Round Tale

The reliability of a hosting company is perhaps it’s most important attribute, as every other feature of the hosting account is useless without an active server. Some types of web hosting are more reliable than others, such as dedicated hosting which is considered one of the most reliable kinds of hosting accounts available. With shared hosting your site is hosted on a server with hundreds of other sites simultaneously. While this usually does not present problems, there are times when the server crashes or requires maintenance.

DDoS Attacks

Hacking attacks are prevalent in the hosting community, so it is important to pick a hosting plan that takes adequate security precautions. While most shared hosting accounts are hosted by companies which are generally reliable, there are a lot of independent resellers that are selling hosting accounts that are less than secure.

Since shared hosting accounts are the cheapest, they are more likely to be vulnerable. A DDoS attack is a simple yet effective attack that is capable of bringing down a server in a few minutes. The problem with shared hosting accounts is that a single site could be attacked, and as a result the entire server could go down, affecting all of the other unrelated sites on that server.

Server Maintenance

Shared web servers also require more maintenance, since there are many web sites hosted on the same server. In fact, in many cases the servers can be reset as much as three or four times per month. When the server is being reset the site goes down for about 30 minutes to a half an hour. This can create a very bad impression for site visitors that arrive during this time period. Using a VPS or dedicated server would minimize if not completely eliminate site down time, because the server is not being used by more than one person at a time.

Server Limitations

Aside from the above problems, shared web servers also have significant limitations due to the limited resources and diversified server usage. With so many sites using the same server it can be impossible to predict the reliability of the server. A traffic surge could occur at any time of the day, and that could result in a server crash that could debilitate all sites on the server in just a few seconds. These limitations are not a factor with hosting types such as VPS and dedicated hosting. Any serious site owner may want to consider another option with less limitations and more reliability when investigating prospective web hosting service providers. If you do decide to purchase a shared hosting account, then it is best to purchase from a reputable company.

Conclusion

Shared hosting accounts are perfect for novice webmasters with minimal needs, however they are not recommended for online business owners. If you want to keep your site visitors coming back then you need a reliable site that is online every 24 hours of the day.

(The Hosting News) – Black Lotus, a leading distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection services company, announced today its new Stopping DDoS Attacks: Cost Management Analysis white paper. The white paper describes the extent of potential DDoS devastation and the most important considerations for preventing DDoS attacks. Additionally, the white paper provides a cost management analysis on preventing DDoS attacks versus stopping DDoS attacks after they are already in progress.

“A DDoS attack and website unavailability can cost a company significant damage in expenses, reputation, and revenue,” says Jeffrey Lyon, President and CEO at Black Lotus. “Our new cost analysis white paper will help customers understand what a DDoS attack is and the types of DDoS protection services they can utilize to protect their business investment. By using our DDoS protection services, our customers can stop and prevent attacks before it is too late.”

In a DDoS attack, an attacker simultaneously uses multiple computers to bring down a server, completely stopping a website from being available to its visitors and users. A successful DDoS attack dramatically increases traffic to the site resulting in slowed network response and servers refusing new connections. Eventually the server crashes and services stop completely, causing the website to lose visitors, traffic, revenue and even reputation. Black Lotus provides DDoS protection services at every level, from DDoS protected dedicated servers to colocation and web hosting with DDoS protection, to prevent DDoS attacks.

“A company’s reputation is priceless and customer care is a major factor in building and maintaining a reputation, especially among enterprise businesses,” says Lyon. “The Black Lotus mission is to give you customized protection to secure your business from all attacks so you can remain available at maximum capacity to serve your customers and maintain your position as an industry leader.”

Monetary loss as a result of DDoS attack can vary per hour when services are down depending on the purpose of the website. Losses can include advertisement costs, investing in network infrastructure or web hosting, website development and promotion, loss of revenue from existing customers and loss of potential customers. These losses do not include the costs for service repair and incident response. Black Lotus DDoS protection hosting provides robust and cost-effective DDoS protection solutions to prevent monetary loss.

“Businesses whose online presence is critical, such as online stores, forums, game servers, social networks, and ecommerce companies should act before an attack causes a website to slow down or stop completely,” says Lyon. “Black Lotus DDoS protection solutions are customizable for the scale of your business and the type of IT infrastructure you have giving your business a future free of malicious DDoS threats and attacks.”

Businesses with high traffic websites interested in DDoS protection services are encouraged to download the Black Lotus white paper Stopping DDoS Attacks: Cost Management Analysis at http://www.blacklotus.net/protection/. Learn how to secure your business with DDoS protection from the DDoS prevention experts at Black Lotus.

