HOSTING SERVICES

Website Security and Hosting Environment

ProFusion provides managed hosting services on both Windows and Linux Servers. All of our servers are located behind firewalls in secure data centers with armed guards and biometric access controls. We provide all the necessary monitoring, software updates, and security patches to ensure that our servers and your hosting space is safe, stable, and secure. It’s also important to note that since ProFusion performs the administration of managed servers, root/administrator access is not granted to the users of our managed servers.

Security
There are several important factors in maintaining good security, and we place emphasis on all of them. Our methods include three core layers of protection for your server: regular software updates, firewall protection, and intrusion detection systems (IDS). These three layers have protected our servers from every attempted break-in to date. The fact that none of our systems have ever been compromised is something that we are very proud of.

We take interest in keeping up-to-date with the software flaws released, and pride ourselves in extremely quick upgrades in the event of a discovered flaw. Running outdated software is by far the number one cause of an individual break-in, followed by weak passwords and poor user security practices.

We have implemented extensive logging features on our Cisco firewalls that are under constant review by our staff for any signs of suspicious network activity. These same firewalls are used to create a default secure network – that is, we do not allow access to your hosting space except through your application’s admin control panel or via SFTP. This reduces the possibility that an attacker will be able to connect to your hosting space in ways he’s not supposed to. We do not provide direct access to the database servers or to the database files.

All of our servers feature intelligent Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) which are aware of any file-system change and report to us immediately when a change takes place. This means that in the unlikely event of a break-in, we will be able to lock-out the attacker before serious damage is done. We have performed penetration testing and have found our IDS systems to be very effective in alerting the staff to unusual activity.

Our systems architecture is set up to reduce the possibility of system wide failure if an intruder does gain access to an individual user’s hosting space. Linux Server application control panel access is a 2 step process. You must first login to your server then login to your application control panel. Our Windows servers separate our database servers from our application servers and database servers are not accessible from outside our network.

Backups

ProFusion provides back up services for client user hosting spaces. All hosting spaces are backed up fully on a weekly basis and then differentially each day. Full backups are done monthly.

Domain Based Email

Did you know customers are 9x more likely to choose a business with a professional, domain based email address? With a memorable, domain-based email account, you’ll promote your company with every message.

Domain based email creates email accounts using your domain name (yourname@yourdomain.com). The email can be accessed via our webmail system or downloaded to your phone or email provider like Outlook.

Email can be purchased with your hosting plan. Associated email costs are:

• 1 – 5 email accounts ($65 per year, cost)
• Each additional email account ($13 per year)

Helpful email videos:

1. How to set an out of office response
2. How to whitelist an email sender
3. How to check your junk mail
4. How to set up a POP3 download to Outlook

Email Settings

Whether you are setting up Outlook or email on your phone, you’ll need to know some basic information.

1. Outgoing SMTP – The outgoing SMTP will be mail.domain.com. Your username is the full email address and the password is the password that you use to login to your email account. When you set up the Outgoing SMTP, you will see the option that says “My outgoing server requires authentication”, please make sure this is set to yes.
2. Incoming SMTP – The incoming SMTP will be mail.domain.com. Your username is the full email address and the password is the password that you use to login to your email account.
3. SSL – When setting up email on your phone or tablet, you will see a setting to turn SSL Authentication on or off. Please make sure this is set to off.

SSL Certificate

An SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer), also called a Digital Certificate, creates a secure link between a website and a visitor’s browser. By ensuring that all data passed between the two remains private and secure, SSL encryption prevents hackers from stealing private information such as credit card numbers, names and addresses.

It used to be the case that all websites that sold a product or service online needed an SSL. However, with some recent updates and announcements from Google, we are recommending SSL certificates for all websites. Not only does it keep your website data secure, it also has SEO benefits and now, thanks to recent Chrome and Firefox updates, website visitors will see a more overt “Not Secure” message should your website not have an SSL Certificate. This warning message can make your website appear untrustworthy and could cause users to leave your website before completing their transaction or contacting you.

An SSL can be added to a site for $78 or $130 per year depending on the SSL type. For non-ecommerce sites, the $78 version of the SSL is fine. For sites that have credit card transactions on the site or collect sensitive user data (like a social security number) we would recommend the $130 version of the SSL.

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