HTML.co.uk

Nobody would even think that the web developers would be worried about the viruses in particular. But the fact is that it is getting harder to hide from the smart virus writers. The most common SirCam virus is so dangerous that it is capable of searching the cached web pages or the email addresses. As this virus has an inbuilt mail server, it makes use of those email addresses for sending out the annoying spam email messages. The worst part is that this spammer is not used for sending any mail, but instead sends a virus to all the recipients.

How to protect yourself?

• Add anti-spam messages to your email addresses: These are special messages that cannot be recognised by a virus or a spambot but a person would easily be able to strip out.
• Take off your email address from your web pages: Make use of feedback forms where your email address was embedded in the CGI and not the HTML. The main reason of using the CGI here is that CGI cannot be cached and at the same time, you can still get your comments.
• Convert your email address to an image: Viruses and spammer programs cannot cache the images in the same way as they would be grabbing the email addresses. Always ensure that your email address is not included in your alt text.
• Make use of the JavaScript for building your mailto field: Try to use the JavaScript with variables which has been used for splitting up your email address, for building up mailto link, which cannot be read by the spambots.

Anti-Spam Messages in the Email Address
The easiest method of preventing the viruses and spam from spreading is by making use of the Anti Spam messages. Just add the words that would be recognised and should be removed from your email address in the mailto field.

The biggest drawback o using this method is that people easily skip out on the email addresses while clicking on the mailto link. And there is every possibility that if a bounce back message is received by them, it will be simply deleted.

Removing the email addresses
The most effective method of avoiding span or viruses would be to remove completely your email addresses. You just need to create a web form and send the mail using the CGI. Although there are variety of forms to email CGI is available but it is quite imperative to concentrate on the one which has the ability to store the email addresses in the CGI itself. Virus or a spambot can easily get the email address it is in the HTML.
The biggest drawback of this that people avoid using them as they feel more impersonal. Many of the customers who would have otherwise intimated you about the broken link will think twice before intimating you.

Convert Email Addresses to Images
If you have the comfort with the graphics, you can easily convert your email addresses to the images. There is a free Windows tool available for converting the email addresses to the image format for hiding from the spammers.

The biggest drawback o this is that once your email address is converted to an image, it cannot be used in the mailto tag. Also, your email address will have to be written by the customers themselves which can also cause typographical errors.

JavaScript to hide the email addresses
It is considered to be the most effective ways of hiding your email addresses from the viruses and the spambots, but always ensure that your customers have the convenience o using the mailto link.

The biggest drawback of this is that certain people work with the JavaScript turned off due to security reasons. The mailto link for these people will not be effective at all.

OK, you have created the world’s best web site which has got breath taking designs and extraordinary multimedia effects, but the bottom line is you have to publish it on the World Wide Web (WWW, popularly known as the Internet) so that it can been viewed by the public. As soon as your web site gets published online, it is ready to be a victim of the BAD internet. Your files and folders are prone to a large number of internet security threats. The fact is that certain aspects of the web sites cannot be protected. There is no single day till now on which all the web pages on the internet were free from viruses, spams, trojans or hacking attempts. If you are connected to a huge computer network such as internet, you are 100% exposed to malicious activities and thus, ‘Play At Your Own Risk’ is recommended.

Try to be safe up to the maximum possible level:

In order to be safe, the first and foremost thing required is that you should know about the types of internet threats as much as possible. The most dangerous and fatal practices used to destroy HTML files on the web are:

• Data theft in the form of pishing, hacking, spamming, spoofing etc.
• Destruction of HTML files and folders stored on the web server.
• Modification of the contents of the HTML documents.
• Hacking the complete web server.
• Different types of viruses on the network.

Carefully design a protection plan:

Once you have got to know about the possible online threats, the next step is to carefully analyze and design a protection plan for the HTML files residing on the web server. Following are some basic guidelines which can assist you in making a protection plan.

• Carefully separate the most important data from that which is not too much sensitive.
• After that examine and decide the level of protection needed for different types of data i.e. from the important ones to the casual ones.
• Examine the value of your web site on the internet. Analyze the page ranks of your HTML documents. This will let you know about up to what extent your web site can attract the hackers.
• Do consider the time, effort and money which you can spend for implementing, maintaining and upgrading the protection system for your web site in advance and proceed accordingly.
• Carefully choose the best possible company which can offer you the world class internet security services at an affordable cost.

Choose form a number of options to secure your data:

There are numerous of options available in the market which can be effectively combined to make a high-tech security system. The most internet security tools are anti-virus software, firewalls (both hardware and software), anti-pishing, anti-spamming and anti-spoofing systems, password protection, alarms, log maintainers, network intrusion detectors etc.