As once again the TSA reminds us that Christmas Snow Globes a threat to National Security, I thought it might be a good time to talk about the wide-World of bad-guys and some simple things you can do to guard your site from a potentially explosive situation.
Posts Tagged ‘security’
5 things we can learn from my 7:40 AM Thanksgiving wake-up call
I believe it was the slam of a large piece of plywood falling 2 some-odd stories onto other lumber that rudely awoke me at 7:40 AM this Thanksgiving morning. An no, I couldn’t go back to sleep as the hum of a noisy air compressor placed precisely next to the property line driving the pneumatic [...]
5 things we can learn about password recovery questions from Sarah Palin
With apologies to Michelle Malkin, imagine waking up one day to this news flash: “Your pastor’s private e-mail hacked, family photos raided; cesspool blog gloats; feds investigate!” The hack of Sarah Palin’s email account via Yahoo’s password recovery system serves as a wake-up call that screams that no matter how strong a password you use – if you have weak password recovery questions – you’re open for an attack.
5 simple steps to stronger passwords
Just as good fences make good neighbors, strong passwords make secure users. Put another way, if your pastor is using his first name as a login, and his last name as a password, it won’t be long before your website and/or email system begins spewing spam for various online services not usually associated with a [...]
How to make ‘find -perm 777′ your first ssh security stop
Want to get hacked? It’s easy, just ‘chmod 777′ everything the next time you install a bbs or photo gallery application. Don’t want to get hacked? Read on and ‘find’ how hackers see, and exploit the unsecured areas of your system.
How to block spambots by user agent using .htaccess
Spambots and spiders that ignore robots exclusion file can kill your site both in bandwidth and by potentially exposing information you don’t want ‘harvested.’ With that in mind, here is a quick-n-dirty guide to blocking spambots and rogue search engine spiders by using .htaccess. First the essential example codeblock, followed by a working example:
How to quickly check your error logs for oddities
With more church webmasters taking advantage of free, one-click installs provided by inexpensive web hosting solutions, I figure it is time to provide a quick tutorial on how to harvest useful operational, user and security information the error logs using a variety of commands already at your disposal – free.
How I fixed my Windows XP Stop c000021a {Fatal System Error} with Knoppix Linux
Below are steps describing how I used Knoppix Linux to fix the dreaded Windows XP ‘Error Message: Stop c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Session Manager Initialization System Process…’ failure.
How to block a range of IPs from spamming your church website
Using a blog to manage a website’s content is a flexible and affordable solution more and more churches are employing to effectively present their message online. There is however one drawback – in that some of the open source blogging solutions used as content management on the cheap also tend to attract attention from nere-do-wells who attack the comment and content functions of application such as WordPress and MovableType with robotic floods of advertisements offering anything from enlarging various appendages to curing male baldness all while losing your life’s saving playing poker online.
How to secure your church’s dedicated Linux server
This post is dedicated to all of you running your church’s website in the choir robe closet, or who have been graced with a generous and geeky member who has taken advantage of one of those cheap, unmanaged dedicated server deals advertised at places like WebHostingTalk:
5 quick ways to spot an IRS refund phishing email scam
I find in my gmail inbox an email claiming to be from the IRS asking me to ‘Click here to request your refund’ … within about 5 seconds I knew I was looking at a phishing email scam. Below the enumerated screenshot are 5 clues that gave it away:
5 Simple Security Tips for the WiFi-ing Road Warrior
As I travel to the Hashemite Kingdom next week, there are at least 5 simple things I can do to make my WiFi experiences a bit more secure. So can you, here’s how:
