Sometimes when I'm out socially and people ask what I do, the conversation progresses to concerns about their own web site. They may have a hobby site, run a micro-business or be a manager or director of a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)—there's all sorts of great entrepreneurial activity going on.

It is very common for SMEs not to have much time or budget for information security, and the available information can be poor or inappropriate (ISSA-UK, under the guidance of their Director of Research David Lacey, is trying to improve this). But what can SMEs do about their web presence—and it is very unusual not to have a web site, whatever the size of business.

Last week I was asked "Is using <company> okay for taking online payments?" and then "what else should I be doing?". Remember we are discussing protection of the SME's own web site, not protecting its employees from using other sites. If I had no information about the business or any existing web security issues, this is what I recommend checking and doing before anything else:

• Obtain regular backup copies of all data that changes (e.g. databases, logs, uploaded files) and store these securely somewhere other than the host servers. This may typically be daily, but the frequency should be selected based on how often data changes and how much data the SME might be prepared to lose in the event of total server failure.
  • check backup data can read and restored periodically
  • don't forget to securely delete data from old backups when they are no longer required
• Use a network firewall in front of the web site to limit public (unauthenticated user) access to those ports necessary to access the web site. If other services are required remotely, use the firewall to limit from where (e.g. IP addresses) these can be used.
  • keep a record of the firewall configuration up-to-date
  • limit who can make changes to the firewall
• Ensure the host servers are fully patched (e.g. operating system, services, applications and supporting code), check all providers for software updates regularly and allow time for installing these.
  • remove or disable all unnecessary services and other software
  • delete old, unused and backup files from the host servers
• Identify all accounts (log in credentials) that provide server access (not just normal web page access), such as used for transferring files, accessing administrative interfaces (e.g. CMS admin, database and server management/configuration control panels) and using remote desktop. Change the passwords. Keep a record of who has access and remove accounts that are no longer required and enable logging for all access using these accounts.
  • restrict what each account can do as much as possible
  • add restrictions to the use of these accounts (e.g. limit access by IP address, require written approval for use, keep account disabled by default)
• Check that every agreement with third parties that are required to operate the web site are in the organisation's own name. These may include the registration of domain names, SSL certificates, hosting contracts, monitoring services, data feeds, affiliate marketing agreements and service providers such as for address look-up, credit checks and making online payments.
  • ensure the third parties have the organisation's official contact details, and not those of an employee or of the site's developers
  • make note of any renewal dates
• Obtain a copy of everything required for the web site including scripts, static files, configuration settings, source code, account details and encryption keys. Keep this updated with changes as they are made.
  • verify who legally owns the source code, designs, database, photographs, etc.
  • check what other licences affect the web site (e.g. use of open source and proprietary software libraries, database use limitations).

Do what you can, when you can. Once those are done, then:

• Verify the web site and all its components (e.g. web widgets and other third party code/content) does not include common web application vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers (e.g. SQL injection, cross-site scripting).
  • use resources such as the OWASP Top Ten and WASC Threat Classification
  • build security requirements into future developments
• Check what obligations the organisation is under to protect business and other people's data such as the Data Protection Act, guidance from regulators, trade organisation rules, agreements with customers and other contracts (e.g. PCI DSS via the acquiring bank).
  • impose security standards and obligations on suppliers and partner organisations
  • keep an eye open for changes to business processes that affect data
• Document (even just some short notes) the steps to rebuild the web site somewhere else, and to transfer all the data and business processes to the new site.
  • include configuration details and information about third-party services required
  • think about what else will need to be done if the web site is unavailable (does it matter, if so what exactly is important?)
• Provide information to the web site's users how to help protect themselves and their data.
  • point them to relevant help such as from GetSafeOnline, CardWatch and Think U Know
  • provide easy methods for them to contact the organisation if they think there is a security or privacy problem
• Monitor web site usage behaviour (e.g. click-through rate, session duration, shopping cart abandonment rate, conversion rate), performance (e.g. uptime, response times) and reputation (e.g. malware, phishing, suspicious applications, malicious links) to gather trend data and identify unusual activity.
  • web server logs are a start, but customised logging is better
  • use reputable online tools (some of which are free) to help.

That's just the basics. So, what would be next for an SME? If the web site is a significant sales/engagement channel, the organisation has multiple web sites, is in a more regulated sector or one that is targetted particularly by criminals (e.g. gaming, betting and financial), takes payments or does other electronic commerce, allows users to add their own content or processes data for someone else, the above is just the start. Those SMEs probably need to be more proactive.

This helps to protect the SME's business information, but also helps to protect the web site users and their information. After all, the users are existing and potential customers, clients and citizens.

Oh, the best response I had to someone when I was explaining my work: "You're an anti-hacker than?". Well, I suppose so, but it's not quite how I'd describe it.

Any comments or suggestions?

