Search DominoPower's 11,441 Lotus-related article archive 
Home
EasyPrint
News details Click here for the RSS feed's XML code. This is not a browser URL.
Articles-only Click here for the RSS feed's XML code. This is not a browser URL.
Twitter Feed Click here for the Twitter feed.
HACKING PREVENTION
The security of common sense
By Steven D. Campbell

This article contains examples of code that could potentially be used to hack into a Domino Web site. DominoPower in no way endorses the practice of hacking. The code samples presented here are concrete examples of the methodologies used to compromise Domino security and are good learning tools in that respect.

It seems as if companies and their computers are being hacked on a continuous basis. Every day we get news reports of major Web sites whose content was tampered with. In fact, there's been so much panic about security issues that I think we need to really re-examine our procedures and get back to common sense.

Name and rank
To determine your susceptibility to security breaches, you must first decide what category you fit in. Your company is either high risk or low risk. High risk companies are: any government agency (CIA, NSA, etc.), any company with a massive audience (Yahoo, CNN, etc.), or any company engaged in very controversial activities (pro-choice groups, National Rifle Association, etc.).

If you're not in one of the above groups, then you're probably low risk. People don't seem to want to believe this, but it's true. Hackers hack into government agencies because it's a historical right of passage for them and because they feel there are some dark secrets hidden within the bureaucracy that they want to uncover. Hackers break into companies with large audiences because hacking is like graffiti: the larger the billboard the more people can see you were there and what you have to say. Lastly, they break into companies engaged in things they find personally repugnant and are willing to face punishment by attempting to disrupt them.

I'm not here to defend hacking. I think it's silly and, as I'll illustrate, a big waste of time. Also, I personally have an aversion to ever hearing the words, "The United States of America versus Steven Campbell." Talk about one-sided… Still, people do hack, and there are ways to break into Domino Web sites and compromise Domino security.

The enemy
I'm going to go backwards and first start talking about the least likely security breaches and then move up to the most common. This is because attention seems to be paid to them in this very order.

The distant third most common form of security breach is outside attack. That is, an attack by some person not connected with your company in any way. They may be 16 year-old hackers with no homework that night or sophisticated industrial spies selling information to your competitors. People also lump anarchists in here as potential attackers. I know we programmers may seem messy, but programming is structured and follows strict rules that must be adhered to. No self-respecting anarchist has "Programmer" on his or her business card.


1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7  ·  8  ·  9  ·  10  ·  Next »
Other articles you might like
Home > Strategies > Security (19 articles)
   Incident report: denial of service attack against ConnectedPhotographer.com
   Centralised email encryption at the Domino server level
   Analysis: Spying Chinese temptress steals senior Brit's BlackBerry
Get Weekly Email Updates
Subscribe to our regular weekly email newsletter. It's packed with tips, reviews, deep analysis, and the latest news.
 
Recent DominoPower Articles
Application development, William Shatner, and the origin of the universe
Learn Domino Designer 8.5 for free
The (near) future of Sametime, Quickr, Connections, and Symphony
Inside the IBM Innovations lab
Lotusphere 2010: Hot fixes and cool news for Notes, Domino, and LotusLive
Lotusphere 2010: mobility and collaboration
2010: A Lotusphere of change
Latest Lotus Headlines
Xpages not loading? JVM errors? - Solution
How to implement an iCalendar feed into your Notes calendar with XPages
DWA Hotfixes for Domino 8.5.1FP1 - A Gotcha
IBM Adds DB2 to Lotus Foundations SMB Package
SNTT : XPages onclick Ghosts in the machine
Ports used by Lotus Sametime 8.5 servers
Exploring a Domino Date Bug
>> Read all the news
More from the ZATZ journals
Computing Unplugged: The iPad defenders have spoken
David Gewirtz Online: CNN commentary and analysis
OutlookPower: More about disappearing text
-- Advertisement --

Sophisticated Meets Simple For Document Management
Share. Control. Manage.
Documents, emails, and content in the context of how work is done. Native to Lotus Domino. The User Experience unseen for Lotus Domino. Do more with less. Really.

See the possibilities Docova unleashes for Lotus Domino.
-- Advertisement --

Struggling with exporting Notes data to spreadsheets? No More!
Try IntelliPRINT, The world's leading Reporting, Dashboards, and Analysis solution for Notes & Domino

  • Don't spend unproductive time maintaining different versions of the same spreadsheet
  • Preserve data integrity and security in multi-user environments
  • Create reports in minutes INSIDE Notes
  • Get freedom from iterative report requests, deliver self-serve capabilities

Experience Reporting, Dashboards, and Analysis INSIDE Notes.

Try IntelliPRINT NOW!

ZATZ Home  ·  News  ·  Back Issues  ·  Credits/Trademarks ·  Link To Us
Copyright © 1998-2010, ZATZ Publishing. All rights reserved worldwide.
Editor's Login