There are many vengeful characters on the internet that would love nothing more than to deface your online business by hijacking your home page and placing inappropriate content there. If you are a successful business owner, then chances are you have plenty of people who are jealous of you. If one of these jealous individuals has the skills, they can possibly take control of your website temporarily and scare away some of your potential customers. Sometimes these individuals are your competition, but most of the time they are just annoying hackers that do it for fun. On occasion opposing corporations will even pay hackers to deface websites in order to keep a stronghold on the market! Being the victim of one of these attacks can be embarrassing and financially detrimental.
How do Hacker’s Deface Websites?
Hackers employ a number of tools and methods to gain control of a website’s content. In most instances they will gain access to the server via a security lapse in the operating system, unsafe web site applications, or another flaw in the server’s security. If the hacker cannot access the server through a basic loophole, they may execute browser based attacks with remote code. Regardless of how the hacker gains access to your site, you should be prepared and secured against such an attack.
Preventing Defacement With Website Security
To prevent defacement, you will need to make sure your data is secured on both your server and your computer. Website security should be a top priority any time you are looking for a web hosting provider. Make sure you ask about protection against website defacement when you are inquiring with the companies customer service rep. If you host a private server then you will want to make sure the server is in a safe place. Co-location hosting is an option for people who are looking or top-notch security without having their own warehouse or storage facility.
Preventing Defacement with Server Security
Having your server stored in a secure place will keep your hardware secure, but it will not fully secure the data stored on the hardware. In fact, most hackers don’t even consider stealing your hardware, they would rather access it remotely through a security lapse in an application stored on the server. Keeping your operating system updated with the latest patches will make the hacker’s job much more difficult. It is also a good idea to keep your web applications and any other software associated with your server updated and secure. Even after you have acquired all of the updates needed, it is still necessary to encrypt any data stored on, or sent through the server.
Preventing Defacement with Secure Applications
Quite often, hackers gain access to the server through a web application with weak security. In fact, most web applications have faults that can be easily exploited. For this reason you should only use web applications that you know are secure. If you have the resources, you may want to have your web applications designed by a personal team of developers who are aware of your security needs. If you cannot have this done then it is prudent to minimally research the possible security flaws that exist within the applications you are currently using.
