Archive for the ‘Web Hosting’ Category
by FireHost Evangelist on August 2nd, 2010
Earlier this year, we introduced the Secure Server – a virtualized and secure, private hosting environment for companies and individuals who have the need to mitigate high traffic, high confidentiality, high availability, and compliance online.
Right away, many business owners, designers/developers, and IT professionals “got it” and signed up on the spot. We enjoy providing exemplary protection for our early adopters, but we won’t rest until the entire web hosting community understands that security, scalability, and affordability is for everyone, not just a select few.
Overall, the mission has been well received. As any “pioneer” would expect however, Secure Servers have been met with mixed reviews, particularly from die-hard dedicated hosting proponents.
In an effort admonish any remaining doubt from those who still have reservations about this new way, we created NoMoreDedicated.com. From here, you can:
- Watch real stories from real people told in their own words and decide if dedicated hosting is the best solution.
- Take our short, informative test to determine if dedicated hosting is right for your hosting needs.
Once you see the facts, we’re confident you’ll want to give Secure Servers a try, so we make it easy to do so.
- Secure Servers can be provisioning within 24 hours of validating your order, and
- There is no lengthy hosting contract to which you must subscribe.
If you still have reservations, that’s fine. We respect your opinion and any doubts you may have about adopting a new way to protect your business. Even if you’re not ready to join the movement full stop like @The_Fenix_X, we request that you follow the movement that’s putting an end to overpriced, insecure, and inflexible dedicated hosting. Big change is on the horizon.
Follow: @NoMoreDedicated HashTag: #NMD
Tags: #NMD, Dedicated Hosting Alternative, FireHost, NoMoreDedicated, secure servers, Virtualized Servers, VMWare
Posted in: Security, Technology, Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on July 27th, 2010
Back in February, My Child’s Locket chose our Secure Servers as the home for their web-based personal information store. We (and they) are happy to report that their service is growing and doing well, and that our hosting services are living up to their needs and expectations.
In a recent interview, founders Jay Osterholt and Jeff Moore talked with WCPO-TV in Cincinnati about My Child’s Locket’s capabilities and the role Secure Web Hosting plays in protecting their clients’ identities.
We’re so proud to be protecting this and other businesses who need shelter from malicious hacker activity. Thanks for the trust.
Tags: Identity Protection, My Child's Locket, Secure Web Hosting, Secure Websites
Posted in: FireHost News, Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on July 16th, 2010
Credit card data is just as vulnerable to hackers when it’s resting, as when it’s in use. Provisions in Requirement 3 of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) direct web application developers and IT departments to ensure personal account numbers (PANs) are protected, even after the purchase is made.
The mandates for protecting cardholder data at rest seem rather straight forward, but taking them at face value could be a mistake. Many factors about your company’s or your client’s business determine how this requirement is followed.
3.1 – Store Only Necessary Cardholder Data; Store Cardholder for the Minimum Time Possible
Section 3.1 says to store only necessary cardholder data and to store it for the minimum time possible. Data storage requirements may vary depending upon the nature of your company’s or client’s business. For example, businesses that provide single use products, or a service offering that is only likely to be used one time should probably not store cardholder data at all, or at most for a very short period.
On the other hand, subscription- or recurring billing-based businesses are on the rise. Invoicing and charging customers “automatically” every month has become a common reality for millions of software as a service (SaaS) companies today. When you have repeat customers, the idea of having your customers resubmit payment details on a regular basis is not just inconvenient, it’s inconceivable. Therefore, businesses that cater to repeat customers have some special considerations to address, and because of the retention schedule, these companies go beyond the provisions of the standard to protect cardholder data when possible.
In either scenario, your company must develop and enforce a PAN disposal policy containing:
- A definition of what data is being stored;
- A definition of the time period for which this data is stored;
- A procedure for disposing of data after that time period has expired.
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Posted in: Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on April 6th, 2010
Imagine waking up tomorrow and having your water cut off. It would be annoying to deal with, but not devastating. Life goes on. But what if you didn’t have electricity? Definitely inconvenient. You can’t turn on a lamp or watch TV, but at least your iPhone works. You could still access the information superhighway, so all is well.