Black Lotus Announces DDoS Protection Cost Management White Paper

(The Hosting News) – Black Lotus, a leading distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection services company, announced today its new Stopping DDoS Attacks: Cost Management Analysis white paper. The white paper describes the extent of potential DDoS devastation and the most important considerations for preventing DDoS attacks. Additionally, the white paper provides a cost management analysis on preventing DDoS attacks versus stopping DDoS attacks after they are already in progress.

“A DDoS attack and website unavailability can cost a company significant damage in expenses, reputation, and revenue,” says Jeffrey Lyon, President and CEO at Black Lotus. “Our new cost analysis white paper will help customers understand what a DDoS attack is and the types of DDoS protection services they can utilize to protect their business investment. By using our DDoS protection services, our customers can stop and prevent attacks before it is too late.”

In a DDoS attack, an attacker simultaneously uses multiple computers to bring down a server, completely stopping a website from being available to its visitors and users. A successful DDoS attack dramatically increases traffic to the site resulting in slowed network response and servers refusing new connections. Eventually the server crashes and services stop completely, causing the website to lose visitors, traffic, revenue and even reputation. Black Lotus provides DDoS protection services at every level, from DDoS protected dedicated servers to colocation and web hosting with DDoS protection, to prevent DDoS attacks.

“A company’s reputation is priceless and customer care is a major factor in building and maintaining a reputation, especially among enterprise businesses,” says Lyon. “The Black Lotus mission is to give you customized protection to secure your business from all attacks so you can remain available at maximum capacity to serve your customers and maintain your position as an industry leader.”

Monetary loss as a result of DDoS attack can vary per hour when services are down depending on the purpose of the website. Losses can include advertisement costs, investing in network infrastructure or web hosting, website development and promotion, loss of revenue from existing customers and loss of potential customers. These losses do not include the costs for service repair and incident response. Black Lotus DDoS protection hosting provides robust and cost-effective DDoS protection solutions to prevent monetary loss.

“Businesses whose online presence is critical, such as online stores, forums, game servers, social networks, and ecommerce companies should act before an attack causes a website to slow down or stop completely,” says Lyon. “Black Lotus DDoS protection solutions are customizable for the scale of your business and the type of IT infrastructure you have giving your business a future free of malicious DDoS threats and attacks.”

Businesses with high traffic websites interested in DDoS protection services are encouraged to download the Black Lotus white paper Stopping DDoS Attacks: Cost Management Analysis at http://www.blacklotus.net/protection/. Learn how to secure your business with DDoS protection from the DDoS prevention experts at Black Lotus.

Black Lotus Announces DDoS Protection Cost Management White Paper

Web hosting security is an extremely complex technical field, as it is constantly evolving. Every time someone finds an exploit or a security loophole, the web hosting company has to counteract that action with a security measure. Thus, what is true this year for web hosting security may not be true next year.

Hackers employ tools that are just as complex, if not more complex than the web hosting companies themselves, so it can be almost impossible to be completely immune from a highly skilled hacker. Nonetheless, the risks that are posed by security breeches are extremely serious, especially in the world of eCommerce. A compromised website could mean the loss of thousands of dollars, and several unnecessary lawsuits against the site owner. In fact, some people have even lost their online businesses due to hackers! When it comes to hacking exploits, there is one that does not appear to be going away any time soon.

What is a DDoS Attack?

A DDoS attack is a Distributed Denial of Service attack. These attacks have been known to take down entire corporations, and even entire web hosting companies in some instances. They work because they mimic realistic traffic habits to a certain extent, so there is no way to spot them until it is too late. When a hacker employs a DDoS attack they send a massive influx of artificial traffic to a site or to a web server, so rapidly that the server simply cannot handle the load and shuts itself down. The result is near instant downtime, and the loss of revenue for anyone that is hosting their site on that server. The reason why it is called Distributed Denial of Service is because the hacker is distributing a server load that causes automatic denial of services on behalf of the web server.

Who Gets Hit With DDoS Attacks?

The sad fact is, anyone can get hit with a DDoS attack, and even more alarming is that this attack is usually the direct result of the nefarious actions of a competitor. In other words, if you have a powerful competitor, then you are already at risk for a DDoS attack. Perhaps even more startling is the fact that these attacks happen all the time on sites that are not even business oriented. Hackers use smaller sites with less security to practice their skills, and send out DDoS attacks to these sites in an attempt to perfect their DDoS skills. If you are not properly protected, then you are at risk for a DDoS attack.

How to Protect Yourself form a DDoS Attack

Perhaps the best way to protect yourself from a DDoS attack is to use a web hosting company that emphasizes their ability to counteract such attacks. Some web hosting companies will offer a good price, however their security is lax. In the web hosting industry there is no room for error, especially if you own and operate a thriving online business. One mistake could result in the loss of thousands of dollars, so it is important that you seek out the most qualified web hosting companies.

