Securing Your Site Against Online Hackers

When you are running a website there are all kinds of different dangers a designer can run into. When you are running a website where you are attempting to sell your photographs there are rather distinct factors you are going to need to have to worry about. Hackers and malware are things that everyone on the Internet needs to worry about.

The size of the company doesn’t mean there is any sort of protection against hackers. Some small business owners think they are safe if they are operating under the umbrella of a larger company because those firms tend to have tighter security. Despite that tighter security, hackers almost always find a way in.

Small businesses tend to think they’re safe because they are flying under the radar of most hackers and the people who send out malware. The problem is that if you are running a site where you are selling photos you are basically painting yourself as a target, especially if your photos are good. If your photos are of something or someone that a lot of people want to see you are going to be an even bigger target. So how do you protect your site and your photos against people who want to get at both illegally?

Watermarking

If you are more worried about your photos than the integrity of your site, then you will find watermarking a rather effective approach. This simply means that you overlay the photos with either a brand from your site or with your name. You can make the watermark almost anything you want, but the intent is to have it there so that you can remove it when a photo has been purchased and it stays when people steal or simply download the photo without first offering up attribution or payment.

Using Flash to Display Your Work

Most images that are displayed online are going to be in the regular old JPG format. This makes it easy for you to sell them to a number of different sites, but it also makes it incredibly easy to download to a thief’s computer. Putting your gallery in Flash means that hackers or thieves cannot simply and easily download the images.

Shrink Wrapping

Shrink Wrapping is another approach not unlike watermarking with a twist. This process is basically the practice of using Javascript to display one image with another. When the hacker or thief goes to download the image they are trying to take without paying, they will actually download something else and this something else is usually just white wall.

Antivirus Software

If you have gone with an approach like putting the galley in Flash or watermarked the photos, it might actually be quicker and easier to get at your entire site, instead of the photos one by one. If you think your site is going to be a target you are going to want to have an antivirus software installed on any computer where you access the backend.

Depending on the size and reach of your company you are going to want to have differing levels of investment. Rest assured that there is an antivirus software for any size of business that will protect you against those who want to get into your files and grab whatever they feel like taking.

All of the Above and Then Some

The fact of the matter is that there is almost no sure fire way to make sure your site is 100 percent protected. Every defense someone puts up has been circumvented at some point in time. The key is to protect your property as well as you possibly can.

The best way to make sure you have put enough guards in place for peace of mind is to do more than one of the above approaches. Shrink wrap or watermark as well as use Flash and have up to date antivirus software. The more layers of security you use, the harder it will be to get through. The real key is to make cracking your code such an annoyance that the hacker moves on to other targets.