 8 Security Tips for Basic Catholic Web Site Development
Introduction
At first, Catholic web site development and Catholic blogging may appear
safe, especially if it only involves building information as a service to
others. But as Catholic web site owners learn to eventually excel in search engine
optimization and in web site development, these web sites get exposed to
security threats as well. This article lists down 8 basic security tips for a
safer Catholic web site development and Catholic blogging.
Create strong passwords
To really create strong passwords, it is best to use a combination of
14-16 alphanumeric letters and numbers and non-alphanumeric symbols. For
the alphanumeric characters, you can alternate between uppercase and lowercase
letters. With strong passwords, you are more assured of the long-term security
of your basic Catholic web site development. Furthermore, it is advisable never
to use any part of our personal information as a password. And whenever given
the opportunity to include many non-alphanumeric symbols (such as #@!&), we
should do so in combination with uppercase/lowercase letters and with numbers.
Just note down the password well so that it can be confirmed easily online. As
we go on and create these strong passwords, we might suddenly find ourselves
in a situation were our Catholic web site network security has been breached.
When this happens, we should change our important network passwords at once.
We need to create a stronger password that we find difficult to remember ourself
at first, but eventually will remember in time. We can then store these
strong passwords along with very important family documents that we keep
in a safe with combination lock or key.
Conservative use of third-party applications
In basic Catholic web site development, we can use third-party applications
to enhance the usability of our web site. But it is important to be selective
with these applications and to conservatively use them in the web site. We can
also note down which web pages of our site contain these third-party applications
and regularly monitor them if they are working. Whenever we notice something
unusual or amiss in a third-party application, then we can just remove
them from our web page, to keep our basic Catholic web site development
intact and well in order. One wise rule we can follow in using third-party
applications is to obtain them from well-reputed web sites. But we must also
be reminded and never forget the possibility of a third-party application's
security being breached. If a third-party application that needs a user id
and password combination to access them, can still have its security breached,
how much more riskier are third-party applications which allow easy access!
Online security
For the online security of our basic Catholic web site development, we
should set up the firewall of our Windows XP or Vista operating system.
This is our first line of defense. Our second line of defense is an
antivirus software program. Two free antivirus filters available online
for easy download are avast! 4 Home Edition and ZoneAlarm 6. For
personal use and for non-commercial web sites such as a Catholic
web site, these two antivirus web sites have free antivirus programs
that also continually update themselves regularly against new virus
threats online.
Fixing a hijacked blog post
Part of basic Catholic web site development is to network with a blog
site that updates our readers with anything new in the web site. If we
monitor well our Catholic blog site with Google's Webmaster Tools, then
we can check our blog site for "warnings" of blog posts getting "hijacked"
and being redirected to another site. For recently posted blog posts, all
we need to do is to delete this hijacked post, and re-post it again with
a different blog url. As for old blog posts that have been hijacked,
the best thing to do is just to delete the hijacked blog post. We can
always replace this old hijacked blog post with newer, more recent,
and updated information that would better serve our readers on
Catholic web site development and networking. And as a final step
for a hijacked blog post, we must change immediately the password
of our Catholic blog with a stronger password.
Download as less as you can
For our system to operate fast, we must take it easy on our downloads.
A minimum of downloads also protects our computer system from malicious
code and malware that may enter our computer system during the download.
If we want out computer system to last longer, and also for our basic
Catholic web site development to be rooted in only the essential
applications and software needed for its long-term growth, then we
need to be wary of just downloading anything we find interesting online.
Windows Vista operating system has a built-in dialog box that opens
up and warns us of possible security threats when we decide to download
from a site we have visited.
Avoid using public computers
We should avoid using public computers as much as we can, and only use them
for an emergency task in our Catholic web site development. If ever
we really have to use a public PC system, we should only do the emergency task
that is urgently needed, and then clean all our electronic tracks. We
should not just click the red x on the top right corner of our browser,
but completely log out from the web site where we have entered a
username and password. There is a great need to heighten our vigilance
and alertness on anyone behind us or anyone who may be also able to glance
at our screen or keyboard in a public PC system.
Don't open email attachments as a rule
If ever we get an email attachment related to our basic Catholic
web site building, as a rule, we should not open them - even if it
is from someone that we know. Always keep email attachments under
suspicion, because even the person that we know who sent it may not
be aware of any virus or malicious code that may have entered it
during the process of adding the attachment online. If we can
already use the information in the text of the email without needing
to open the attachment, then that would be safer and less riskier.
If there is a need to really open an attachment, we can either have
an email program that scans viruses for attachment or open the
attachment in a public PC system (only for important messages)
which are often fully equipped against virus threats.
Restrict access to our computer system
This is a very basic security move for anyone in web site development
and blogging. If you have a PC at home using Windows XP or Vista,
then the first basic security move that you have to do is to create
an administrator user account and a limited user account. For the
administration of our basic Catholic web site development and our
Catholic blogging, the admin user account entitles us to do anything
with the computer system. If ever a member of the family wants to
use our PC, then we just let them use the limited user account. This
account prevents the computer user to just install programs or to
change system settings without our adminitrator privileges.
Conclusion
These 8 basic security tips are just for computer system, email and
web-browsing security. We can already basically secure our web site development
and online tasks with these 8 cost-cutting and money-saving tools and software.
If we want more details and more information on online security, we can check
out PC Magazine at www.pcmag.com. To also keep updated of any new security
tip, we can subscribe by email to their free online newsletter on Web
security.
Related resource
PC Magazine Philippines, January-February 2006 edition, "Maximum Security:
94 Essential Tips for Staying Safe"
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Dennis Emmanuel Cabrera
Web Developer Methods for Catholics
www.c-web-developer.net
My Main Catholic Blog
www.c-internet-mission.net
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