Sandra was an artist who worked from home. In her spare time, she kept a website with a blog, photo gallery, and examples of her work. Since she didn't have any Web programming skills, she used a free software package to publish content to her site.
When Sandra got a commission for a large public mural, she didn't have much free time to keep up with her website. After a month or so, a friend alerted her to some strange additions to the site. At first glance, everything seemed normal. But when Sandra took a closer look, she noticed that strange articles had been posted to her blog, and explicit photos had been uploaded to her photo gallery. The worst part was that everything appeared to have been posted by her.
It turns out that a flaw in the software Sandra used to publish content had allowed a hacker to access the administration portion of her website. The developers of the software had issued a fix for the flaw months before, but Sandra was never aware of the flaw or the patch. Now she belongs to a mailing list that announces new security flaws, and she applies patches as soon as they are made available.
To learn how to protect your website from intrusions, see Web Publishing - Intrusions
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