How To: Secure Servers

 

Why use a secure server?

Any information sent back and form across the Internet is sent in plain text form and is relatively easy for unscrupulous person to intercept and view. For this reason, a secure server is strongly suggested for the transmission of any sensitive data between the user and your server. This includes just about any kind of sensitive data including credit card numbers. In fact using a secure server has become an industry standard for any e-commerce transaction involving credit cards and your customers may not want to use your site if the credit card entry page is not on a secure server.

Secure servers are secure because they take the data to be sent back and forth over the Internet and encrypts it so that if it is intercepted it will be unreadable and useless.

Note: It is generally not a good idea to put your entire site on a secure server. It is only necessary for the pages on your site which deal with sensitive data. The processor demand to encrypt the data is significantly more than that for standard servers and so slow down the transmission of the pages.

Your secure server directory

A secure server directory is available for Advanced, Professional, and Professional Ples account holders. One will be set up for you if you request one when you sign up for your account otherwise open a tech support ticket and request one. Once it is established you can access it with FTP and upload the necessary pages.

Microsoft FrontPage extensions are not supported on the secure server.

When creating links to your pages on the secure server be sure to use the HTTPS protocol otherwise the data transferred between the server and your users will not be encrypted.

CGI on the secure server

The CGI-BIN directory on your main account is shared with your secure account. Any scripts you place in that directory can be run by your secure server as well..