A Quick Lesson on Website Security

Two days ago, one of the sites I administer was cracked. The malicious user broke in, temporarily defaced the site, and then proceeded to delete every file on numerous domains as well as purging the database associated with the one site he/she cracked.

Damage control was easy enough, involving uploading again all the site files I had on my computer and restoring the database via the backups my host:”DreamHost($7.95 per month: 200 GB storage and 2 TB monthly bandwidth!)”:http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?148956 often makes automatically.

Sadly, all user-generated content was lost, including things like avatars. The biggest loss was all of the photos my wife had uploaded at allusions. She has begun uploading them again, but it will be a lengthy process.

My advice to other webmasters (and everyone else, for that matter): Use secure passwords everywhere! Don’t leave the security of your accounts to chance, and don’t be afraid to use a twelve plus character long string of nonsense characters and symbols as your password!

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