It is ironic to see whenever a security company claims to be the best. By our standards and work ethics, nothing makes you number one. It is purely your knowledge, past experience with vulnerabilities, and an unkempt desire to move on that makes you “better” – and that is about square.

When we talk about website security, you have already heard of the huge attack percentage. It is a notion that makes web masters believe that their websites are insecure because online attackers are at large. No, while it may be true that your million dollar internet company is a hotspot for competitors and unauthorized intruders, you are failing to secure some of the parameters because of sheer lack of knowledge.

As a matter of fact, website security is a very interesting topic; particularly for people who are on the radar these days, and to the ones who have a bit of web presence under their control. You hate the web at times; everyone does, and it happens when spam attacks, viruses, 0 day vulnerabilities and such attacks are affecting your chain of operation.

Common Problems with your Site Security | How to Overcome Them?

As important as it is, website security is an issue because of its complex nature. Even on the slightest note, if your servers are sending spam emails, this will happen without your consent. You will only know when your webmail ID has been blacklisted or booted off your email list; the one you worked on for months now.

Talking about webmail hacks, admins get their login information stolen. It is sold to people who think you are in dire need of male organ enhancement products, wrist watches, Gucci bags – so on and so forth. The fact is that you are a victim but you are also becoming a part of the problem that is affecting people on the internet. What is the best way to overcome such security related obstacles? Read on…

As already stated earlier, webmail IDs are harvested all the time. A security company can charge you a fortune to rid this issue, but there are a few things that webmasters can do on their own. If you are not abiding by minimum levels of webmail security, you are in fact, projecting a negative view of your business.

If online attacks are critically analyzed, you will find out that the actual percentage of attackers is comprised of exploiters. Individuals look at the outdated website code; sniff the mundane security modules and therefore set off to an attack frenzy.

Old PHP versions, outdated MySQL scripts, that “favorite” version of WordPress and even your old web browser needs frequent updates. At times the updates are patches to deal with security issues, hence leading you to a rat race. Are you the prey or the predator? In fact, every time you are performing an update and sending feedback to security companies, you are helping them make the World Wide Web a safe haven for others.

Don’t encourage your clients to stay logged in while they’re at your website. E-commerce businesses are especially habitual of repeating this practice over and over again. At times, most of the cases that we have dealt with, relate to ClickJacking incidents.

The attackers click-jack your account while you are logged in, making “you” take actions that are not intended to be taken. This is why Defencely experts strongly recommend logging out of user accounts as soon as you are done with your business. Otherwise, you are encouraging a snowball effect of attacks, leaving behind a trail of cookies in your browser cache, and sending an open invitation to all levels of hackers.

If it was possible for Defencely CTOs’ they would have created a “Don’t keep me logged in” benchmark at a universal platform. However, it is not possible. Therefore, we can only request you to do the needful from your end.

Hiding facts and important online data does not make it go away. The practice obscures it from the eyes of common visitors but an attacker will always know where to look for such details. For instance, HTML is most vulnerable if not dealt with professionally.

Our team members believe that even if you are hiding your sensitive data through Javascripts or CSS, it can still be accessed. As a matter of fact, we have noticed a path traversal and file allocation flaw in most of our clients’ websites. The attacker would simply look for a subdomain or a webpage within the victim’s website, and then redirect it to a pop up error message.

The most common error message from server side popups could indicate that the file XYZ was not found. It looks harmless, but this message is also revealing your most vulnerable data and directory location. Your web app functionality is to be best kept at your server side and that too, through custom coded strategies.

During XSS and CSRF attacks, server side logs come in handy. Even when we see Adsense account bans through invalid click activities, we recommend our clients to take a backup of their server logs. On their behalf, we contact concerned authorities, or move ahead of fix vulnerable areas of the website immediately.

-          Ensure that your website forms are all up to date.

-          Log files with .txt ending are indicators of multiple attack types.

-          CSRF attacks occur if your website entry areas are outdated. Any aspect of the site that a user can interact with, is has to be kept simple, short coded and ironclad.

-          404 error messages are indicator of files that people were trying to access!

-          Users who tried to authenticate are not always legit visitors. Some of them are attackers; beware of them.

Interested in Knowing More about Website Security?

Reading website security articles are a great way to stay aware of changing norms. However, at best, this is just a type of knowledge that will leverage your online presence. Same as the fact that a whip does not make you a lion tamer, you will have to contact security consultants for further assistance.

Contact us today to analyze your website’s state of security. Our experts will be more than happy to be of any service to you. Or feel free to drop us an email.