Icethunder – Your place for webhosting stuff!
Do you ever wonder? Where to use strong passwords in web hosting?
Jul 7th
Today I will cover a little strange question. In fact I stumbled across this question on the webhostingtalk.com forum. A guy was asking where would you use a strong password and where a weak one. Well, a pretty easy question and a pretty easy answer as well, but it is not all that simple.
What is a strong password?
I think many people do not understand, that security is not only using a strong password. Webhosting is happening on web servers and your data travels to your web host trough a network. And these are not the safest places on Earth 
Under “strong password” I mean one that is:
- much more than 12 characters long
- uses upper case and lower case letters, numbers and special characters
- is not a word or does not consist of words found in dictionaries. Read the rest of this entry »
Phishing scam [namecheap.com] and phishing generally…
Jun 11th
I though I will let you know. This just came in trough Facebook.com
Namecheap.com ALERT! There’s a phishing scam purporting to be from WhoisGuard. This is NOT from us. Please see more info here: http://community.namecheap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2793
One small note from my self :
NEVER CLICK ON EMAIL ATTACHMENTS OR LINKS IN EMAIL AS YOU CAN BE NEVER SURE WHO SENT IT TO YOU. EVEN IF IT IS SENT FROM YOUR FRIENDS EMAIL ADDRESS!!! Read the rest of this entry »
Do you ever wonder? TODAY: Why I can’t have HTTPS on my web site?
May 25th
I think this is not a properly asked question and a far better headline would be “What do I need to be able to use https instead of http for my web site?”. The answer to this question would be than this article 
The black magic behind aka “the Intro”
As you may or may not know HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and it’s the protocol you are using when trying to get to a web site. The web server serves HTTP requests and gives clients the proper web sites. The whole idea behind HTTP is, that it’s “plain text” and everything you send this way is not encrypted. All the data you put into a web site starting with HTTP is send “as is” and thus you could lend your password and username to anyone who would be spying on your network! Read the rest of this entry »
Security and shared hosting
May 16th
It does not matter whether we are talking about internet-banking, web hosting, or Amazon purchases the one thing we 
should never forget is “Security”. The Internet is not a very safe place and thus thinking about security all the time is a very important thing.
Regular user point of view
A regular user just log’s into his account from whatever Internet connection and computer he may have at his disposal and does not care that much about security. He just wants to log in to his accounts and check whatever he needs to check. He does not care, but the same regular user is very unhappy when someone has stolen his credit card information or misused his personal data.
After something bad happens to his personal data he blames everyone, but not himself most of the time, but security online starts right where you sit. It’s your responsibility to thoroughly check if your computer does not have any virus, trojans and other kinds of malware. I would say a firewall is a must and regularly updates of the operating system should not be underestimated! Read the rest of this entry »
Do you ever wonder? Today: Difference between FTP & SFTP
Apr 24th
I think, that you have most likely stumbled upon these two very different protocols while searching for a hosting package of your dreams, or while searching for something else. There is a good chance, that you tend to use only FTP and think using SFTP is the same and it does not matter which of the two you are using. But this is wrong!
FTP
FTP stand for File transfer protocol and it’s used to access a server, or another computer in a different location. It’s used to transfer files between one or more computers and it’s pretty good at this task. A few years ago it was a standard, and still is, to transfer files and it did not matter what the clients think, or if it’s secure or not. Read the rest of this entry »
What steps to take before signing up with a host?
Apr 15th
This post will be whole about checking things before you enter your credit card number and personal details. It’s very important to know, that the Internet is a every unsafe place and you can never tell you are absolutely secure.
Hosting company check
The moment you have decided you will go with hosting company X is a very exciting moment, but I think it is worth thinking about the whole “sign up” process very carefully. I don’t tell you to think for a year, but what I am trying to tell you is to really thoroughly check the hosting company before you sign up. the reason for this is, that there are many scam web sites on the Internet and you can not be always sure if you did not arrive at such a web site.
Site link check
After you have checked the web hosting company of your choice and everything is still great, than there is the second step! Make sure you are on the right website. This lesson is very important and you should always check whether you are on the right site. You ask yourself, why would not you be? You clicked the link right? Read the rest of this entry »
Seeing database data of another users on a shared hosting?
Apr 12th
This article is inspired by webhostingtalk and I think you should read carefully as this is a really big and unprofessional mistake! I read today an interesting thread about a guy who was able to see [and is still able to see] other users database data trough phpmyadmin. You say to yourself – what about it, but I think that everyone sees the RED LIGHT immediately... What’s happening? This should not be happening.
Well, you are right. This should not be happening to a company dedicated to provide it’s customers with a good level of security and service for their money! These customers are paying for a service and thus should get a satisfying level of service and security to their data. But as we can see in this example they do not have any level of security and their data seems to be visible throughout the database server. Read the rest of this entry »
The Linux VPS first things to do!
Apr 10th
This is mainly a shared hosting blog, but it grow to the VPS land too and as a guy who started with a shared hosting package and than decided to go to a VPS there are some things he needs to learn. I can’t even tell you how many changes there are. There are so mane, that it might be enough on a whole series of articles and it would not be enough.
Shared web hosting is pretty simple. Your web hosting company sets everything up and you do not have to worry about anything. If something goes wrong you email your support center and wait ’till they take a look into the problem and solve it for you. You are provided with a nice control panel from which you can change pretty anything related to your hosting package, your web site etc. Setting up a mail account or adding a new website is just a few mouse clicks away… . You think to yourself that it’s pretty easy and thus after a while you decide, that you would like to move on to a bigger challenge and you want more security and elasticity. You go to VPS and your nightmare starts pretty quickly – if your knowledge of web servers, server operating systems and security is not on the required level. Read the rest of this entry »
Working on a Linux powered VPS
Apr 9th
Well, today I came to a funny conclusion, but it should definitely help many of you and make you think before you do anything – like e.g. buy a VPS powered by a Linux distro I think that many of you heard, that most servers out there are running on Linux. In fact the majority of small VPS hosting providers offer only Linux as the OS of choice, but it’s many times up to you what specific distro you will use on your own VPS server you buy.
Linux newcomer and a Windows kid?
And here comes my piece of advice. If you are only a desktop user and the majority of your life has been spent by you figuring out how Windows XP/Vista works and it’s only a couple of months or years you decided to change to Linux and enjoy the freedom it offers you need to make sure you do not experiment on the distro you will use on your brand new VPS. Read the rest of this entry »
Does my host have access to my password protected directories?
Apr 7th
Well, I run across this question today and I have decided to talk about it a little here. It’s pretty interesting and simple to answer at the same time. Most of the time you when purchase a shared hosting package from a hosting company you are allocated a directory where you can put all your files your web site consist of.
From time to time you might decide you want to take security one step further and you just create a “password protected” directory and thus only people who know the password should have access to it’s content. So far so good, but this is only a theory. In fact you are hosted on a shared server and as we already know – or as we should know – you are not a super user [root], but only an ordinary user on the shared server. Read the rest of this entry »
