How Secure Are Your File Transfers?

Files are periodically transferred between your personal computer and your website. Whether you need to upload static webpages, plugins, images, or PHP templates; all webmasters have to send files from their computer to their website.  Is this basic part of webmastering secure on your website?

While one can spend a lifetime worrying about having your website hacked, there are a number of things that webmasters can easily do that will improve the security of their websites.  Certainly one of the most basic security topics is that of Data File Transfers between your computer and your website.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is one of the most talked about and oldest protocols that is widely being used for transferring files between computers.  FTP clients or programs send your username and password in plain text over the Internet, unencrypted. Hackers have ways of intercepting unencrypted information being sent by you to your website.

Once a hacker has obtained your username and password they are in effect the owner of your site and are free to work all kinds of mischief.  With your username and password in hand they can do anything that you can do.

Secured File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

The solution is rather simple.  Find out which file transfer protocol you are using.  And, if it happens to be FTP then make your website a lot more secure by switching to a more secure method, such as Secured FTP (SFTP} or TLS. SFTP addresses your security concerns by providing data transfer over a fully encrypted channel.  It is a secure replacement for FTP that is based upon the Secure Shell protocol. SFTP encrypts the data transmission sessions, preventing the easy detection of your username, password or any files that your have transmitted.

FileZilla Client

There are many secure file transfer programs available to choose from.

One possibility that can be freely downloaded on the Internet is FileZilla.  It is a free and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.  It is an open source project that is being developed in a manner similar to WordPress and the Mozilla Firefox Web browser. FileZilla Client is available under many different platforms: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

You can download the FileZilla file transfer program off of the Internet.

To start using this program immediately, simply click on the first icon, called the Site Manager, that is located on the very top upper left corner of your computer monitor screen.  Then click on the New Site button and add all your password information.  But, be sure to select a secured servertype, such as SFTP.

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