Monthly Archives: April 2021

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As promised, with this week’s blog entry we’re continuing with the discussion of what the average person can easily and reliably do to improve the security of their website when managing it through cPanel, which is of course what you’ll be doing if your site is hosted by us. Widespread adoption speaks volumes about the quality and practicality of software, and with that understood it’s not surprising to see that you’d have the same cPanel to work with if you were with pretty much every other good Canadian web hosting provider too.

It continues to be a wild and crazy time in the world as the global pandemic keeps reinventing itself, but fortunately the viruses that infect digitally aren’t nearly as readily transmissible as the physiological one that is turning the whole world upside down right now. So if you’re the Average Joe webmaster ensuring your website is serving whatever interest you have in mind for it then maybe that’s some good news mixed into a whole lot of not-so-good nowadays.

Anyways, let’s get to continuing our list shall we, and here’s to hoping you’re all keeping safe.

Set up Mod Security

Experts are always eager to share warnings about Web Application Security. The aim is usually to reach the web application server to control you. It’s for this reason that a Web Application Firewall (WAF) can enhance cPanel security.

Mod Security gets the nod here as the best choice – it’s reputable and open source. It defends reliably against most external attacks – SQL Injection, Webshell / Backdoor Detection, iFrame attacks, Botnet Attack Detection, or HTTP Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks.
Configuration is simple, and is found in the Security Centre of Easy Apache configuration.
It is simple to configure Mod Security. You will get it under the Security Center of Easy Apache configuration. With it you will also have the option to set additional measures to improve the security of your cPanel server.

Scan with RootKit Hunter

RootKit Hunter gets extremely high marks from cPanel experts. It’s among the best UNIX based tools for scanning possible local exploits including rootkits or backdoors. It offers the option of manual or automatic scans, and really why wouldn’t you choose the automatic scan option? It’s also really straightforward to install too.

Scan System with Maldet

Maldet functions to detect Malware on your server, and it’s already a Linux product so you can trust it’ll fit seamlessly here. It takes primary aim at malicious files that are from PHP backdoors and dark mailers.

Setup Cron Job for Running ClamAV

We gave props to ClamAV last week, and running it with Cron is the best choice. A Cron job is a utility program for repeating tasks at a later time. If you’re the type of person who prefers to ‘set it and forget it’ then installing ClamAV in conjunction with a Cron Job setup for regular scans against viruses or malware then this is a good choice.

Disable Apache Header Information

For whatever reason, Apache Header information tends to be more at risk of malicious attacks than other components in the make up of a site. Hiding information from public access is the quickest and most direct fix here, and here’s how to do it:
• Login to your WHM dashboard
• Go to Service Configuration
• Go to Apache Configuration
• Click on Global Configuration
• Choose ‘Keep Off of Server Signature’ and ‘Select Product Only on Server Tokens’
• Disable Apache Header Information
Hide PHP Version Information
Hiding PHP version information is a quick and easy move you can make, and it’s effective because it prevents would-be attackers from being able to make quick decisions about which entryway is going to be best for them.
Equally easy. Here’s how
• Login into WHM
• Go to PHP Configuration Editor under Service Configuration
• Disable ‘expose_php’ options
• Hide PHP Version Information
Disable FTP and go with SFTP Instead
FTP is the well-established standard, but these days using SFTP is increasingly recommended. The primary reason is because FTP does not use encryption. All data is uploaded as plain text and that aids attackers with identifying access to important information – even including login credentials. SFTP is a better choice as it uses encryption for all types of data.
SFTP is known as SSH File Transfer Protocol because it encrypts the data when using. This is what you’ll do:
• Log in to your WHM or cPanel as admin or root user.
• Go to FTP Server Configuration
• Change the option Required (Command) from Encryption Support
Securing cPanel and WHM access
Adding SSL when logging into cPanel or WHM provides a valuable additional safeguard. By forcing HTTPS to use the URL to access the cPanel or WHM, the connection becomes much more secure.

• Log in to your WHM admin panel
• Go to Home and then Server Configuration and then into Settings
• Next go to the Redirection tab to enable SSL to your server. Reference the images and the red marking point to accurately configure it as you like

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5G isn’t commonplace yet, but it’s not too far off from becoming that and we’re already starting to get sample tastes of what it’s capable of. And you likely know someone who already has a 5G smartphone and they’ve probably been all too keen to tell you how it’s so much superior. No doubt they are, but what’s really the big story around 5G is what it’s poised to make specific technologies – and apps among them – capable of. Then when the superior processing capabilities of edge computing are added to the mix we really start ‘cooking with gas’, as the expression goes.

