Your Guide to SSL Certificates

SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layer, which is a security system employed by web browsers and servers. The SSL protects data during transfer within the web. SSL certificates have public and private key pair and identification information. When a client or a browser is directed to a secured domain, the server would share the public key with the client. Afterwards, an encryption method is established, with the client confirming that it trusts the SSL certificate issuer. When the whole process is through, a secure session is made, and then message and data shared are secured.

An SSL is a cryptographic protocol that secures communication on the internet. Segments of network connections are encrypted in different ways. Key exchange requires asymmetric encryption, while privacy requires symmetric encryption. On the other hand, message integrity requires message authentication codes. These protocols come in several versions used widely in various applications like web browsing, emailing, and instant messaging.

SSL certificates are essentially digital files or codes with two main functions-verification and data encryption. An SSL certificate has information about the identity of a website. It will show this information to the visitors after clicking on the browser's padlock symbol. Data encryption secures private information exchanged on the website. This ensures that data exchanged will not be intercepted by a third party.

Website owners should find a reliable SSL certificate authority that will provide the certificate. A trusted Certificate Authority or CA is necessary. Not everyone can receive one, though, because there are stringent policies to follow in order to obtain one. But that certificate is essential, for it makes your website trustworthy.

There are different types of certificates, like dedicated SSL certificate, shared certificates, and so on. Choosing the kind that you want or need involves some research. You only need to know what kind suits you. Different types come in different prices. SSL certificate suppliers are all online, so you should not have a hard time looking for them. It pays to shop around.

If you want a specifically assigned SSL certificate, you can choose a dedicated one, which are assigned to respective domain names. This means you need to obtain a unique domain name. This type of certificate is the most expensive of all types of certificates.

A shared kind is different, as the name implies. It can be supplied by web hosts and used by their customers. But this type will not make your domain name visible. That is why they usually offer it free.

You can't use someone else's certificate, because your website visitors may have problems getting to your website. They will not be able to see your information when they verify the certificate. Instead, they will see the information of the true owner. Worse, modern browsers will show an error page prompting the visitor not to proceed.

Is it possible to have a free one? It is, but do not expect that a free one would offer the same level of security that a paid one does. Free SSL's have unreliable encryption, thus faintly supporting your website's security.

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Online Shopping With Increased Safety

With the ease and convenience of the Internet, it is no surprise that more and more people are choosing to shop online in order to get the goods they need. Online shopping has become one of the most popular methods of shopping and the business and demand is continually growing.

Almost everything is available to purchase online these days. Many retailers are offering their goods and services to customers over the Internet and customers no longer have to spend hours wandering around shops or markets.

The business of shopping online has evolved to the point that even weekly grocery shopping can be done from the comfort of the buyer's home, saving them a lot of time, and often money. Goods can be purchased in just a few clicks and sent directly to the customer's homes, with some stores delivering in as little as a few hours.

There are many benefits of online shopping beyond just convenience and saving time. On the Internet, there are many alternatives offered to consumers and it is easy to browse around and compare deals in order to save money, with many sites also offering reviews of products purchased by others.

There has recently been a growth in the amount of product comparison websites on the market to enhance customers' shopping experiences and ensure they are getting the best deal available to them. There are no closing times on online stores, either, so customers have options to buy whatever they want 24 hours a day. The main disadvantage of online shopping is that customers are liable to pay shipping costs.

Over the last decade or so, more people have opted in to online shopping as Internet safety and security measures have increased and many people are no longer worried about entering their credit card details online.

Some people are still reluctant and sceptical about submitting their personal information over an Internet connection, but there are many security measures in place to ensure that their data remains private and secure. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption is generally used to reduce identity theft and fraud by preventing credit card numbers being intercepted during transactions.

Before committing to buying anything online, though, the customer should make sure that they are shopping on a trusted site and that the data is being sent over a secure server. The URL in the address bar should begin with "https" as opposed to just "http". Shopping over a secure connection and from trusted and recommended retail will make a user's online shopping experience a lot easier and risk-free.

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How Website Seals Secure Your Website

At some point of time when you are on online, you might have visited a website and have seen some sort of security emblem present in the website. Most of people frequently see it and don't know what exactly it means. Majority of the people think that websites include a website seal only for the matter of making them more official, but in reality a security seal can mean a lot more than its appearance on the website for adding an official look.

The first thing you need to consider if you start a website is that whether it requires a website seal or not. If your website is concerned with business where personal information is being sent and received every now and then, then make sure that you have a security seal for your site. Website seal not only protects your website, it also protects the people who are submitting their personal information to your website.

If a particular website had determined that it needs a website seal, it needs to qualify for the privacy verified seal. The first step to do this is to contact the website security seal verification service.

Once you make contacts with them, the verification service will validates the given information as well as your website. Website seal service will then validates any SSL certificates. This SSL protocol was mainly developed for the purpose of securing personal information between browser and a server. What exactly this does is that it protects information that is sent from one place to other, thereby preventing the fear of information being hijacked.