Many organisations like to do land grab with domain names by purchasing the same name with different generic top-level domains (e.g. .com, .net, .info), country code top-level domains (e.g. .uk, .es, .fr), and multiple second-level domains (e.g. .co.uk, .org.uk). Then of course there are mis-spellings, similar sounding words, brand names and trademarks.

Well all that leads to complexity, and it's not uncommon for many domains to be aliased to the same site in a way that any of them can be used to access the complete web site.

But it can get especially messy when SSL is enabled on some or all of the site too. Inevitably there end up being certificate warnings. Some organisations should know better. So when I was searching for providers of online and business privacy "seals",

I was very surprised to click on the link to an SSL page which was reported as using an invalid certificate.

Actually the certificate was fine, it just wasn't valid for the .ORG domain. Perhaps they had hoped the wildcard SSL certificate *.trust.com would somehow cater for *.truste.* - no.

Identity theft? Privacy? But apart from these configuration issues, isn't it just very confusing to have many different domains appearing in search engine results? How does this duplicate content affect their search engine ranking? Does it undermine trust in the brand? Should the SSL part of the site be indexed at all? Perhaps. Who makes these decisions? Is it the developers, the person who configured the site or does the business have a viewpoint?

I overheard a (loud) mobile telephone conversation this week in which a marketing manager* was apologising for a problem but they "did not know any of the technicalities". Mmmm, who is accountable? Make it your business to know.

[* Security and technology managers should also understand their organisation's business objectives.]

It's common for access to some web sites to be restricted to users from particular Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. This is usually in addition to some other identification and authentication method. But other IP addresses are often added to this "allow list" and these should not necessarily be trusted in the same way.

In a typical scenario, a web site hosted on the internet that is used to administer another web application might be restricted to the company's own IP addresses. Then the developers say they need to check something on the live site, or another server needs to index the content, or someone wants to work from home for a while, or the site needs to be demonstrated at a client's location. All these additional IP addresses are added to the "allow list". These restrictions may be being applied at a network firewall, traffic management system, at the web server, in the application itself, in intrusion detection systems or in log analytical software, or in many of these. These are difficult to manage and in time there will be many IP addresses that no-one knows why they are allowed unless they are carefully documented, and subject to a fixed time limit when they are confirmed again by an appropriate person or removed. These extra addresses are quite often hard for someone else to guess.

However, there is another area where IP addresses are added to "allow lists", and this is for remote monitoring and testing services. These might be checking uptime, response times, content changes, HTML validation or security testing. The service providers publish the IP addresses of the source systems so that companies can specifically allow access to their web sites. Since the number of these services is relatively small, it's not too difficult to find which one might give access to areas of a web site or web application that the public (and malicious people) should not be able to get to. The particular danger here is that the IP addresses might be excluded from monitoring and logging, and therefore even a diligent web site manager might not realise for example the uptime monitoring service is making unusual, or excessive, requests.

Although it is not likely a malicious person is using this "trusted" address unless routing has been compromised as well, problems can go undetected, from what might seem to be a legitimate source. The IP address may have been typed incorrectly, or worse, the restrictions/exceptions may not have been implemented correctly allowing more addresses to have the privileged access than intended. Not logging a user's session is privileged access.

Allow traffic through, but be very specific what is allowed and monitor what's going on. Review all the exceptions periodically. Be especially careful about anything that bypasses authentication (such as allowing a search engine to crawl restricted-access content) on an otherwise public site.

Do You Have SSL Configured Correctly? Let me start by saying that "correctly" means "best for you". There isn't a single correct answer, although there are certainly some "don'ts" that apply in every situation.

This information is not about whether to use SSL, and is mainly for your systems folk (or hosting company), but do read on and perhaps gain a better understanding.

Ivan Ristić recently announced the SSL Server Rating Guide (draft 10, 21 July 2009) and an associated online assessment tool called the Public SSL Server Database. These had reminded me to post my comments last Tuesday about the slightly related Colour Overload with IE8 Tab Grouping.

The SSL Labs' resources describe, and allow you to check, the SSL configuration of your own, or any other public site that has SSL enabled. The checks span the certificate and three categories of web server configuration settings. Previously, it needed more specialist tools that most people wouldn't have the time or inclination to use.

The rating guide contains much useful information, but will be too detailed for many people. However, do read the "Minimal Configuration Requirements" and pass these on to appropriate person responsible for the configuration and operation of your own web sites. Not every site needs an overall rating of 73 or 85 or whatever. You'll see in Table 6 of the guide, an idea of what might be suitable for a range of web site types.

After all, your competitors, and some customers, have probably already checked your site.

Many websites are updated using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Don't do it.

A discussion thread How Do You Store FTP Login Information For Your Clients? highlighted what common practices are, but almost entirely missed the issues of transfer of login credentials over unencrypted channels, privileged access to the whole of the server, account sharing, password and user management.

It's no surprise that some of the most serious hacks are suspected of being undertaken using compromised FTP accounts.