A lot of people are probably currently just as satisfied as can be with apps as it is. Unless you’re a really digitally discerning person you are probably quite fine with what your apps are able to do for you now. If we could fast forward 5 years, however, you’d probably be looking back at your current apps and their capabilities and describing them as totally underwhelming. Here at 4GoodHosting we’re like any good Canadian web hosting service provider in that we can relate to all of this a little more readily than most, and that’s only because the nature of our work puts all of this a lot more on the radar.

So if Edge Computing and 5G are poised to be the perfect dynamic duo that’s going to power web applications to new heights, it makes sense that we dig a lot deeper into this interesting topic.
The Basics

5G promises the ultra low latency and high capacity required to make data-intensive applications work more effectively. That equation starts with blazing fast speeds – 5G enables data travelling from a device to a cell tower and back in just 3 milliseconds. 4G needs 12-15 milliseconds to do that. This is huge for advanced applications. Autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars) are one of the best examples of how 5G’s speed and low latency is opening us up to a whole new world of very life- and society improving technologies. Medical professionals using 5G to get and provide instant diagnoses of patients is another potentially huge development people are excited for.

Current Network Shortcomings

All of the potential of 5G is only going to go as far as the networks that support it though. As has been the case with all cutting edge technologies that have arrived before it, 5G’s arrival into the mainstream has been staggered. Network coverage for it isn’t widespread or common yet, and businesses and developers adopting it are still going through necessary experimentations with it.

What’s holding that back is data. 5G supported applications and services produce a vast amount of data, and as 5G adoption becomes more widespread the data demands for that are growing. The issue is that all the cleaned pipes that transmit the data to and from the cloud and physical data centers don’t have the size or capacity to handle it and keep it moving at sufficiently fast speeds.

After all, part of what 5G is hanging its hat on is ultra-low latency and that has everything to do with what’s called the ‘last hop’. That’s a term given to the transfer from the cell tower to the endpoint device itself. Data being sent from the cell tower to a central cloud data center can still take up to 500 milliseconds, and that’s only to the halfway point before it has to come back.

Long and short here is that as of now the 5G experience can still be far too slow for many people’s liking. But of course that is going to change, and the only question is how soon will it get up to speed to a level that consumers will deem acceptable.
Adding the Edge
Definitions for edge computing will vary, but a safe one is that it’s an architecture characterized by a distributed cloud architecture made up of local micro data centers. Instead of structuring networks around a core with data being continually sent for processing and analysis, edge networks take datan and process it within micro data centers at the ‘edge’ of the network.

What this results in is much less of a need to send data back and forth to a centralized server or cloud, working out to less bandwidth usage and much less latency. In this way it’s key to enhancing the speed and response of the ‘last hop’ we talked about above. In this way edge computing is every integral to 5G’s processing power being experienced the way it’s intended to be.

In comparison to 5G too edge computing is already well established. Look no further than well know initiatives like SyncThink, Molo17 and Doddle. SyncThink in particular is getting a lot of hype these days, with its ability to allow medical professionals to carry out near-instant and entirely accurate injury assessments, even in challenging diagnoses environments.
Good One Way, Good the Other

Edge computing is already fully implemented in the mainstream, and that gives reason to believe that 5G’s widespread adoption is not far behind. And not just because the two enable each other so well. Edge computing enables more organizations to begin experimenting with 5G, and 5G then makes it possible for organizations to get more out of their existing edge deployments.

What this likely will mean for the laypeople like you and I is many new classes of applications with unparalleled resilience, speed, security, and efficiency. That has to sound mighty good to you, and no matter where the bulk of your interest is based in when it comes to taking advantage of digital connectivity to improve your life.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

5G isn’t commonplace yet, but it’s not too far off from becoming that and we’re already starting to get sample tastes of what it’s capable of. And you likely know someone who already has a 5G smartphone and they’ve probably been all too keen to tell you how it’s so much superior. No doubt they are, but what’s really the big story around 5G is what it’s poised to make specific technologies – and apps among them – capable of. Then when the superior processing capabilities of edge computing are added to the mix we really start ‘cooking with gas’, as the expression goes.