Website security seal services will make sure the sites are valid if they have SSL certificate. Finally, the site seal service will check on the company's website. This is to ensure that there are no glitches in the website that would possibly allow the hijacking of personal information of customers. In addition a second test is done by the website seal service with regard to the websites order pages.

Consider this simple way to safe guard your business. It is very imperative that when your business is approved by a third party. This will surely increase sales and revenues out of your business. A survey which was recently conducted, stated that customer feel more safe when they purchase from websites that are secure and more reliable. Having a website seal for your website, there will be rapid sales of your business products.

On the other hand, if your business website is not safe guarded by a website seal, it is highly vulnerable to threats. You will be losing many buyers for the reason that your website is not protected by a website seal. You should know that most of the buyers are uncertain about making purchases from online shops. The only way to solve this problem is to win their trust. This can be achieved only through getting websites certified by concerned authorities. By this way, you will be able to gain more traffic as well the trust mark of your business.

Reality Overtakes Fiction: We Are Already at War, Albeit Electronic, But War All the Same   An Explanation of CISPA for Small Businesses   Protect Your Privacy With Reputation Management   Top 5 Reasons to Check Website Security   Why Ignoring IDS Could Lead to Substantial Damage for Businesses   

7 WordPress Security Tips

Most WordPress users think that the chance of getting attacked by a hacker is slim to none. The truth is that it happens more often than you think and unfortunately most people are not aware of that danger.

Have you noticed sometimes when searching on Google that some results are labeled "This site may harm your computer"? Those are websites that have been hacked and therefore blacklisted by Google. Needless to say, most users will freak out and might never visit your site again. Even if you manage to recover your site from such an attack, this would definitely give a bad reputation to your business.

I compiled a list of tips that can greatly improve the security of your WordPress website. Please note that the following tips apply to all versions of WordPress.

1. Use Strong Passwords

It may seem obvious but you would be amazed by how many users ignore this. No matter how much you work securing your website, a weak password can ruin everything. Your whole website's security is dependent on that password. Do not even bother reading the rest of this article if your password is not strong enough.

Here are 3 tips when selecting your password:

Use something as random as possible (no single words, birthdays, or personal information) Use at least eight characters. The longer the password the harder it is to guess Use a mix of upper and lower-case letters and numbers. Passwords are case-sensitive, so use that to your advantage.

2. Keep WordPress Always Updated

It goes without saying that you always have to update your WordPress installation. If a vulnerability is discovered the WordPress development team will fix it by releasing a new version. The problem is that now the vulnerability is known to everyone so old versions of WordPress are now more vulnerable to attacks.

In order to avoid becoming a target of such an attack it is a good idea to hide your WordPress version number. This number is revealed in page's meta data and in the readme.html file of your WordPress installation directory. In order to hide this number you have to delete the readme.html file and remove the version number for the header by adding the following line to your functions.php file of your theme folder.

<?php remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator');?>

3. Beware of Malicious Themes or Plugins

Some themes and plugins contain buggy or even malicious code. Most of the time malicious code is hidden using encryption so it's not easily detectable. That's why you should only download them from trusted sources. Never install pirated/nulled themes/plugins and avoid the free ones unless they are downloaded from the official WordPress themes/plugins repository.

Malicious themes/plugins can add hidden backlinks on your site, steal login information and compromise your websites security in general.

4. Disable File Editing

WordPress gives administrators the right to edit theme and plugin files. This feature can be very useful for quick edits but it can also be useful to a hacker who manages to login to the administration dashboard. The attacker can use this feature to edit PHP files and execute malicious code. To disable this feature add the following line in the wp-config.php file.

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

5. Secure wp-config.php

wp-config.php contains some important configuration setting and most importantly contains your database username and password. So it is crucial for the security of your WordPress website that nobody will have access to the contents of that file.

Under normal circumstances the content of that file are not accessible to the public. But it is a good idea to add an extra layer of protection by using.htaccess rules to deny HTTP requests to it.

just add this to the.htaccess file on your website root:

<files wp-config.php> order allow,deny deny from all </files>

6. Do not allow users to browse in your WordPress directories

Add the following line in the.htaccess file in the directory you installed WordPress:

Options -Indexes

This will disable directory browsing. In other words it will prevent anyone from getting the listing of files available in your directories without a index.html or index.php file.

7. Change username

Hackers know that the most common user name in WordPress is "admin". Therefore it is highly advisable to have a different username.

It is best to set your username during the installation process, because once the username is set it cannot be changed from inside the admin dashboard but there are two ways to get around this.

The first way is to add a new administrator user from the admin dashboard. Then log out and log in again as the new user. Go to the admin dashboard and delete the user named admin. WordPress will give you the option to attribute all posts and links to the new user.

If you are more tech-savvy you can change your username simply by executing an SQL query. Go to phpmyadmin select your database and submit the following query:

UPDATE wp_users SET user_login = 'NewUsername' WHERE user_login = 'admin';

It is important to keep in mind that even if you implement all my advice you can never be 100% protected from hackers. But the above tips should be sufficient to decrease the chances of getting hacked.