FTP is not an option. Ask your hosting company or systems staff to disable FTP services and block all traffic to/from your web servers on TCP ports 20 and 21, at your network firewall.

Hardening the underlying server operating system is an important fundamental task to help protect your web applications.

For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCIDSS) requirement 2.2 states:

Two United States organisations producing guidance in this field are:

• Security Configuration Benchmarks from the Center for Internet Security (CIS)
• Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) Checklists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Computer Security Division (CSD)

These are detailed documents and all the recommendations may not be appropriate for your own situation.

There have been some good discussions recently on the security of cloud computing services. Are you using or considering using external cloud computing for data storage or to undertake business functions?

A recent post A follow-up on SaaS & Cloud Risk reminded me to raise the topic here. The posting highlighted comments on The Register regarding Multi-site Bug Exposes Cloud Computing's Dark Lining included one by Raife Edwards:

Does this affect you? Not sure? Does your business use any of the following (the categories and terminology overlap)?

• software as a service (SaaS)
• platform as a service (PaaS)
• infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
• hosted application
• application service provider (ASP)
• cloud computing
• online office application (e.g. Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, Google Docs)
• external web mail (e.g. Hotmail, Gmail, Live Mail)
• peer-to-peer services (e.g. Skype)
• online backup and synchronisation (e.g. Iron Mountain, iDisk, Live Mesh)
• other people's content included directly into your software applications (e.g. news feeds, maps)
• third party online service (e.g. address lookups, payment gateways).

If so, perhaps answer these three questions. Does it matter...

• if someone else deletes, or an unauthorised person views, your data?
• in which geographic location your data are stored?
• if your data or service are unavailable for more than 10 minutes?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, take time to consider what the effects would be if any of your data was stolen or the service was unavailable for an hour, a day or a week. The considerations are very similar to any other business decision, but it's easy to forget the trust we are placing in another party.

The key security issues to review are software liability, right to audit, service level agreement (SLA), security testing plans, authentication policies, intellectual property, storage locations, system isolation, data encryption in transit and at rest, backup and recovery, archival, support, complaints procedure, contract jurisdiction and legal compliance. If you have cyber liability insurance, you will also need to check whether these cloud services are covered.

In Part 2 (of 2) on Tuesday, I'll highlight some more recent cloud computing issues and provide links to additional discussions.

Update 27th November 2009: See also Cloud Computing Risks.

E-consultancy.com has many excellent online marketing and e-commerce resources, and I read the blogs and forums regularly. The following posting appeared on the forum a couple of days ago:

This cry for help worried me. Although the forum replies were helpful, it did make me wonder how many other web site owners have no idea where their web site is hosted.

If this is really the case here, it probably means the owner doesn't have all the resources to rebuild the site elsewhere and possibly is without back-ups of the data. And what about the intellectual property ownership? It's something which all developers should be discussing with their customers. My first suggestion would have been to contact the development company. A cursory examination of the source code reveals:

This company even showcases the site:

Now, we have no idea of the background and cannot guess if there is anything amiss. But the site is a card payment enabled e-commerce site, and surely the owner has had to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council's Data Security Standard (DSS)? Knowing where your web site is hosted would be one of the earlier things to discover.

Let's hope it's sorted soon.

Setting up a web server incorrectly can be difficult to change later. Isolating the operating system from web site files and other data using separate partitions or physical devices needs to be done during server commissioning.

It would be usual to have at least three partitions on a typical web server:

• The operating system
• The web site files (scripts and static files such as images and style sheets)
• Server logs

This allows you to restrict permissions - so that if the web site is compromised, it is harder to access the operating system files, and to ensure that logs don't grow excessively and use up all the available space.

Your own data - the database and perhaps other files - should be stored seperately. If possible this should be on other servers, but if not, on a separate partition.

If you allow any user uploaded content, you should also consider storing this on another separate partition, and in any case, never in sub-directories of the web site root. This is to prevent direct access to possibly malicious file content by directly requesting the address in a browser and to ensure the files are stored in an area with limited permissions.

In my post earlier this week on Server Login Protection, I mentioned how file transfer protocol (FTP) is commonly used, and should not be. A data breach this week hints that FTP was the method of access that lead to the data theft.

The Breach blog reported a breach involving Gloria Jean's Coffees' e-commerce site. Their privacy and security statement aludes to higher standards:

The notification letter to the New Hampshire Department of Justice in the United States (US) says the company:

But the strange thing is that it is an e-commerce site and that some of the data stolen was credit card information - card number, name, address and card verification value (CVV), also known as the card security code (CSC) - obtained by modification of the application scripts on the web server. In other words, inbetween the encrypted transfer (using SSL) to the web server and before sending this by an encrypted method to the payment gateway.

Enforcement of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) is much further advanced in the US. So either the site wasn't compliant in which case large fines are winging their way towards Gloria Jean's Coffees Corp, or the auditors may have missed something important here.

See also the related Keeping Up-to-Date with Security Breaches.