Cybersecurity in the Age of the Machine
Are you concerned about the security of data transmissions in which your web server participates day in and day out? Passwords, user names, credit card numbers, and other sensitive private communications on the Internet can easily be compromised unless you actively take precautionary measures and preempt the most common exploits by means of modern cryptography. Your users trust that you will protect them. The only question is: how do you measure success?
Have you ever seen one of these weird redirects? WordPress, for example, may refuse to show the log-in page, leaving you out of its admin interface for good. Here is what to do about it.
One way to find out the details of your PHP configuration is by saving
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
in a text file with the extension .php in a web server directory. You can name this file whatever you want; its customary name is info.php. When you visit the corresponding URI in your web browser, it will show you all the relevant details of your configuration. This method, however, leaves you vulnerable: it discloses details to the public that should be nobody’s business but the administrator’s. It is certainly not a good policy to leave the file on the server and too much hassle to create it every time it’s needed. Luckily, there is a better way.
Leaving your current web hosting provider for the cloud experience may feel rather scary, but in reality, it is a liberating experience.
Just think of all the freedom you gain to run your web services your way: the ability to use any DNS provider of your choice, any certificate authority (such as, most notably, the disruptive force of Letsencrypt), install software to your heart’s content, scale up and out on demand, in other words, be in charge of your own services and infrastructure. Here is a quick tutorial on how to make the leap.