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Tag: Secure Hosting Solutions

Cloud Hosting Vs Shared Hosting: Which is better?

Hosting is crucial when setting up your website and emails for the first time – but it can also be confusing. Shared hosting and cloud hosting have three things in common: web hosting provider, servers, and websites. Though shared hosting is deemed to be more popular than all hosting plans, understanding the new features of cloud hosting might give you second thoughts.  

In this blog, we will be looking into each of their key features like uptime, support, security, pricing, performance, and other benefits.  

Shared Hosting  

Shared hosting has long been part of the web history. Its main difference from cloud hosting is that multiple websites are hosted together and share all the resources available. Such resources shared includes disk space, storage, bandwidth, and databases all in one server. It generally requires a dedicated web server. Although this is cheaper and easier to use than cloud hosting, it may not be the best option for websites with a lot of traffic and that are content heavy.  

Cloud Hosting 

Since its inception back in 1996, cloud hosting services has been gaining attention – and rightly so! In comparison to shared hosting, cloud hosting allows your website to be hosted on multiple servers. What’s good about this is that if an issue comes along with one of the servers, you’re safe from downtime as multiple servers will allow your information to be accessible online. Cloud computing technology allows numerous machines to work in synchrony. Aside from its proven flexibility, its ultra-fast speed is also one to look out for.  

Features 

Uptime 

Shared hosting, in its very nature, may assure you 99.5% uptimes but you can expect that when you get a spike in website traffic, you’ll probably experience some downtime. 

With cloud hosting, on the other hand, you’re guaranteed impeccable uptimes despite surges in traffic. 

Support 

Cloud hosting has unlimited everything, from storage, bandwidth, and databases. It may only get more advanced in the following years. Shared hosting, in contrast, has many limits. Overusing its limited resources could cause suspensions.  

Bonuses 

Shared hosting could get the upper hand this time. There are always free bonuses waiting for you if you get shared hosting plans. This can range from free domain names to web transfers and website builders – this would all depend on your preferred supplier. But, cloud hosting, alternately, isn’t really that generous.  

Security 

The security protocols of shared hosting are often based on applications and databases as these are the most vulnerable to hackers. 

 

A hacker that has access to one shared hosting server automatically gives him access to all the websites on it. And once a website is hacked into, the intruder could invade the site time and again. 

That being said, you must keep your computers safe by using reliable antiviruses, strong passwords and keeping your cPanel away from any files on your account.  

Cloud hosting, on the other hand, has usually four major security controls: 

  1. Deterrent Controls 
  2. Preventative Controls 
  3. Detective Controls 
  4. Corrective Controls 

Cloud hosting incorporates encrypted algorithms to further protect your data. It also prioritizes data confidentiality, data access control, and data integrity to protect you from traditional security issues like network eavesdropping, invasion and cloud-specific ones.  

Performance  

Most shared web hosts often struggle in selling this feature to clients. Shared hosting’s limited features impede its speed. You also need to be ready with frequent downtimes and outages. 

With cloud hosting, you can guarantee ultra-fast, auto-scalable and customizable platform. High traffic doesn’t budge the servers. In fact, cloud hosting is highly recommended for sites with high traffic.  

Pricing 

Sharing servers always translate to cheaper costs. So naturally, shared hosting services are the most affordable type of hosting services there is around. This is recommended for start-up businesses or for simple informational or catalogue-type of websites that don’t expect too much traffic.  

While, naturally given the difference in technology and the speed as well as the guaranteed uptime, cloud hosting would generally be significantly more costly. Essentially with cloud hosting, you pay more to get more.  

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Shared hosting is definitely a go to for those who are on a tight budget. If you are a new industry player, shared hosting could be a start. But if you want to advance your security, features, performance and speed, cloud hosting could do that for you.  

If you have an e-commerce site or looking to expand your website into a full system, definitely cloud hosting is the best decision to make sure that you don’t get any downtime with spikes in traffic. With cloud hosting too, you assure users of a faster loading speed on your website.  

If you are having trouble choosing which is better, we’ll gladly guide you through. Drop us a line or shoot us a message today to know more about our hosting services! For more information, visit our website at www.imanila.ph/hosting/. 

Be wary of emails and messages from unknown senders!

On May 04, 2000, Windows computer users received an email with a malicious attachment. Then in just ten days, fifty million infections were reported. An estimated 10% of the internet-connected computers were infected by the ILOVEYOU virus. 