A lot of people are probably currently just as satisfied as can be with apps as it is. Unless you’re a really digitally discerning person you are probably quite fine with what your apps are able to do for you now. If we could fast forward 5 years, however, you’d probably be looking back at your current apps and their capabilities and describing them as totally underwhelming. Here at 4GoodHosting we’re like any good Canadian web hosting service provider in that we can relate to all of this a little more readily than most, and that’s only because the nature of our work puts all of this a lot more on the radar.

So if Edge Computing and 5G are poised to be the perfect dynamic duo that’s going to power web applications to new heights, it makes sense that we dig a lot deeper into this interesting topic.

The Basics

5G promises the ultra low latency and high capacity required to make data-intensive applications work more effectively. That equation starts with blazing fast speeds – 5G enables data traveling from a device to a cell tower and back in just 3 milliseconds. 4G needs 12-15 milliseconds to do that. This is huge for advanced applications. Autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars) are one of the best examples of how 5G’s speed and low latency is opening us up to a whole new world of very life- and society improving technologies. Medical professionals using 5G to get and provide instant diagnoses of patients is another potentially huge development people are excited for.

Current Network Shortcomings

All of the potential of 5G is only going to go as far as the networks that support it though. As has been the case with all cutting edge technologies that have arrived before it, 5G’s arrival into the mainstream has been staggered. Network coverage for it isn’t widespread or common yet, and businesses and developers adopting it are still going through necessary experimentation with it.

What’s holding that back is data. 5G supported applications and services produce a vast amount of data, and as 5G adoption becomes more widespread the data demands for that are growing. The issue is that all the cleaned pipes that transmit the data to and from the cloud and physical data centers don’t have the size or capacity to handle it and keep it moving at sufficiently fast speeds.

After all, part of what 5G is hanging its hat on is ultra-low latency and that has everything to do with what’s called the ‘last hop’. That’s a term given to the transfer from the cell tower to the endpoint device itself. Data being sent from the cell tower to a central cloud data center can still take up to 500 milliseconds, and that’s only to the halfway point before it has to come back.

Long and short here is that as of now the 5G experience can still be far too slow for many people’s liking. But of course that is going to change, and the only question is how soon will it get up to speed to a level that consumers will deem acceptable.

Adding the Edge

Definitions for edge computing will vary, but a safe one is that it’s an architecture characterized by a distributed cloud architecture made up of local micro data centers. Instead of structuring networks around a core with data being continually sent for processing and analysis, edge networks take datan and process it within micro data centers at the ‘edge’ of the network.

What this results in is much less of a need to send data back and forth to a centralized server or cloud, working out to less bandwidth usage and much less latency. In this way it’s key to enhancing the speed and response of the ‘last hop’ we talked about above. In this way edge computing is every integral to 5G’s processing power being experienced the way it’s intended to be.

In comparison to 5G too edge computing is already well established. Look no further than well know initiatives like SyncThink, Molo17 and Doddle. SyncThink in particular is getting a lot of hype these days, with its ability to allow medical professionals to carry out near-instant and entirely accurate injury assessments, even in challenging diagnoses environments.

Good One Way, Good the Other

Edge computing is already fully implemented in the mainstream, and that gives reason to believe that 5G’s widespread adoption is not far behind. And not just because the two enable each other so well. Edge computing enables more organizations to begin experimenting with 5G, and 5G then makes it possible for organizations to get more out of their existing edge deployments.

What this likely will mean for the laypeople like you and I is many new classes of applications with unparalleled resilience, speed, security, and efficiency. That has to sound mighty good to you, and no matter where the bulk of your interest is based in when it comes to taking advantage of digital connectivity to improve your life.

 

 

Reading Time: 5 minutes

You’re forgiven if the numbers of new abbreviations people are supposed to be familiar with these days is a little much for you. Adding to all of this is the fact that emerging technologies are increasingly front and center in our lives, and many of these abbreviations apply to these technologies. Such is the case for something you may have heard a lot of buzz about lately – NFTs. One big-ticket news item these days is cryptocurrency, and while nearly everyone will have heard of Bitcoin there’s other that are also claiming similar fanfare and go by abbreviations themselves – XRP being a good example.

The reason we mention those two is there’s a connection between them and NFTs. That being that all three of them are ‘tokens’ that exist only in digital form. But that’s where the similarities end for the large part, and from there NFTs become a lot more unique and a lot more intriguing. At least for most people, and that’s likely a fair thing to say.