Apache or Apache HTTP Web Server is one of the most popular servers due to robust software, strong security, exceptional performance and its economical value. Also it supports several popular programming languages including Python, Perl, MySQL and PHP. Additionally, all Unix, Linux, Windows and OS operating systems support Apache.

What is a DDoS Attack?

A Denial of Service or DDoS attack is an attempt by a malicious user to make system resources unavailable. This is accomplished by sending a mass number of packets to the server causing it to overload and lock up. Hackers generally target sites like banks, root name servers and credit card payment gateways.

A frequent attack method occurs when the perpetrator externally attacks the server so that regular traffic is left with little or no response making it unavailable. This results in the computer or server being reset or the communication between users and the equipment fails.

Preventative Measures

Luckily there are a few methods to stop these attacks. Many web hosting providers utilize a Proxy Shield that can handle a DDoS attack up to 4GB per second. This is one of the most effective security measures available to date. It is also one of the most expensive so only large corporations can afford them.

To handle smaller DDoS incidents, hardware and software firewalls will generally do the trick. These stop the DDoS attack in the initial stage so little information is lost and the equipment can function normally.

Preventative Measures for an Apache Web Server

There is a specific method to stopping a DDoS attack on an Apache Web Server called mod-evasive. This is a module configured specifically for the Apache web server that can stop even the hardest hitting DDoS attacks, can be used for traffic detection, work with firewalls and send abuse reports.

This measure creates an internal table of IP addresses that will deny any single IP that’s blacklisted, that’s attempting to access a page numerous times or that’s launching more than 50 simultaneous connections per second from the same line. This technique eliminates attacks from a single-server attacker to a highly distributed attacker.

Mod_evasion has a built-in scaling capability with a cleanup procedure. Due to the design, only scripted attacks are recognized and blocked so that legitimate requests remain in tact and functional. A user can even click the reload button numerous times in a row and the system will identify that it isn’t a threat.

Security has been an issue in the computing industry for years. With hackers becoming more insightful with workarounds, combating their methods is proving to be more difficult. This security measure adds an extra level of protection to those utilizing an Apache server.

Apache or Apache HTTP Web Server is one of the most popular servers due to robust software, strong security, exceptional performance and its economical value. Also it supports several popular programming languages including Python, Perl, MySQL and PHP. Additionally, all Unix, Linux, Windows and OS operating systems support Apache.

What is a DDoS Attack?

A Denial of Service or DDoS attack is an attempt by a malicious user to make system resources unavailable. This is accomplished by sending a mass number of packets to the server causing it to overload and lock up. Hackers generally target sites like banks, root name servers and credit card payment gateways.

A frequent attack method occurs when the perpetrator externally attacks the server so that regular traffic is left with little or no response making it unavailable. This results in the computer or server being reset or the communication between users and the equipment fails.

Preventative Measures

Luckily there are a few methods to stop these attacks. Many web hosting providers utilize a Proxy Shield that can handle a DDoS attack up to 4GB per second. This is one of the most effective security measures available to date. It is also one of the most expensive so only large corporations can afford them.

To handle smaller DDoS incidents, hardware and software firewalls will generally do the trick. These stop the DDoS attack in the initial stage so little information is lost and the equipment can function normally.

Preventative Measures for an Apache Web Server

There is a specific method to stopping a DDoS attack on an Apache Web Server called mod-evasive. This is a module configured specifically for the Apache web server that can stop even the hardest hitting DDoS attacks, can be used for traffic detection, work with firewalls and send abuse reports.

This measure creates an internal table of IP addresses that will deny any single IP that’s blacklisted, that’s attempting to access a page numerous times or that’s launching more than 50 simultaneous connections per second from the same line. This technique eliminates attacks from a single-server attacker to a highly distributed attacker.

Mod_evasion has a built-in scaling capability with a cleanup procedure. Due to the design, only scripted attacks are recognized and blocked so that legitimate requests remain in tact and functional. A user can even click the reload button numerous times in a row and the system will identify that it isn’t a threat.

Security has been an issue in the computing industry for years. With hackers becoming more insightful with workarounds, combating their methods is proving to be more difficult. This security measure adds an extra level of protection to those utilizing an Apache server.

Security is by far one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a web host. With so  many possible threats online, it is not as hard as on might think for a security lapse to occur. Security is not something that should be taken lightly by the consumer or the web host, as there are several threats that could result in serious financial turmoil. The following are three threats in particular that are becoming increasingly common, and that are responsible for a large portion of the security issues involved with web hosting.

