Posts Tagged ‘Prevent Hackers’

As Mitnick Knows, Security Not Always in Your Control

by FireHost Evangelist on June 30th, 2009

Kevin Mitnick, the most well known hacker of the 1990′s had his personal and business websites compromised and defaced recently, and if you query Mitnick’s domain today, you still see remnants of the hack. Words like:mitnickHacked2

$ whois mitnicksecurity.com

MITNICKSECURITY.COM.HACKED.BY.NERD.FROM.WEB-HACK.COM
MITNICKSECURITY.COM

In a phone conversation today, Mitnick disclosed to FireHost’s Chief Security Officer that he was using secure hosting practices on his site, but the hackers got to his website through his hosting company’s DNS provider. They compromised the control panel for his domain names and redirected his site to a defaced version.

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Security Investments Top IT Budgets

by FireHost Evangelist on June 30th, 2009

Despite a challenging economy, many companies are making room in their budgets for investments in information security initiatives.

According to a survey by Robert Half Technology, seven out of ten CIOs interviewed reported their companies would be investing in new information technology initiatives over the next year. 43% of the respondents overall reported information security as a top priority, and in the budgetfinancial services and transportation sectors, information security was cited most often as the top priority.

“Although times are lean, many companies are finding that they can’t afford to postpone IT investments that lead to increased security, efficiencies or revenues,” stated Dave Willmer, Executive Director of Robert Half Technology. “Organizations also are trying to make sure they are prepared for growth when conditions improve, and enhancing their IT infrastructure is part of that process.”

Over the past year, there has been a significant rise in the number of malicious attacks on company websites. Symantec identified a 165% in malicious code signatures and cited that the explosive growth can be attributed to the professionalism of malicious code development, supporting the demand for goods and services that facilitate online fraud.

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USA Today: “SQL Injection Attacks Hit 450,000 a Day”

by FireHost Evangelist on March 20th, 2009

Modern cybercriminals are out to do harm. Simple as that. They penetrate vulnerable websites, steal private customer information, and commit identity theft every day. Hacker tools and methods of attack have become more sophisticated and wider in scope in recent months.

USA Today reports:

SQL attacks take aim at the database layer of websites. They typically were manual attacks designed to pilfer customer data from merchant websites. But last June someone figured out how to automate the attacks, and use them to plant infections. By mid-June, daily attacks spiked to 25,000; by October they topped 450,000 a day.

Holly Stewart, IBM ISS threat response manager, says the infections take advantage of security flaws in cool website features, such as online-delivered video, music, photos, documents and work files.

Giant financial institutions and online merchants have put up strong defenses, says Phil Neray, vice president of security strategy at Guardium, a database security firm. “The same is not necessarily true of regional banks and credit unions, smaller online retailers and state government agencies.”

FireHost is in business to address website security needs of the “smaller guys” Mr. Neray mentions above. It’s imperative your company respond to the threat of cybercriminals swiftly and effectively because SQL attacks strike governments and credit card companies every day. FireHost can help your company avoid the negative spotlight.

SQL attacks are preventable when your website, email, databases, and other applications are hosted with a security-focused web hosting provider. We’ve taken industry-leading measures to make enterprise-level security attainable for every business because we know that the last thing you need to do with your time is mitigate a high-profile website attack on customer information.

Most hosting providers don’t invest the resources required to maintain a prevention-focused, secure hosting environment. If your company does business online however, you owe it to your customers and employees to make sure their most important information is protected.

Here’s just a sample of what puts FireHost secure web hosting in a class of its own:

Network Layer Security
FireHost runs dual Sonicwall internet security devices, providing firewall redundancy for every client. This layer safegaurds websites, emails, and databases from unauthorized intrusions, like SQL attacks.

Application Protection
We also run a web application firewall to close the holes within your website’s applications, the entry-point for SQL attacks.

Vulnerability Monitoring
FireHost partners with McAfee to provide you with web-based website vulnerability auditing and remediation mangement, completing scans every fifteen minutes.

Register here to have a FireHost Security Agent perform a vulnerability report for your website. We will contact you shortly with the eye-opening results.