web hosting

VPS Web Hosting – Do Your Really Need a Control Panel?

Control panels are certainly a vital element in today’s web hosting operation, helping to transform complex tasks into simple processes that can be handled by users of varying skill levels.  The vendors that distribute these products and the hosting industry in general have no trouble pushing the software on the market, but critics are now questioning whether control panels are truly necessary in the VPS environment and what value they actually provide.

Potential Issues

In terms of performance and security, industry leading control panels such as cPanel and Plesk are not always what they are cracked up to be.  These powerful applications consume a great deal of resources and often force customers to upgrade their packages to continuously thrive in a VPS hosting environment.  This consumption is due to HTTPD processes ran by web servers like Apache that make a VPS more susceptible to performance issues and less able to handle exploits such as DOS (Denial of Service) attacks.  Though very useful, cPanel and Plesk are both resource hogs that are more likely to reduce the overall responsiveness and performance of web applications, leading customers to upgrade to more costly packages they do not necessarily need.  In addition to this, even simple tasks such as creating email account and managing databases are slow and lagging processes that generally take too long to complete.

Alternative VPS Control Panels

cPanel and Plesk are ideal for shared and dedicated hosting arrangements but could result in more problems then you bargained for when using them with a virtual private server.  Two more efficient control panels you may want to consider for your VPS hosting solution are DirectAdmin and LxAdmin as both are incredibly lightweight and consume notably less system resources than cPanel and Plesk.  This essentially means they are far more responsive, faster and likely to give you a better performance than the leading products.  A number of tests are increasingly showing that they are also more stable and secure than the competition.

Many observers are stepping out to the make the claim that cPanel’s days as a VPS control panel are numbered, attributing this to the fact that is the most resource leeching solution.  Due to its mass popularity and widespread use, it is also among the highly targeted by hackers, which presents numerous potential security risks to your hosting environment and sensitive data.  For this reason, you may want to carefully consider utilizing this control panel with your virtual private server.  Unless you have a robust VPS plan with a lot of RAM or absolutely require automation, it might be worth the risk to install a glamorous commercial product.

Conclusion

We are not telling you to refrain from using cPanel or Plesk as both are on top of the control panel market for obvious reasons.  However, in many situations, going with a lighter product or performing command line administration will allow you to get the job done in a faster, more efficient and secure manner.  Fortunately, there are several control panel applications specifically designed for the VPS environment, better assuring the optimal performance and adequate security you need to thrive with your web presence.

Cross Site Scripting: The Underestimated Website Attack

Cross site scripting or simply XSS, is one of most common threats facing website owners today.  This exploit occurs at the application layer, usually targeting scripts embedded in a web page from a client-side browser rather than the server-side.  In general, XSS is an attack that takes advantages of weaknesses in client-side technologies such as HTML and Javascript.  The intent of cross site scripting is to manipulate the scripts within a web application and execute them in a malicious manner for the benefit of the attacker.

Cross site scripting is one of several threats that uses vulnerable applications to exploit a website.  The major difference with XSS is that it does not have the ability to directly steal sensitive information from a back-end database.  Unfortunately, this has led several webmasters to believe that XSS isn’t a high-risk threat.  Ironically, many have gone on to learn the hard way, forced to suffer through public defacement and embarrassment.

The Consequences of Cross Site Scripting

The damaged inflicted by XSS exploits is widely documented.  There have been cases where large corporate websites were hacked by this attack with the results almost always being catastrophic.  Cross site scripting is used to achieve a wide variety of malicious goals and below are some of the most common:

DoS (Denial of Service) Attacks

Accessing sensitive, unauthorized information

Modifying browser and security settings

Spying on victims’ computing activities

Website defacement

Identity theft

The consequences of a successful XSS attack can be crippling for businesses of any size.  Security vulnerabilities in some of the most popular websites have led to the theft of credit card numbers and other identifying customer information.  Consumers have been duped into clicking links that direct them to a rogue site purporting as a legitimate business.  Unaware of the malicious ploy, the customer enters their details into the application, handing them right over to the hacker.  If you are the cause of your customers being compromised, they will rightfully lose trust in your site’s security, a situation that could lead to liability issues and ultimately the loss of your business.

Educate Yourself About Cross Site Scripting

The increasing number of successful attacks is proving that large enterprises are just as vulnerable as organizations working on a smaller budget.  What this really shows is that there is not necessarily a lack of resources, yet a lack of awareness within businesses at all levels.  Numerous security reports reveal that a great number of applications on the web are vulnerable to XSS.  Sadly, is not uncommon to find website owners putting their customers and business at risk by not practicing sound security.

On the surface, cross site scripting may not seem as severe as other threats but that is what makes it so dangerous.  This is one exploit far too many webmasters are not prepared for.  Until more become aware, the problem will only escalate and continuously claim new victims.  Unless you want a disaster on your hands, take every measure you can to ensure that your web applications are secure.