Web Site Security

Abstract

In the trenches, we hear it all the time: “My web site is hosted on a Mac. How could it be hacked?” or “My web site is too small. Why would anyone want to hack it?” Although it’s true that infiltrating and grabbing personal or business information from your web server might be significant, there are other reasons to break into a web server. For example, hackers want to exploit and control the largest amount of servers in the shortest amount of time, creating zombie systems to do their bidding. Unix-based systems (such as those running Mac OS X) are more capable in many ways than their Windows-based counterparts. Because of this, they are often targeted by botnet creators for use as command-and-control nodes. Also, web servers (running on any platform) are often used as a platform for distributing malware.