Now envision how you would feel if you woke up one morning and your website wasn’t working at all. It doesn’t load or the homepage has been replaced with an offensive message — or even a warning from Google that this site is no longer secure. That’s right, you’ve been hacked and your website has been kicked off Google.
Think this can’t happen to you? It’s actually not uncommon. It happens to small businesses every day when their website gets attacked one too many times for Google’s liking. Mberry, a small business based in Tempe, Arizona, is one of those businesses. This innovative company that sells the very cool, very fun “mberry” tablets that make everything you eat taste oh so sweet for 30 minutes. Mberry had a rather sour experience when their site was banned from Google.
Mberry’s saga started about a year ago when their site was hacked – not once, not twice, but three times in two months. They rely on their site as a main portal for their revenues. Having their site down multiple times going through the process of getting it cleaned up and back online was costly, annoying and damaging to their brand. But it wasn’t until they got the boot from big daddy Google, that things really got much worse.
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Tags: Kicked Off Google, mBerry, Secure Web Hosting, Website Hacking, Website Protection
Posted in: Security, Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on November 14th, 2009
Less than 20 days until CyberMonday. Your warehouse is full. Your shipper is standing by. But have you considered what will happen at your website after a flood of qualified buyers click on the irresistible and precisely worded ad for your product or service? Now (not then) is the time to find out if your website can take the heat that CyberMonday will dish out.
The Yahoo! Network Insights team reveals that eCommerce retailers see a 73% increase in online conversions on the Monday following Thanksgiving (compared to the average shopping day in November). This means when consumers open their wallet on 11/30, they will be ready to buy.
You’ve got one shot, one day to win their holiday business, and you need to be totally sure your customers’ data is completely secure, as hackers are just waiting to steal all of those juicy credit card numbers from the thousands of people coming to your site that day.
So how can you improve user experience and conversion for your eCommerce Web site on high traffic days like CyberMonday while ensuring their security? Creative elements aside, there a many technical intricacies that help make your Web site stand out online and stay secure.
Load times, load times, load times. When your Web server is underpowered, pages load slowly and can even fail making it appear that your Web site is down. If your Web site appears to be on the fritz, consumers a) won’t have the patience to wait on you to get it figured out or b) will lose faith in your ability to process orders successfully.
A Web site on the fritz raises questions in consumers minds and decreases the likelihood that they’ll hand over their hard earned money. Was my order received? Is this Web site capable of protecting my PII (personally identifiable information)? Could someone steal my credit card number? And you know what? These are totally legitimate fears. Hacker activity in the last year has increased drastically, and your buyers know it.
Nestling your precious eCommerce Web site in a reliable, High Availability hosting environment and deploying a content delivery network capable of quickly serving up all your high-quality product shots, video customer testimonials, and other heavy media files can help prevent the situation from ever becoming a concern.
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Tags: eCommerce Cybercrime Holiday 2009, Online Shopping Safety 2009, Secure Web Hosting
Posted in: Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on October 14th, 2009
Even if you’re not a football fan, you’ve probably seen news about Argentinean Coach Diego Maradona’s website being defaced by a Peruvian fan/hacker “Elite-Peruvian”.
The website’s intended facade was replaced with a tearful picture of Maradona under the caption “We made you cry” after the Argentine team defeated Peru 2 to 1 on Saturday.
Under Maradona’s image, the hacker included a Peruvian team photo proclaiming “For the biggest cry baby of all time. We didn’t win at the football, but we did on the web!” And as a final insult, Elite Peruvian threw in a soundtrack of Peruvian folk music playing in the background.
Details on how the hacker accessed Maradona’s website are forthcoming, but you can see images of the defacement on Graham Cluley’s blog. Referring back to Maradona’s 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter finals match, Mr. Cluley suggests Maradona seek a more concrete website security solution than the “Hand of God.”
We agree. For website security, FireHost may be the best option.
Tags: defaced, diego maradona, hacker, Website Security
Posted in: Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on September 11th, 2009
Windows 7 will be available to the public in October. It’s chocked full of new features and sports a modern look and feel, but beta tester Laurent Gaffie has identified a serious vulnerability lurking in the colorful background.
