Sunday, February 13, 2011

Is There Some Way To Limit Logins To Websites?

Prevention could be better than a cure
One way is to prevent hackers even wanting to try. If they see a login form that just wants a password then they just have to guess that. But, if that form also wants a user id that they cannot easily guess, then the complexity of a brute force attack increases fantastically. The chances of them guessing the user id and the password at the same time are small, so hopefully hackers will go elsewhere. But, that's not certain.

With WordPress
If you are hosting a blog using WordPress then the process is simple. I've tried a few suitable plugins, but only 1 actually worked and that was Limit Login Attempts. Some of the other plugins were quite easy to get around, but this could be my particular hosting. So install it and then test it out!

Doing it yourself
If you are writing the website for yourself then you need to look after the security yourself and that makes it a little bit more involved. But not impossible.

First, create a table in your database with just 2 columns - timestamp and IP address. Now when someone submits the login form, the first step is to remove old entries from this table. You can get the time of, for example, an hour ago in PHP quite simply by:
$cleartime = time() - (60 * 60);

Now just delete from the log table any records with a time less than $cleartime. Next, find the user's IP address. If you are writing in PHP, that's something along the lines of:
$ip = @$REMOTE_ADDR;

Simply run a count of how many times that IP appears in the log table. If it is more than you want to allow, say three, then just exit the code or return to your home page.

Otherwise, check the userid / password combination. If they are good then logon as normal, else add a record of the IP address and current time to your log table and return to the logon form. It is best if you just say at this point that the details were wrong, rather than saying whether the name or password was wrong, so that you are not giving hackers any clue as to whether they are getting part of it correct.

A step further
Obviously a clever hacker might just have access to multiple IP addresses, so a step further is to either monitor the user id attempted and lock that out, or just totally lock out the logon form if there are too many failed attempts in the hour. You can always get around it by deleting the rows manually!

Keith Lunt owns Janric Website Design. If you want to know more about internet marketing, call across to the internet marketing blog and pick up a copy of our free internet marketing ebook!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

How To Change My IP Address And Surf Anonymously

If one of your biggest aspirations is to protect your internet protocol address; then you can do just that after reading this article. You are not the only person on the internet who wants to learn how to protect this address. A lot of people are already getting used to the numerous benefits of doing their online shopping anonymously. The truth is that virtually every website has the potential to trace visitors to their sites through their internet protocol. This information is sometimes collected for purely marketing purposes; and that is why you receive some offers into your email box all the time. Sadly, your internet protocol address can be used by some people to steal your personal files; and this could spell doom for your private or business life. That is why you need to adopt a simple, but effective technique that enables you to hide your IP.

There is only one access to files stored on your computer; and that is your internet protocol address. This information is given to you as soon as you subscribe to the services of an internet service provider. This number is unique; and enables any website you visit to identify or know your location. One attack is enough to expose your hard-earned money to criminals. As a matter of fact, this could just be the reason you keep experiencing various debits or deductions in your credit card. My case was not any different from this until I learnt how to change my IP address. You also need a few tips on how to hide your IP; and you can find everything you need in this article.

You can hide your IP by simply installing any of the highly recommended software programs available. These programs are built to include wonderful features capable of changing your primary internet protocol address to another one. You can start surfing anonymously 24/7 soon after installation and minor configuration have been concluded. These programs also go by different names; but they are rated according to the kind of features included by the publishers.

The application seats silently on your system tray; where it automatically updates and change switch from one location to another. Actually, you can also configure this software to remain permanently on a particular location. Any time you visit any website without cloning your internet protocol information; the software alerts you.

The hide your IP software is a must if you want to stop hackers from installing malicious programs on your system, and manipulating your settings. I always change my IP address each time I visit any website; make sure you do the same thing always.

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