Category Archives: Website Security

Data Backups and You

Leave a reply

If a disaster were to happen, do you know where your data backup is? Our datacenters are equipped with advanced protection equipment including high security and fire prevention and suppression. Unfortunately, you still have to expect the unexpected and that’s why making sure you have backups of your data is of utmost importance.

While GlowHost takes backups daily and weekly of our shared servers,Data Backup is Crucial it’s highly recommended that you have multiple copies of your data in various geographical locations. Please understand, however, that web hosting companies do not guarantee backups nor that the backups will be available. Generally our backups are for internal purposes only and you can’t always be sure that we will have the backup you need. Keeping this in mind, you have your data on your server with GlowHost and the hard drive fails on that server. You still have a copy on a flash drive at home, right? Great! What happens if you plug in that flash drive and it’s corrupted? Not so great. Sure all this is theoretical, but this is where an off-site backup service comes in.

Backup Services

GlowHost offers multiple backup restoration services to protect you in the event of such a catastrophe. Continue reading →

How to set up end-to-end email encryption using Thunderbird

1 Reply

In today’s world, privacy is a major concern. You can’t go anywhere online without seeing “security this” and “hacker that.” Our world has become corrupt with unwarranted spying and data collection in one of the last free-speech areas there is – the Internet. We can’t stop targeted attacks, but we can stop mass surveillance, by building proven security into the everyday Internet. This blog article intends to show you just one way how to take your privacy back. Below, we will show you just how easy it can be, by providing instructions and details on how to set up a fully secured, end-to-end email encryption solution.

Prince Charles Visits GCHQ In Scarborough

Image from Getty Images via Christopher Furlong – The Enigma Machine, arguably one of the most famous encryption mechanisms ever created (and defeated).

 

Setting up Email Encryption with Thunderbird, Gpg4win and Enigmail

Email has one major security flaw, which is that by default, when email is relayed (going from point A to point B) across the internet, it is almost always transmitted from server to server in an unencrypted format; it is also stored in “plain text” on those mail servers. Even if you use SSL to connect to your email server, the chances are, that your email server does not use SSL encryption to transmit your email to the recipient’s email server. This means that the content inside of your emails can be easily “sniffed” (read by an unintended third party) during transit from point A to point B. Also, when the emails are stored in a mail server’s queue, they are stored unencrypted. The mail queue is where your emails sit, while they are waiting to be delivered. They do not get delivered to you until you decide to log in and check for new emails. Since they are stored in plain text, any unintended 3rd party can read your emails. This could be a government official or a server administrator at your email hosting provider.  That’s kind of scary, right?

This is where end-to-end email encryption comes into play.

End-to-end email encryption will keep email text and attachments out of prying hands. To use it, first, you will need a mail program.

Continue reading →