Managed Website Service
Why would I need a Managed Website Service?
May 28, 2010
Are clients are of all levels of financial means. Some are just starting out with a business card style website and others are on the other end with fully managed websites and e commerce solutions. The costs vary considerably but one question that always arises in my conversations is “Do I really need a managed website service?”
Managed website services with Freeman Contingent normally range in the 350 – 1000 euro (per year) range depending on how many websites and what it takes to manage the site(s). Most of the time people thing – but I can get a hosting package for 60 euro a year – why would I pay 300 euro or more? Well, here are a few reasons why…..
1. Got Hacked Lately? – We see people regularly getting hacked – some are clients and some are not. The real question you have to ask yourself is – how bad does this reflect on your business and how quickly can I get this resolved.
- a. The answer to this depends on whether you have been backing up your website, is the backup clean or infected, and do I know/ have the time to solve this problem. The most critical question then comes – how do I prevent it happening again?
2. Upgrades: For your website to work optimally with newer versions of browsers and to prevent hacking you need to be diligent in upgrading your systems. If you are not proactive – and monitor your website plugins/core development updates you will be putting yourself at risk. Take a look at one of the updates we got recently…
MediaWiki 1.16 beta 3.
Two security vulnerabilities were discovered.
Kuriaki Takashi discovered an XSS vulnerability in MediaWiki. It
affects Internet Explorer clients only. The issue is presumed to
affect all recent versions of IE, it has been confirmed on IE 6 and 8.
Noncompliant CSS parsing behaviour in Internet Explorer allows
attackers to construct CSS strings which are treated as safe by
previous versions of MediaWiki, but are decoded to unsafe strings by
Internet Explorer. Full details can be found at:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23687
A CSRF vulnerability was discovered in our login interface. Although
regular logins are protected as of 1.15.3, it was discovered that the
account creation and password reset features were not protected from
CSRF. This could lead to unauthorised access to private wikis. See
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23371 for details.
These vulnerabilities are serious and all users are advised to
upgrade. Remember that CSRF and XSS vulnerabilities can be used even
against firewall-protected intranet installations, as long as the
attacker can guess the URL.
In addition to the security fix, MediaWiki 1.16 beta 3 also contains
many useful bug fixes to 1.16 beta 2. We expect to be able to do a
stable release of the 1.16 branch within the next week or two.
Both releases contain localisation updates courtesy of translatewiki.net.
Full release notes:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/tags/REL1_15_4/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES
http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/tags/REL1_16_0beta3/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES”
- b. Answer: These are the types of things that we are doing behind the scenes – when you are rightfully paying attention to growing your business. We are constantly monitoring your websites contents, backing-up your site, and focusing on removing any potential for harm.
3. Backups and Support: We are always there at the end of the phone working with you on your content. When you need to get something added quickly or need help posting content yourself. We make you a priority – This is just the kind of peace of mind that you need to run your business.
- c. Answer: enables you to sit back and enjoy your website…. worrying about your business is stressful enough without having to worry about your business presence on online.
The best Part of Managed Website Service
If anything goes wrong, you get everything backup and running at no cost to you! It is like having insurance for your website and thus your business reputation. Realistically, 350 euro (per year) is a steal for this kind of security – If you want, think of it like this….it is only 29 euro per month to keep your website in pristine order.
And now the Truth – with no bull…
Can you do all of these things yourself? Yes, definitely and..You can change your own oil – but most of us just don’t want to…
We have clients who do…and do it successfully. So don’t worry if this package is out of your price range. We still support all of our DIY website guys in every way we can. Don’t believe me…well just check out the last blog entry I wrote - Upgrading your Wordpress Website. It will take a bit of hard work and a bit of time and energy but you can do this yourself. The managed website services are for those people who believe that their time is better spent running their own business and not worrying about their website.