All of this stuff tends to interest people like those of us here at 4GoodHosting, as being a good Canadian web hosting service provider has us in the front row for observing all of the newest developments in the digital world. It tends to be interesting stuff, and NFTs in particular are really something that even the most digitally illiterate person may take an interest in just because of their newness and uniqueness.

We figure it’s worthy of a topic of discussion for the blog this week, so here goes.

A Mutual Exchange

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Right, you’re also forgiven if you have absolutely no ide what the word fungible means, so let’s get to that without delay. ‘Fungible’ is the most uncommon of terms, but it is an adjective that means whatever it is describing can be mutually exchanged. To add to that somewhat, it means that two parties can exchanged whatever good it is we’re talking about, and neither of them gain value by doing so.

So non-fungible would then suggest that there IS value to be gained in the exchange of what it is – in this case, tokens. What’s making NFTs so newsworthy these days isn’t so much that they can have monetary value, but rather that they are a fully digital and thus non-tangible item that gains value in the same way collectibles can. To put this in everyday perspective, anyone who has a Wayne Gretzky rookie card, for example, is going to be pretty darned thrilled to have that in their possession simply because A) it’s incredibly rare, and B) it’s worth an incredible amount of money if they decide to sell it.

Yes, not necessarily in that order either.

NFTs add to this by being capable of being uniquely identified and authenticate yourself as the owner of that collectible. They are tied to blockchain, and blockchain is really just a big, encrypted ledger. As you’d expect, NFTs need to be purchased with a cryptocurrency and Ethereum is usually preferable to Bitcoin. When an NFT is purchased the buyer has the ‘key’ to it and can exchange it, sell it, or do pretty much anything they like.

It’s the scarcity of NFTs that makes them expensive and requires you to part with plenty of cryptocurrency if you want to obtain. Look no further than a few months back when one named CryptoPunk 2890 sold for 605 ETH (Ethereum tokens). That works out to more than $760,000 USD!

As of now, the biggest mainstream NFTs are in the art and sports spaces. Deep-pocketed individuals are both purchasing AND investing in them – with former NBA megastar Michael Jordan being one of them and related to NBA top shots.

One NBA Top Shot NFT of LeBron James dunking the basketball sold for just over $200K USD.

Never in Your Hands

Sticking with the sports theme as we continue discussing NFTs, if someone has an exclusive digital clip of Sidney Crosby scoring Canada’s golden goal in Vancouver, for example, it becomes a very unique and incredibly permanent collector’s item. Unlike cards or prints, it’s not going to become ratty or faded ever. It’ll still be as crisp and vivid 100 years from now as it is today.

Art NFTs are popular too, and one unique aspect of NFT art is that creators are able to make money from secondary sales. Anyone purchasing an up-and-coming artist’s NFT is both supporting them and getting in on the ground floor in case that art explodes in popularity later on.

Part of the reason why NFTs are so hot right now is because there’s plenty and plenty of inventory. Making NFTs isn’t difficult if you are the owner and have rights to the source material, and there’s a chance they can earn royalties in perpetuity too.

For artists they are particularly beneficial, as they take away many of the traditional hurdles that prevent the artist’s work from being made visible and promoted. This medium hasn’t existed before, and artists and other types are quite keen to take advantage of it.

Accessibility Equaling Popularity

NFTs are all the rage right now simply because they’re immediately accessible to anyone. Whether or not you can afford them – or have the (crypto) currency form required to do so – may be an entirely different story. People are also drawn to the way that they can be reflections of what a particular individual may have seen as a noteworthy moment or experience, as compared to what a table of people in an office may decide on.

This really applies to pro sports NFTs, but will expand into other categories for sure. It’s also serving to add to the ‘coolness’ factor for cryptocurrencies in general, and may serve to further the inroads these types of currencies are making.

Some Risk Though

There are risks to NFTs though, and specifically because they are heavily speculative. Most people who look into buying them know they need to be extremely familiar with the long-term prospects for that particular token. Doing your research is a must, and especially looking to see what sorts of NFTs are available in your particular area of interest. Find cool projects and get involved by joining their chatrooms and check discord servers and other resources connecting the community. Understand what you’re buying into.

It’s going to be very interesting to see where NFTs go and to what extent they become a mainstream commodity for collectors and the like. The appeal is certainly easy so see, and it’s almost certain that there will be people who make extremely fortuitous investments in NFTs early on and then see the resale price for their token be a serious windfall.

All the best to you if that’s something you’re considering after putting yourself very in the know about the best approaches to buying NFTs.