With known vulnerabilities in most of our technologies even those provided online, how secure is it to navigate through the web?

The Web is complex and secure, but following a few tips and ensuring  safe practices , the web  surfing experience can be made highly safe 

The top five security threats currently out there to help you stay safe online.

1. Having Your Identity Stolen-Identity thieves gather personel information from social media sites.

2. Getting Your Computer Or Social Profile Hacked- The codes hackers use can steal your identity, inject viruses to your computer, and obstruct bank account information

3. Stalkers Find You-When you use social networking sites, you are posting personel informatin. Once information is posted online, it’s no longer private and can fall into the wrong hands. The more you post, the more vulnerable you become to those who may wish to harm you.

4. Letting Burglars Know Your Whereabouts-Telling the online world where you’re going and when you aren’t at home is inviting burglars to your house.

Yes it is.

For the average home user, safe internet browsing is easily possible with some very basic rules and controls in place.

·      Employ a reputable Anti-Virus tool with web controls. Keep this updated at all times and enable on-access and on-demand scanning.

·      Usually these toolset come with a host firewall. Make sure this is enabled and controlling inbound access to the PC.

·      Enable anti-spyware and application protection if you have them.

·      Do NOT open email attachments from unknown sources

·      Do NOT reply to unknown and unexpected emails offering offers too good to be true

·      Do NOT visit disreputable websites that are more than likely to contain spyware and malware.

·      Ensure web browser setting are set to a higher level of security that the default settings.

Company controls.

·      All the above

·      Protect the core network with managed Firewalls

·      Use Proxy Servers for internet access and try to ensure all access to the internet passes through the Proxies

·      Restrict user access to certain URL classifications

·      User education

Web security is a complex thing especially for users. to make it simple, as a user, ensure your system is protected with an up-to-date anti-virus, at least your personal firewall (default from the operating system) is on and be careful of what and where to download from especially from these torrent sites of nowadays.

For organizations, users systems can be protected with few solutions like Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware / Spyware, Site Advisor ( which checks each website on behalf of the user and show if the website is safe or not). then a  properly configure proxy server with content filtering and inspection will complement the initiative, internet usage monitoring systems also is nice to have. User awareness/education is the best approach.

Websites get hacked because of three things:

• Access Control
• Software Vulnerabilities
• Third-Party Integrations

The Website Environment

We cannot have a conversation about how websites get hacked without having an open dialog about everything that makes up a website.

There are various elements that make a website function and these things have to be working in unison. Components like the Domain Name System (DNS) – the thing that tells requests where to go. The web server houses various website files and the infrastructure houses various web servers. These websites live in a complex ecosystem of interconnected nodes around the internet, but likely something you’ve never given much thought.

Many of these features are provided by a number of service providers that make it very easy for you to create an online presence. These service providers sell you things like domain names, hosting space, and other services designed to make operating your website easy.

While I won’t dive into too many details around the threats that these elements introduce, please understand that every one of the components described above has an impact on your overall security posture and can potentially contribute to how your website gets hacked.

Forensics Versus Remediation

There is a difference between Forensics and Remediation, and it is not as subtle as some might believe it to be.

Forensics has been around for a very long time. It follows a very stringent process of identifying what happened, but more importantly how it happened, and often includes some form of attribution (i.e., who did it?). Remediation however, is the art of cleaning or removing the infections. When it comes to everyday infections, forensics isn’t a necessity. In most cases it is quick to ascertain what happened and how to get it to stop. With that in mind, for complex cases, good remediation cannot be achieved without proper forensics. Here is an example:

When you ask, “How do websites get hacked?” you are essentially asking for forensics. The problem is, true forensics is complex, time consuming and requires a lot of data – data that is often unavailable via most configurations. You can often segment which component is required based on audience. For small business owners with shared hosting environments, forensics is almost impossible because there is limited access. However, for large organizations/enterprises, forensics is required and the necessary data is sometimes more attainable.