AppNet Client News Mar 6 2014

Old, Outdated, Insecure Programming Could Spell Trouble

What does Mean and How Does it Possibly Affect You?

Everyone reading this post is aware of the debacle at Target stores or the insecurities that have been revealed on the Affordable Care Act website. Hackers from around the world are combing the internet looking for one thing – holes in programming that is dated and insecure. What was perfectly stable even a year ago – may not be now. Older pieces of programming written in ASP or using JAVA or JAVASCRIPT is very prone to hackers who are attempting to use your website, your domain name and/or your email to send out SPAM. Insecure websites can also be used to place MALWARE on unsuspecting visitors to your website such that the hackers can capture delicate information from your computer – or the computers of the visitors to your website.

They’re At it Again…

We’ve been made aware of a HUGE spike in activities where automated BOTS are being ran across the internet to located older programming scripts on websites which will

Let me illustrate what this post is about by using your desktop computer. However, don’t misunderstand this to be an article about an outdated computer. I am writing about your potentially outdated WEBSITE and security. But bear with me for a second.

If you’re still running Microsoft Windows Vista or other operating systems, chances are that your computer already has viruses and malware on it simply by your surfing around the net.

The reason are numerous – but the chief culprit would be that your computer or the browser software, or the older Microsoft Word program that you’re still using AND/OR your virus protection are old and outdated.

That’s your computer and only YOU will know if your credit cards gets stolen or if your computer is slow.

Now let me apply this problem to your website…

If your website is more than a few years old and you’ve not updated it or changed the platform on which is was built, chances are there is potential disaster lurking. Here at AppNet we will NEVER use “scare tactics” to attempt to up-sell clients, however we are aware of websites that are running old JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, ASP programming and older PHP programming that needs to be eliminated.

A few years ago every website in the land had those old fashioned counters running at the bottom to show you how many people hit your website. They became hackable so we pulled them. NOW we’re being made aware of security risks on websites that are running obsolete programming that some of you use to control photos or articles or real estate properties, etc.

Unfortunately, there are so many enemies of the United States and unscrupulous people out there that have nothing better to do than to mess with you and your website.

For example, here is an email we received just the other day:

Hello!
 
I have found issues with some of your websites and I could share it with Hacker, the jobber or sell it to your business competitors. But I am not such that person and came direct to you.
I have found access the administration panel some of the sites below. To show you I’m not a scam. Till you trust my goodwill.

He then shared the domain name, username and password that he was able to access because the programming is outdated.

www.********.com
———————
Username:*******
Password:********
Email:info@********.com

He then (out of the wonderful goodness of his heart, wrote:

“About fix the problem, I will not correct it for you. I will describe problems and solutions for you. Then you will correct it. And I’ll check again till problems was solved completely. About price, I’ll do it for 5,000 $ .  As needed to complete test server I’ll get 15,000 $ .Thank you for your attention. Please inform me your decision.Best Regards”

Bear in mind that if you are running old programming it is only a MATTER OF TIME before you will get “toyed with”. These kind of creeps can make changes to your site, post anti-American comments, delete YOUR content and more.

With that in mind, we are currently auditing all of our client websites to determine whether any of our client’s website have these sort of issues. Obviously we could build an entirely new website for less than creeps like this one wants to charge. However, it is more important than ever to have a security check performed and ditch older programming where appropriate.

Feel free to call AppNet for more information. Also your Account Manager will be reviewing your site and contact you when and if needed.

Team AppNet
888-926-4584