DEV Community: Huldas96

Web Security

Huldas96 — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 13:40:06 +0000

The average modern internet browsing session can be fun but it can also be dangerous. There is always a risk of our personal information being stolen, our accounts being infiltrated and our computers infected with viruses. It is important to know how to browse the web safely and for developers to understand how to make products safe to use.

In this article I will take a brief look at web security methods and technology that can help ensure a safe experience.

How to identify unsafe websites

Today we have a lot of our personal information online. It has never been more important for us browse safely and be aware of red flags. It only takes a one time visit to a malicious website to get infected. But how do we know if a website is unsafe? Here are some points to keep in mind when you are unsure:

First of all; never click on an embedded link in an email. Even if it is from someone you trust. Their account could have been broken into and be spreading something fishy. Right-clicking a hyperlink and selecting "Properties" will show the destination of the link.

Double check the URL. Scammers have been known to set up websites that look identical to popular sites with the url being almost identical to the spelling of the original website you are trying to visit. An accidental mistype may lead you to a fake version of the site. Always make sure you typed in the correct address.

Does the website in question look a bit strange to you? Is it asking for really sensitive information? Does it have a list of contacts? Is there any information about the website online? Is the website offering you a service or product at a scandalous price? Trust your gut, if you feel that something is not quite right, then it probably isn´t. No magic taco holder is worth your security being breached.

HTTPS

We all know computers use HTTP or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to communicate over the internet, this started with version 0.9 in 1991. When web developers at Netscape Communications saw the need for more secure connections over the internet they created HTTPS or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure.
Originally, HTTPS used SSL or Secure Socket Layer to establish an encrypted link between clients but SSL 3.0 was officially deprecated in 2015 and today the standard is to use TLS or Transport Layer Security; the latest version of which being TLS 1.3, released in 2018.

The benefits of using HTTPS over HTTP lies in the encryption of the data sent between client and server; this protects against man-in-the-middle attacks and verifies that the client is seeing the correct, untampered website. This is immensely important for cases such as online banking, sensitive emails and the like.
Indeed, online banking was in the beginning usually the only place casual users would encounter HTTPS as it used to be a quite costly protocol to implement, requiring server-side certificates signed by a trusted third-party. In 2016 however, the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the support of web browser developers led a campaign to make the protocol more prominent. This campaign made a big impact and today you’re more likely to encounter HTTPS than its non-secure counterpart HTTP.

Firewalls

A firewall is a system which monitors all incoming and outgoing internet traffic in order to block malicious programs and connections. There are three main types of firewalls, these are Packet Filtering Firewalls, Stateful Inspection Firewalls and Proxy Server Firewalls.

Packet filtering is a widely used technique, especially suitable for smaller networks; it works by analyzing all incoming and outgoing packets and either blocks them or lets them pass, depending on whether the packet conforms to established criteria.
Stateful Inspection does not scan individual packets but instead monitors the state of network connections. When a connection has been accepted a stateful firewall allows all related packets through and keeps the connection open for a certain period. This method is less resource intensive and is therefore particularly useful in larger networks.
Proxy Server Firewalls are considered the most secure type of firewall. They are called proxy firewalls because they have their own IP addresses and sit between the client and servers on the internet. Proxy firewalls utilize stateful inspection in addition to using DPI or Deep Packet Inspection to analyze packets down to the application layer. These firewalls however do come with the limitation that since all the local network's traffic has to come and go through this dedicated firewall, it may slow down traffic in cases of heavy use.

Firewalls can be implemented in two ways, there are software firewalls and there are hardware firewalls, sometimes both.

Software firewalls are the kind most of us are familiar with, Windows computers come with a firewall called Windows Defender which is built into the operating system. Users can also download third party firewalls and they are often included in antivirus programs.
Hardware firewalls are made for enterprise purposes, they perform the same function as a software firewall but have a few key advantages. The first advantage they have is the simple fact that they are dedicated devices which perform all the cybersecurity functions before the traffic reaches the rest of the network, this provides an extra degree of protection. Hardware firewalls also offer more granular control over things such as traffic, screening guidelines and port access.

Applying security measures

After countless hours of developing the perfect weather app, you might just want to publish it on the internet for everyone to use. But without any security protocols it could easily be hacked and your users could be left unsafe to browse the forecast.

To apply good web security you need to be up to date with the latest security technology available. There are many different security standards that must be followed at all times. These standards are highlighted by the OWASP (The Open Web Application Security Project). Any website that is secure is most likely backed by different types of checkpoints and methods for keeping it safe. Essential steps include applying up-to-date encryption, patching up discovered vulnerabilities, setting proper authentication and so on.
The cruel reality is that attackers can be clever enough to find flaws within a structurally secured environment, so a constant security strategy is advised.

Linux

Huldas96 — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 14:09:16 +0000

My older brother had Linux on his laptop. I remember when I was about 14, I snuck into his room, booted up his pc and tried to go on the internet to watch anime, but everything was side-ways. I paused for a minute, trying to navigate this layout. I eventually got to animefreak.tv but this memory stuck with me. This was my first experience with linux.