The infamous ILOVEYOU virus created a massive effect on internet-connected computers that costed more than $10 billion to remove the infection and to recover deleted files from backups. As big as the economic impact, even the Pentagon, the CIA and the U.K. Parliament all closed down their email systems in response to this pandemic computer virus. 

The ILOVEYOU virus controlled the news headlines globally left and right. The spread of the computer virus quickly affected the victims because at that time no one knew about the threat in the first place.  

How ILOVEYOU became the first global computer virus pandemic 

The ILOVEYOU virus, known as the Love Bug at that time, is described as an infectious virus that was being spread differently. Just like all viruses, it requires a ‘host file’ that needs to be activated in order for the infection to take hold. Copies of that host then need to be activated for the computer to be ruled out as “infected”. Computer viruses are also known as worms. For while a worm is self-replicating – it can spread itself by scattering multiple copies of itself across a network without any activation or human intervention. 

When the infection started on May 04, 2000, it was also the same arrival of a spammed email message in the Philippines with the subject line of ILOVEYOU with an instruction to read the attached document from a supposedly love letter from the sender. Moreover, ILOVEYOU was one of the first major computer virus outbreaks and was one of the first to determine how spam can be a time-wasting annoyance. With just an executed Visual Basic script, the opening of that love letter attachment was not a document at all and used as a smart trick to hide the effect from the victim at that time. 

The Visual Basic script file extension of .vbs was hidden by default from Windows computers. A file called “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs” appeared to all its targets and tenacities to be a text document as the last file extension was not shown. By the act of opening the document, the execution of the script and the ILOVEYOU worm was set free on that computer and others it was connected to. The ILOVEYOU virus would also look under the user’s Microsoft Outlook Windows address book and send copies to all contacts. 

Historical warnings about global virus dangers were imposed way back 

According to Colin Childs, senior security architect at Octopi Managed Services, they have compiled a historical hacking archive aimed at the security researchers and members of the broader InfoSEC community. Childs was able to find a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) advisory document dated as early as September 22, 1989 – eleven years before the spread of the ILOVEYOU virus! 

As viruses spread quickly and cause widespread damage, they created a bigger risk especially for personal computers which have fewer protection features and are often used by non-technical-oriented people. To date, this has changed the way we view the Internet and how we need to be wary when it comes to opening emails from unknown senders.  

ILOVEYOU virus in today’s pandemic situation that caused a fundamental shift in cyber-threat landscape 

The ILOVEYOU virus caused a big fundamental shift in the cyber-threat landscape for all the reasons known. It is an act of cyber-attack through emotions by tricking users into a false sense of trust. The subject alone brought about curiosity from the user if it’s from someone he/she knew – and to make it worst, falling for the trick automatically affects the rest of your contact list without anyone’s knowledge at all.  

As for today’s pandemic situation, many businesses are shifting to the digital space in order to connect to their customers and continue their business operations. One such popular marketing tool companies use is email marketing, which, with one click of a button, allows mass sending of emails to a client database. But with the history of ILOVEYOU comes the downside of email marketing. Instead, others have resulted to email marketing as a means to spread misinformation or to steal personal information and contact details.  

Using a Secure Hosting Solution for your business website 

Apart from personal email threats, business website owners should also know how to protect their website from malicious viruses.  

When it comes to your website security, we recommend integrating Sitelock, a malware detection software that can give website owners a heads up whenever your website is experiencing any threats.  

Just as well, and as all websites are constantly at the risk of crashes and data loss, a backup service called CodeGuard, assures that your entire website will always have an updated backup on standby, ready to be recovered in case of any losses in data. 

For businesses looking for secure business email solutions and for teams who are looking to collaborate seamlessly across different platforms and programs on the Cloud, Google’s G Suite or Microsoft’s Office 365 might just be the solution for you. Not only can iManila help set up your business emails but we can also provide 24/7 support for any technical needs and concerns. 

And finally, for good measure, always make sure that your website is secure by integrating a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. Having a valid and integrated SSL on your website gives users the security they need when leaving their contact details on your website.  

Having been in the IT industry for more than 23 years, iManila can help you improve your website security and your business emails with a variety of solutions. Trust that with us, you can sleep soundly knowing that you have a partner to help you keep your website and emails secure. Know more about our Hosting solutions here: https://imanila.ph/hosting/. If you want to learn more, drop us an email at [email protected].