by Telligent, an enterprise-level social network platform hosted by thousands of companies, including Dell, Intel, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft.

Since implementing Community Server hosting thru FireHost, NBCF has experienced a significant increase in MyNBCF registrations as well as a notable increase in online donations.

Community Server hosting helps propel these results by offering:

  • Organic Traffic Growth
    Social networking provides exponential traffic growth as users become active participants in the community, invite their friends, and those friends invite new friends.
  • Ease of Use
    Similar to using Microsoft Word, publishing content with Community Server is simple. All you need to do is type.
  • Immediate ROI
    Increased customer satisfaction, a network of community experts, and reduced support costs are just a few of the high-impact financial benefits of Community Server hosting.

FireHost can make Telligent Community Server hosting part of your online community. Contact us today to put Community Server to work on your website.

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Business-class Web Hosting from Day One

by FireHost Evangelist on April 14th, 2009

FireHost entered the web hosting business “by accident” in 2003. At the time we won our first hosting client, our business model was focused primarily on interactive website design and implementation, not website hosting. We had an impressive client roster and were working actively to develop enterprise-level websites for corporations like Nestle, Pizza Hut, Qualcomm, and Shell Energy. To facilitate our web design and development business, we had established a complex and efficient internal development environment that enabled us to build, test, and publish our web design and technical development on a multitude of web browsers.

As usual, we created and tested Qualcomm’s new website in our internal development and hosting environment. Once the website was built solid and performing perfectly, we turned it over to the client. The site’s performance suffered immediately after it was live in the client’s hosting environment – media loaded and ran slowly and various creative elements crashed when the site experienced heavy visitor traffic. After a few vigorous rounds of troubleshooting, we brought the site back into our hosting environment where it ran without a hitch! At this point, we (and they) realized the problem was not with the website, but instead Qualcomm’s own hosting environment.

Like many companies, they had devised a robust marketing campaign designed to drive traffic to the new website. Because of the problems brought about by their hosting environment, the management team quickly determined the launch would only succeed if FireHost continued to host the site. We agreed and in a surprising turn of events, we were transformed into an enterprise-level secure website hosting provider.

Qualcomm eventually worked out the kinks with their own hosting environment and took over hosting the website (which is still live today – http://www.cdmauniversity.com/), but we never turned back. FireHost’s evolution as a secure web hosting provider for business has been driven by one simple principle – everyone deserves to be vigorously protected while never having to sacrifice website performance. Since the very beginning, we have heard and addressed our client’s needs, and the result six years later is a complete shift in our business model.

FireHost’s commitment to providing relevant solutions for businesses continues today as we introduce exciting and innovative secure, web hosting services. With the growing number of attacks on web sites and web services by hackers, the vital need to protect companies’ data, and the growing presence of media and social interaction online, FireHost answers the call by providing industry-leading security for web hosting on some of the best and fastest hosting equipment available. Contact a FireHost Agent today for more information about fast and secure web hosting.

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