Announcements

Important Reminders!

24/10/2009 12:05

Dear Users,

Please take note of the following and if you need to save it, do so, or even set yourself a permanent reminder. It is crucial you take into account everything in this announcement and put it into action where possible. This is part of our Safety and Security policy here at Aerosol Hostings in order to serve a safe and secure environment for everyone.

With the increasing amount of hackers now a days and those that wish to disrupt with our services whether its to place malicious scripts or perhaps (D)DOS our servers, it is all illegal and is an international criminal offense. For those that wish to pursue this act, have a good time speaking with your ISPs.

I would like to make this point really really clear. A good 3 User(s) in the past month has been doing those above stated. 1 of which decided it would be smart to use a Proxy, however, we managed to reach the ISPs for all these users with outstanding replies from over 3 different ISPs. 2 of which terminated the users' account. If you do not wish to have your internet connection terminated or suspended by your service provider, please do not continue this act. We will escalate all of these issues into our top priorities and treat every single one like a police report.

For users hosting with us, we would like to provide you with some tips:

1. Change Your Passwords Regularly.
A regular period would be perhaps every month, a better interval would be on a weekly or bi-monthly period. But do change your passwords! DO NOT KEEP IT THE SAME FOREVER. Also, please do not enter the same password as any other services such as your MSN Messenger or your Forum password. Make it, UNIQUE. DIFFERENT. DIFFICULT. Our cPanel provides a password generator with a strength meter, please ensure your password is above the 80/100 scale in difficulty and that it makes use of complex characters.

2. Make Unique Backups.
Backing up your files everyday is a stupid idea in my opinion. Make UNIQUE backups. By unique backups I mean backups you take in every other significant change (E.g. You have setup a new forum/site, make a backup). So if you made any significant changes to your website, take a backup and don't just back it up onto your hosting disk space, ensure you download a copy of it too and keep it safe!

Currently we perform daily backups for Neptune (Netherlands) server. But don't take this for granted!

3. Make Use Of SECURITY Features.
cPanel offers loads of security features include "Indexing" and "Password Protecting Directories". Where required, please prevent directory indexing as it allows users to browse through your directories and see the files present (and maybe download something you don't want them to download!) With the password protect directory, you may use it to protect and secure admin areas such as vBulletin AdminCP. It is useful to add a 2nd layer of defense in other words. Where required, lookup ".htaccess tricks" in Google and learn more about using .htaccess to secure your hosting :) Also, you may make use of IP specific access to control user access. Also ensure the scripts your using are secured!

4. Don't Create Any Enemies.
Clearly pissing people off will get you enemies, the worst part is, that these "enemies" may wish to get back at you, so play safe and stay safe and keep a neutral or high reputation rather than a rotten reputation.

5. Make Frequent SQL Backups
Taking file backups and SQL backups are completely different things, ensure you make MySQL backups too! Also, ensure the passwords your using for your MySQL are secured like what #1 was talking about. You may wish to change this too so long as it doesn't disrupts with your services. MySQL data tends to be very very confidential and "fragile", so make sure no one gets their hands on them. Don't simply enable remote MySQL access for unauthorize or random IP addresses!

If its worth a Google, do it. Anything for better security. This is just a Safety / Security message from Aerosol Hostings, you may not wish to follow it but hopefully it would had helped you (: For those that did the above already, good work!

Looking forward in continuing an excellent hosting environment!

Thank You.

Regards,
Ian Lai
Aerosol Hostings Administrator

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