Server admins, security experts, and the world wide web were caught by surprise with the announcement of the Heartbleed exploit. In a nutshell, Heartbleed is a bug in the open source Linux encryption software known as openSSL. The flaw allows hackers to potentially...
Frustrated by brute force attacks on your server from botnets with ever-changing IP addresses? Me, too. I finally got around to assembling a simple Linux active firewall, which I call "slaf". This PHP script monitors the CentOS secure log and records failed FTP login...
For a long time, I served secondary DNS for Plesk domains using a non-Plesk server, but I was manually creating the zones on the secondary DNS machine. Too much "hands-on," and too many places for human error. I took a closer look at automating the solution, using a...
EditPlus - This little known Windows text editor is designed for developers, and it's a terrific tool for web developers. It offers syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript, along with excellent FTP integration, which makes editing files on a web server...
The never ending battle for control of your PC continues. Yes, your PC. In recent weeks, I've had half a dozen people contact me for help in ridding their PC of fake antivirus software. The number of fraudulent “phishing” emails being sent to people continues to...
Anti-virus software has improved dramatically over the last decade. Severe disruptions from viruses and malware, affecting many thousands of computers, were frequent occurrences. Such things now seem to be a rarity. Newer versions of email programs, particularly...