How Secure Is Your Virtual Servers Infrastructure – Could You Enhance It?

Any business that fails to realize the importance of cultivating a web presence may miss out on substantial revenue; people have adopted the internet on a vast scale, and when looking for a product or service, searching the web is one of the first things many people do. To host their website, larger businesses often rely on their own data centers or renting dedicated servers from hosting companies. For smaller companies, however, shared hosting and VPS solutions are the most widely utilized services.

When starting out on the web, it is usually a sensible choice to choose a shared VPS hosting option. Many hosts offer business plans with high levels of bandwidth and disc space available.

Despite their low costs, many shared packages from reputable hosting companies offer a good level of service. However, their drawback is that they generally only offer a standard suite of software. If the website is static, coded solely in HTML and CSS, this will cause no problem. However, if a website needs a complex back-end (which is often the case in eCommerce sites, for example), a different type of hosting is needed.

This is where VPS comes in – it allows the business to access a virtual server and treat it in an identical manner to a dedicated server. This means that full root access is available and any required software can be installed by the user.

It allows the user to treat the “virtual” server exactly as they would a real server, and these types of services are generally offered at a much lower cost. However, some users raise concerns over the security of such systems.

These types of concerns often fit into one of two categories. One of these categories is over the use of a “virtual” server. Some companies worry about hosting their data (perhaps user accounts and customer data) on what is essentially a shared machine. The second, perhaps more real, concern is over standard internet-related threats, such as hackers.

VPS systems overwhelmingly run on open source software. This means that they have a wide-spanning network of developers continuously improving the software, removing security vulnerabilities and generally checking to ensure the software continues to perform as designed. Due to the segregated manner in which VPS is configured, there is very little risk associated with cross-over of user’s data.

The real risk is from poorly-configured software running on the server, which may make it easy for hackers, spammers, or other nefarious individuals to misuse your service. There are two main ways to minimize this risk. The first is to hire a professional system administrator. Modern operating systems, especially those based on Linux (which a large proportion of web servers are) are complex and have a vast array of options that need to be configured to properly secure the system. Without experience in this area, problems are likely to ensue.

If this is not an option, then you might consider choosing a fully managed service. Managed services include everything that standard hosting services include. However, they also come with some form of maintenance contract, whereby the hosting company’s own network engineers will keep your server secure and well maintained.

Whether you own a large company, with a full compliment of dedicated servers, or you are a newly incorporated business with just one VPS, the importance of good security on the web should not be discounted.