Are you secure on someone else's computer?

Make no mistake: Your ASP is likely trying his best to protect your precious company data. However, they are also sharing their network and even the very server you are using with other paying customers. After all this is their business. That means, other customers have similar access to the same system resources as you do. Should you trust your strategic business data, your customer list, orders, credit card information to someone else's machine when you very well know it is being shared?

Why should you worry about Internet security?

The Internet is a global collection of interconnected networks that facilitate information exchange and computer connectivity. The Internet is comprised of many different computers, all of which eventually fall into two categories: servers and clients. Client machines send requests which are analyzed by the server belonging to the client's Internet service provider. If the data is located on the ISP machine, the ISP's server will return the requested data in packets. If the information sought is on another machine, the ISP's server hands off the requests to a router, which then sends the request to the server containing the information. Along the way to the eventual destionation the request may visit many servers on the Internet. Once the target is reached, the requested data is sent back to the client machine on the same path.

Despite the many varieties of computers that combine to form the Internet, every computer connected to the Internet needs to be able to communicate with every other computer via a protocol, TCP/IP; without that ability there is no Internet. So, as long as all of the interconnected computers follow the same protocol, they can exchange information. Unfortunately, when data is sent from one computer to another, every other computer in between has an opportunity to see what's being sent. This poses an obvious security problem.

The point is, there are a lot of security issues related to a network such as the Internet. No such few paraghraps can possibly cover them all. If you still aren't concerned about security on the Internet, visit http://www.digicrime.com for some eye-opening revelations.  You might also want to check out other Internet security sites, such as The WWW Security FAQ, The Computer Security Information Page at the NIH's Department of Computer Research and Technology.

Is your email safe?

Should you worry about the security of your email server? Today, email is the medium used for more than %98 of written business communication. Would you feel safe to send your postal mail in open envelops, even when you very well know there are no intruders on its travel path, only USPS?

Now, how do you feel to use your email medium out in the open, knowing that its travel path visits many different computers and can easily be evesdropped?

Today a big majority of email servers are wide open for intruders. You are likely receiving a ton of spam-mail a day, originated from some server where there is no such legitimate sender. That means, the spammer already cracked into the server and sent an illegitimate email. Now, are these servers cracked only to send spam-mail?

Open your Outlook Express, and check your settings.. I.e., go to 'Tools' and select 'Accounts'. In the 'Accounts' window that pops up, click on 'Mail' tab and select your email account. Look at its properties. Do need to use a secure password authentication, or do your login/password travel out in the open? Click on 'Advanced' tab. Do the content of your email travel over a secure connection, or out in the open?

A big majority of email servers cannot protect you, allowing your data, and at times even your login and password information travel out in the open. Exposing you and your precision business data as easy target, like a sitting duck. Well, maybe a bit worse. A sitting duck would at least get alert when someone shoots. Careful, you may even not have that luxury.