Reality Overtakes Fiction: We Are Already at War, Albeit Electronic, But War All the Same   An Explanation of CISPA for Small Businesses   Protect Your Privacy With Reputation Management   Top 5 Reasons to Check Website Security   Why Ignoring IDS Could Lead to Substantial Damage for Businesses   

How Online Reputation Management Enhances Internet Privacy

Privacy continues to be a major concern for individuals on the internet. Everyone should know to look for an "s" at the end of the "HTTP" part of a domain name when browsing the web to make sure that the website they are about to send information to is secure. Unfortunately, many may not realize that their information is still vulnerable. Hackers have infiltrated some of the most secure websites, stealing log-in details for accounts with large organizations such as LinkedIn. Conventional tips for protecting one's internet privacy include using different passwords on different sites, using a single bill-paying website instead of entering credit card information into an unfamiliar site, and not opening emails from senders one does not recognize. Taking the proper precautionary measures is no longer enough anymore. Internet users must constantly be vigilant to make sure that sensitive information has not been made publicly available. The best way to protect one's internet privacy is through the use of proper reputation management techniques.

Proper Reputation Management Techniques

Reputation management is the collection of techniques and strategies that an individual uses to ensure that his online reputation, what those on the internet think of them, portrays himself in a positive way. Individuals usually obtain a poor online reputation when damaging, inappropriate content becomes associated with their name. For instance, if a college student is in a photo drinking from a beer bong, Google could index that photo and prevent the student from landing a job once he graduates. Alternatively, an individual who uses Twitter to complain about past online dating partners will eliminate this chance of landing another date as potential suitors come across those tweets. Here are a few reputation management techniques that will help individuals reclaim internet privacy:

- Google yourself. Conducting a quick Google search of one's name is a great way to find out what employers, friends, family members, and strangers see when they search for that individual. If one sees content he does not want publicly available (whether it is private information or something reflects negatively on him) he will know to devote his efforts to removing it.

- Set up a Google alert. Google alerts are a great tool for keeping track of what is being said about someone or something. By setting up a Google alert for one's name, one will receive emails from Google whenever that name is mentioned online. This way the individual will find out right away when negative or private information makes its way online.

- Hire a reputation management firm. Recently an entire industry has emerged in order to help individuals to clean up their online reputations. Using tools like public relations and search engine optimization, these companies will find out what is being said or shared about a specific client and remove or suppress that information. Hiring one of these firms is the most effective way for someone to regain control of his or her reputation.

Reality Overtakes Fiction: We Are Already at War, Albeit Electronic, But War All the Same   An Explanation of CISPA for Small Businesses   Protect Your Privacy With Reputation Management   Top 5 Reasons to Check Website Security   Why Ignoring IDS Could Lead to Substantial Damage for Businesses   

PPTP Is an Easy-To-Implement Solution

PPTP is an easy-to-implement solution, but it also provides the lowest level of security. If you are configuring a VPN connection into a sensitive network, you shouldn't use PPTP. It's an acceptable solution for home wireless implementations if you are using it to secure the connection between the wireless client and your network. However, WPA is much easier to implement devices come with PPTP servers built in and may be used for remote access to your private network.

L2TP is a more secure, and also more complex, protocol than PPTP. The most important thing to remember is when you use L2TP, you need to use IPSec in conjunction with it to provide encryption to the tunnel. L2TP establishes the tunnel, and IPSec policies dictate the encryption rules. In a Microsoft environment, L2TP and IPSec is much more difficult to configure than PPTP; however, if you require the security they provide, you need to master these configuration challenges.

SSH is a little different than the previous two, in that it is implemented within an application. The most popular and secure version of SSH is SSH2 (Secure Shell version 2), and it is often used to secure FTP and Telnet traffic. By default, FTP and Telnet send their authentication packets as clear text. On a wireless network without encryption, this is a huge problem. You can either enable encryption or use an SSH-compatible FTP or Telnet client and server.

Even on a wired network, it is dangerous to use standard FTP or Telnet as an administrator. Though it may be more difficult to intercept than it is on the wireless LAN, data can be intercepted on the wired network. The best practice is to use secure channels any time you perform administrative functions. Use SSH-compatible admin tools or create a VPN connection in which you perform the administrative functions.

The most common implementation of VPN technology, as it relates to wireless LANS, is in public hotspots. Public hotspots generally use unencrypted communications with wireless clients because it allows for simpler configuration. Imagine if users who wanted to connect to the hotspot had to configure WEP keys or WPA passphrases. They would be required to go to a service desk and acquire the needed information.

Then they would have to reconfigure their wireless client to use these settings. The complexity would keep many novice users from taking advantage of the hotspot and would reduce the benefits of providing the service in the first place.

Reality Overtakes Fiction: We Are Already at War, Albeit Electronic, But War All the Same   An Explanation of CISPA for Small Businesses   Protect Your Privacy With Reputation Management   Top 5 Reasons to Check Website Security   Why Ignoring IDS Could Lead to Substantial Damage for Businesses