The 2 most common attack methods are. 

Email Spam attacks.

The main problem is when spam email's are send and appear to be from a different domain. Usually you notice this when a flood of failed delivery reports come in. There is very little you can do to stop this. The problem is that some mail servers may then consider your domain a source of spam and block it. This will mean that genuine mail you send probably won't arrive.

What can I do?

• Well if you think your mail is getting blocked you can check on the main spam blocking lists here.
• If you are getting blocked contact your ISP or hoster and hopefully they can get the block lifted.
• Make sure any forms you are using are set up correctly to send mail with headers
• Investigate adding SPF records to your mailservers

General advice for users can be found at Spam abuse

 More info on spamming can be found on the Wikipedia article on spam here.

Website Attacks and hacking

Most attacks gain access by finding and exploiting either poor code in your scripts or loose permissions on your files.

For example, on Linux systems having files with world permissions (777) makes the scripts work well but allow hackers in. Set them to 777 to make changes but put them back to 644 after. Check that your folders and files have the right permissions.

When you use add on's especialy when using PHP make sure they don't allow direct access. Have good, recent and regular backups.

This will minimise the chance of attacks and your less likely to find a message from some foriegn hacker group on your site.

We have had a number of problems this year with various spam and attacks. We now operate seperate servers for general hosting and VIP clients. Thus on our main VIP server we are the only people who can access it. Thus clients can't put code on there. Some servers are cheap and seem good, but you don't khow who else is using it, what they are putting on and how careful they are.

 Also we have tightened the security on our servers. Our main VPS server has a special code firewall, PHP script monitoring and various other protections now.

 If you need any advice on these issues then please contact us. You don't have to be a client to talk to us. We can offer general advice and have a brief look at your site before any costs are incurred. We often can spot easy things and offer advice free of charge. Call us on 0800 634 2569.