When performing a web search for “website protection software” all one sees is ads for virus protection. Yet the concept of using anti-virus (AV) software on a website is as ridiculous as putting socks on a fence post. In fact it is only the naive who could fall for the scare tactics employed by AV marketers.
The Alternative To Virus Protection
As a web hosting service provider and web designer for more than twenty years, I can tell you that anti-vius software will not prevent stupidity. In fact I have never used on servers for websites, although we did use it on our mail servers to filter email attachments. But for websites, virus protection is a totally useless concept because with careful web mastering and management of file permissions within a website root, antivirus software is not needed, and if ever the site does get infected by trojans, it will be too late to do anything about it.
The alternative to anti-virus software is simple common sense. By not leaving your files and folders within the site root writable by all and sundry will prevent the upload of malicious scripts that can be run to deliver further payloads, inject content into your web pages, etc.
As for the upload of malicious files, a simple file extension check can ensure that only friendly files like images and video can be uploaded. Good coding practice that also includes request filtering to ensure that commands cannot be passed to the database closes off that avenue of exploit.
Protecting Data From Hackers
Apart from the home page and other doorway pages that you may need to leave open to the public and search engines, other pages provided for members only or otherwise restricted to corporate staff can be protected by using website protection software. In fact if the home page and search engine fodder is hard coded HTML not dependent on database delivery (like with commonly used CMS), then hackers will not be able to reach your main web site at all and all of the software and the servers designed to probe for website weaknesses will be of no use because they will have no access.
The best website protection is provided by the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS) which can be applied to select pages provided through a secure tunnel between web server and the visitor’s web browser. There is no other way to intercept and decrypt that data except by using the ArtisBrowser secure web browser and while a web page is on display, nothing can be saved or copied, not even from browser cache or memory.
Protecting Images, PDF, Video & Other Media
Images and other media can be protected from download and copy most securely as long as the method is not dependent on JavaScript. For more information see:
- Copy Protecting Online Images
- Copy Protecting PDF Online
- Copy Protecting Video
- Copy Protecting Web Pages
Secure Web browser For Copy Protected Websites
Of course a web browser especially designed to protect web content is most recommended, and the ArtisBrowser is the only one that can tick all the boxes.