How to help prevent your web site and our server from being hacked.

Most web sites are hacked by the simplest of means. According to ISS over 70% of the web sites that are hacked are due to the site owner using too simple of a userid and/or passwords.

Hackers have the ability to access thousands of web sites per hour. One of the most common methods of attempting to hack in to a site is called Brute Force Attack. It is a method where they attempt to put in common words or number sequence for the user name or the password.

Examples of this include using common names such as admin, root, login, test, the domain name, or the site owners first or last name. Some times it’s things like using letter or number sequence such as 12345 or abcde. A common error is using keyboard sequences such as asdfg or lkjhg. Never use common names such as Joe or Susan or combinations of your name such as Joe1 and Susan2. Do not use your first and last initial or your first or last name in combination.

To help reduce the hackers chances you should use a combination with at least 6 characters using capitalized and small letters as well as numbers. An example would be “4Gm2we”

No matter how many firewalls, system monitors and support staff that are employed, if you use a simple userid or passwords you will get hacked sooner or later. As long as the hacker is using your username and password any system will think that there is no attack occurring. Once a hacker has access your site it is just a few simple steps to have complete access to the server for either viewing or destroying the contents on the server and the server systems.

Help yourself. Make sure you use mixed letter/number non-sequential userid and passwords and change your passwords at least monthly.

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