This particular vulnerability, SMB2.0 NEGOTIATE PROTOCOL REQUEST Remote B.S.O.D., is considered Medium to High severity. It’s triggered when “SRV2.SYS fails to handle malformed SMB headers for the functionality,” says Gaffie.
The flaw lies in a Server Message Block 2 (SMB2) driver and allows hackers to deploy a remote attack that could cause the infamous “blue screen of death” critical system error on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 OS. Other comments on Gaffie’s blog indicate that the flaw puts your computer at risk of a Dos attack and could lead to remote code execution.
Gaffie contacted Microsoft; they are investigating the report, but have no ETA on a patch. In the meantime, users can switch off the Server Message Block (SMB) feature or block TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall for protection.
Posted in: Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on September 9th, 2009
We often hear Malware being referred to as a broad categorization for all bad things on the internet. In reality however, there are many different types of attacks that make up this threat category.
Data collected on the geographical distribution of malware “Phone Home” locations in the first half of 2009 shows that the USA hosts 35% of malware worldwide, followed by China (14%) and Brazil (8%). Additionally, cyber criminals use TCP port 80 most often for downloading and HTTP to transfer and send infections so they can avoid suspicion as these are both very common protocols.
Trojan malware rose the most in popularity in samples collected between January – June this year, and the penetration of viruses increased slightly. PUPs, Backdoors, and Worms declined just a little. Here’s how each category contributed to malware as a whole.
- Trojan – Trojans represent 55% of all Malware on the internet. Here’s how they work: Trojans perform a variety of malicious functions such as spying, stealing information, logging key strokes and downloading additional Malware.
- Backdoor (21%): Backdoors provide functionality for a remote attacker to log on and/or execute arbitrary commands on the affected system.
- Pup, a Potentially Unwanted Program (8%): PUPs are programs which the user may consent on being installed but may affect the security posture of the system or may be used for malicious purposes. Examples are Adware, Dialers and Hacktools/“hacker tools” (which includes sniffers, port scanners, malware constructor kits, etc.)
- Worm (6%): Worms self-propagate via e-mail, network shares, removable drives, file sharing or instant messaging applications.
- Virus (4%): Viruses propagate by infecting host files
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Tags: fraudtool, infostealers, malware, Secure Web Hosting, trojan
Posted in: Web Hosting | No Comments »
by FireHost Evangelist on September 4th, 2009
Unsuspicious HTML email (without attachments) has been and continues to be the dominant format for outgoing malicious spam. In the second quarter of 2009 however, spammers changed their strategy and started sending more plain text and image-based email spam according to IBM’s X-Force Team in the 2009 Mid-Year Trend & Risk Report.
The resurgence of image-based spam is interesting because this style of hacking attempt boomed in 2006-2007, but practically disappeared in 2008. Now that it’s back, there are some distinct trends in the subject, format, and techniques that make blocking these attempts fairly easy for most anti-spam filters.
- Most of the emails advertise pharmaceutical products – drugs, pills, etc
- Only a few of the emails use random pixels, and many have identical binaries
- The messages contain random text below an embedded image
- Most of the spam does not contain links that recipients can click, but they invite the user to visit a .com website that must be manually typed into a browser
- WHOIS information shown on the images reflects domain registrars that are infamous for URL Spam
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by FireHost Evangelist on September 1st, 2009
Overall, phishing attempts are down in the first half of 2009 as reported by IBM’s X-Force Team in the 2009 Mid-Year Trend & Risk Report.
The decrease is fueled by a decline in the number of traditional banks. Researchers speculate that this trend could be fueled by the financial crisis, or perhaps improved security measures when users login to “real” banks online is playing a role. Make no mistake however, hackers aren’t slowing down. They seem instead to be targeting Online Payment institutions instead as reflected in the rise of attacks over the last 18 months.
To further reinforce the movement toward Online Payment institutions, PayPal is mentioned in two of the top five subject lines from this year. (PayPal is included four times if you extend the list to the top ten slots.)
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Tags: Hackers, Phishing, Secure Web Hosting
Posted in: Web Hosting | No Comments »