Credit Card Fraud

The internet is a massive virtual marketplace, swarming with merchants, customers, and people who would like to take advantage of both the merchant and the consumer. The people looking to exploit any security fault they can are commonly referred to as “hackers.” Hackers see the web as an opportunity to  prey on the weaknesses of other individuals and companies. A vulnerable website makes an ideal target for these hackers, especially if the website is engaged in daily e-commerce. Many of them have access to highly advanced applications that are capable of telling them if there any “loopholes” they can exploit. Any online store they can find with a single security lapse will become a feeding ground for them, resulting in thousands of dollars stolen form your customer’s credit cards. Once the hacker has the credit card details of your customer’s, the situation becomes progressively worse. Of course, the customer is going to be inclined to believe that you are the thief, and they will not want to accept the fact that you are actually the victim. This kind of situation can result in lawsuits, and even the loss of your online business!

Bot Rings

Then there is the possibility of a horrid “DDoS attack.” A DDoS attack is a security exploit that is normally employed by criminals that are members of or have control of  “botnets.”  DDos stands for “Distributed Denial of Service.” A bot ring is a group of hackers, or programmed computer’s that are set up to carry out a specific task. A DDoS attack is executed by a botnet that continually floods the network with DDoS requests. As the network is flooded with requests, it slows down until ultimately traffic screeches to a halt. Even though the DDoS attack is one of the oldest online security exploits, it is still extremely difficult to prevent because of it’s organic and seemingly genuine nature. Once the server’s traffic has been affected the hacker then takes control of the server, using it as a puppet to find   other vulnerable servers. Once the hacker has gained control over several servers, they then begin their attack on the target of their choice.  To prevent your business from being a victim of one of these attacks, make sure you discuss this threat with any prospective web hosts, to be sure they are aware of this threat.

Malicious Software

Then there are the threats that pose a virtual risk to the web hosting providers. Hackers may attempt to attack a web hosts server or network with a malicious application designed to retrieve crucial information.  This malicious software is called “malware” ( a combination of the two words).  While server’s generally have more stringent security measures in place, they are still susceptible to the same threats that a personal computer may be faced with.  You can avoid these kind of security lapses by  ensuring that your prospective host takes the proper precautions to defend against all forms of malware. Do not be afraid to ask questions about the security measures they have in place, before hand.  It is important to remember that once the web host’s server is compromised to malware, every bit of information on the server can be accessed, including your web site’s financial data.

Having a dedicated server is one of the true signs that you have made it as a small to medium sized business owner.  Unfortunately, it also makes you a likely target of hacking and other security threats.  Securing any machine equipped with a web or application server is a huge challenge, one you may not be able to overcome alone.  You need to worry about everything from your email and FTP communications to OS and kernel patches.  And let’s not forget about those web technologies that can bring you so much functionality along with a lot of grief when not properly secured.  This web-based world we live in can be very hazardous to any business so if you want to protect your server, we suggest paying close attention to the contents of this article.

Must-Have Defenses

Securing a dedicated server begins with creating a two-layer bullet proof vest to deflect the attempts of the enemy.  Two of the most effective weapons to carry into battle: firewall and intrusion protection technology.  With a firewall, your server will be able to fight off common exploits such as DDoS (distributed denial of service) and brute force attacks.  Usually originating from multiple unsecured, enslaved machines, the dreaded DDoS attack will slam your dedicated server with awful amounts of insignificant traffic, overwhelming critical resources and rendering the hardware inaccessible to legitimate users.  A quality firewall with good configurations will enforce rules that filters access and blocks malicious traffic while allowing legitimate traffic to pass.  This is all done in a way that reduces latency and slow moving processes, so it all appears transparent to the end-user.

Though similar in a nature, intrusion detection and prevention takes a more advanced approach towards server security.  This technology blocks malicious traffic right at the source, locking compromised hosts in a quarantine area all while routing genuine user traffic in a quick and efficient manner.  If a firewall represents your first line of defense, then intrusion protection serves as your behind enemy lines mechanism.  This powerful combination allows you to shift security measures from a reactive to proactive aspect.

Don’t Stop There

While the implementation of firewalls and intrusion protection make good first steps, one should keep in might that this isn’t the set it and forget it type of deal.  In order to stay ahead of the hackers, malware coders and corporate saboteurs you must consistently employ vigilance as well as frequent updates of your patches, blacklists, filters and other vital elements.  Purchasing and installing a few security devices and applications can be viewed as the easy part.  Managing them with efficiency is an entirely different story.

Because properly securing a dedicated server is cost prohibitive for most small and medium sized organizations, you may want to consider a managed service to help keep the intruders away.   Managed hosting is the often overlooked aspect of a dedicated server that could spell the difference between running a successful business, or going down because of a major security breach.  If you are not sure where you stand on server security, consult your IT team or speak with a professional firm for guidance.