There are a number of reasons to go with a cloud-based server these days. Most of these have to do with convenience and other various benefits they offer. However, many companies choose them because they believe web-based servers provide better security.

A web-based server can be hacked

To test how difficult it would be to hack a web-based server, a security company called CloudPassage conducted an experiment that took the question out of the lab and into the real world. They set up six servers, four of which ran Linux-based operating systems and two running on Microsoft OS. Then they loaded them with programs you’d expect to find on the typical server.

Once this was done, CloudPassage announced their challenge: any hacker who could breach their security would get $5,000.

It didn’t take long for the researchers to get their answer. The bounty was claimed in just a few hours. That’s bad enough, of course, but now consider that it was 28-year old Gus Gray, a man with no prior hacking experience, that came out victorious.

While he is taking classes in computer science at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and currently works for a technology company, it’s not as though he’s the shadowy blackhat hacker most of us like to envision: an autodidact with years of credentials.

According to Gray, he took up the challenge simply because he thought it would, “make for an interesting evening.”

How was it done?

This is pretty much exactly how Gray took advantage. He located a utility application that provided remote access through the Internet. A  feature that is supposed to be convenient for system administrators. But, it’s easy to attack, especially when default passwords are used.

There are a few takeaways from this story. First, never rely on default passwords. It’s lazy and dangerous. Second, you also can’t fall back on standard security settings simply because they’re all your servers need.

At ServerPronto, we’ve always preached the importance of security with our cloud-based servers. As this experiment showed, if you don’t take security seriously, hackers will have an easy time striking. Unfortunately, this could cost you much more than $5,000.

ServerPronto offers the best affordable and secure hosting service in all dedicated server packages.

Source:

How Long Can Cloud Servers Hold Off Hackers? Not as Long as You Think

Photo cred: Flickr / perspec_photo88