The Blog About THOSE Photos

Naked images of Jennifer Lawrence were shared with the world, its wife, and its workmates this week. But the theft of these pictures raises the bigger issue of cloud security…

Unless you’ve spent the last week with your head in the sand, or marooned on a desert island, the chances are you’ll have heard about the Jennifer Lawrence scandal that broke this week.
On Monday, naked photos of the Hunger Games star and other actresses were leaked onto the Internet and not by a spurned lover or jealous friend, but by a hacker who is thought to have broken into her iCloud account, possibly by hacking her password.
Of course, it’s not exactly clear yet if this is exactly what happened. One way or another, though, the images of Lawrence were released as a result of a security breach, putting a world famous face to the issue of digital security.It demonstrates that anyone can get hacked, no matter who they are.
So what can you do to secure your own clouds?
Cloud security is mostly a matter of best practice. You might have heard these tips time and again, but have you actually put them into practice?
1. Use a Strong Password
Resetme123 and passwordxyz are poor passwords and yet people still use them. The strongest passwords are more than 14 characters long, don’t relate to anything personal, and contain a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. You must also make sure that you only use your password in one location at a time – so don’t use the same password for you social media as you do your server, for example.
2. Make sure nothing is set to the default setting
When you deploy a server, certain things are set to default settings. Although you don’t want to change these settings so that they are so complex it takes an entire morning to log-in to your server, there are a few things you can alter that will up your security. For example, you could move the SSH to a different port and change the permissions on who can do what to your server.
3. Turn off unnecessary software
When hackers carry out an attack, they can hit any point on your attack surface. You can think of it a little like a house. A house with a double glazed windows and a burglar alarmed front door has a smaller attack surface than a house with faulty window latches and a front door that locks with a basic key. You can reduce the attack area for your server by turning off software that you don’t use. For example, if you have an email server that you don’t use, turn that off.
4. Only install trusted software
It may be tempting to get software from third parties on the cheap, but it will significantly up your security risk. Only buy software from trusted sources.
5. Run regular updates
No software is 100 percent secure and software companies are constantly updating their products so they are as safe as possible. If you are running an outdated version, the chances are you won’t have the latest security the software providers are offering.
6. Set up two-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to the way you access your server. It’s particularly useful if you have granted quite a few people permissions on your server. Find out more about setting up two-factor on the VPS.NET knowledge base.
For more detailed articles on sever security, visit the VPS.NET knowledge base.