While many of us don’t see them, silent attacks are always underway everywhere on the net. A good portion of attacks are targeted at web hosting accounts.
There are two broad categories of web hosting vulnerabilities. The first is general, while the second is more plan-specific. For example, among the types of web hosting plans, shared hosting is usually considered the most vulnerable.
Web Host Vulnerabilities
Botnet-Building Attempts
Malicious actors have been known to target entire web servers in their attempts to build Botnets. In these attempts, common targets include web server frameworks and generally involve publicly available exploits.
DDoS Attacks
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) isn’t a vulnerability, but as the name implies, is a form of attack. Malicious actors attempt to flood a server (or particular service) with an overwhelming amount of data.
Web Server Misconfigurations
Basic website owners, especially those on low-cost shared hosting, will often have no idea whether their servers have been configured properly or not. A significant number of issues can arise from poorly configured servers.
Software Vulnerabilities
Although software vulnerabilities exist for all types of hosting accounts, shared servers are typically at far greater risk. Due to the large number of accounts per server, there may be a significant number of varying applications in place – all of which require regular updates.
Cross-site Security Forgery
Also known as cross-site request forgery (CSRF), this flaw is typically observed affecting websites based on poorly secured infrastructure. At times, users save their credentials on certain platforms and this can be risky if the corresponding website does not have a strong infrastructure.
Exploitation of XSS Flaws
Hackers are usually highly code-competent and preparing front end scripts is not a problem. Javascript or other programming languages can be used to inject code. Attacks carried out in this manner typically attack user credentials.
When the majority of us think about website security, it is usually from the angle of overcoming the weaknesses of our own websites. Unfortunately, as you can see, it is equally the responsibility of web hosting providers to safeguard against other attacks as well.