Now 10 years later, as a Web Dev Student, I want to embark on the journey on learning more about Linux. Why is it so popular? Why do people like it? Let´s find out!

Basics: What is Linux?

Linux is an operating system, just like Windows or Apple's mac OS. Operating systems are collection of software that manage the different devices and applications in your computer. These bits of software take care of processes like shutting down your computer, booting it up, and giving your programs an interface to interact with devices like your keyboard and mouse.

Why do people like it?

Linux is free and extremely flexible. You can personalize it to your hearts content. You can put together a version of Linux that works for your device and is optimized for your needs. Linux is used in a lot of different types of computers. like smart refrigerators, other IoT devices, internet routers, Android smartphones, supercomputers and more.

Command Line Basics

Let's learn some basic command line or terminal commands that will allow you to start familiarizing yourself with your system. There is a program between you and the terminal called the shell. A shell is a program that interprets text commands and sends them to your operating system to execute. The most common shell program is called Bash, which comes included in most Linux installations.

pwd prints the directory you're currently in (print working directory)

cd changes the directory to your specified argument. If you provide no arguments it will by default take you to your user's directory, which you can refer to in paths with ~. . and .. represent your current and parent directories respectively and are also valid arguments.

mv moves a file or directory to your specified directory.

mkdir makes new directories where the names are your arguments. You can also make directories inside directories that don't exist yet with the -p flag.

Operating Systems?

Huldas96 — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 08:45:04 +0000

Yes of course! Operating systems!

Computers are used for so many different things; playing videogames, watching videos, running calculations, communicating, editing photos, collaborating and so much more. Computers these days are a mix of different kinds of hardware and software but one program brings that all together; the operating system!

An Operating System (OS) is a collection of software that manages computer hardware and provides services for programs. Specifically, it hides hardware complexity, manages computational resources, and provides isolation and protection. Most importantly, it directly has privilege access to the underlying hardware.

The different components of an operating system enable it to perform its duty of enabling the different parts of a computer to work together. Let’s take a look at what each of these components does.

Kernel
The kernel forms part of the building blocks to the work of an operating system. It helps in managing the hardware devices in the computer by determining the hardware resources that will get access to different programs. By doing this, it ensures that the CPU is operating optimally at all times.

Process Management
There are very many programs running on a computer at any one time. From background applications to the programs that users are actively interacting with, there are hundreds of processes taking place in a computer during normal use. Since all modern operating systems allow multi-tasking, it is the operating system’s duty to distribute the available resources among all the active processes.

Memory Management
There are several types on memory on a modern computer. They include CPU cache, RAM and disk storage. The operating system has a memory manager that tracks the amount of each memory that’s available and manages the movement of data between them. This ensures that the highest amount of available memory for each process so as to increase speed of execution. The operating system also ensures that whenever two or more processes are in memory at the same time, virtual memory addresses are allocated to each process to ensure that no process interferes with another’s memory.

Security
Since the operating system is in charge of directly or indirectly controlling computing resources, it should be able to distinguish between the requests that should be allowed and those that shouldn’t. This includes internal requests from within the computer as well as external requests from other computers within the network. They also offer auditing options to tell the users that have accessed different files and any changes that may have been made

Networking
Networking basically enables operating systems to share resources using different types of connections. The most common networking protocol is the TCP/IP protocol.

File Systems and Disk Access
Controlling access to data stored on the different disks in computers is a primary feature of operating systems. The operating system ensures that files are stored in a manner that allows quick access and the highest possible reliability. In addition, they also help make good use of the available space on the disk. The file system is the manner in which files are stored on a disk. It gives names and attributes to files and also ensures that the files are arranged neatly in directories.

Networking & Internet Basics

Huldas96 — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 12:13:43 +0000

The world wide web is massive. In this post I will explore Internet architecture and web servers.

Internet architecture

HTTP vs HTTPS.

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.

What is a protocol?
A protocol is a standard set of rules that allow electronic devices to communicate with each other. These rules include what type of data may be transmitted, what commands are used to send and receive data, and how data transfers are confirmed.

HTTP allows communication between different systems and is most commonly used to transfer data from a web server to a browser to allow users to view web pages. This was the protocol for almost all early websites. The problem with the regular HTTP protocol is that the information that flows from server to browser is not encrypted, which means it can be easily stolen.

HTTPS uses an SSL certificate. SSL stands for secure sockets layer and is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a client. It allows sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and login credentials to be transmitted securely. The SSL certificate encrypts the information that users give to the site, which basically translates the data into a code. Even if someone manages to steal the data being communicated between the sender and the recipient, they would not be able to understand it due to this encryption. In addition to the SSL certificate, HTTPS is also secured using TLS witch stands for Transport Layer Security protocol. TLS helps prevent the transfer of data from being modified or corrupted.

The big benefit that follows using HTTPS for your site is that you create trust with your users and give your site a small boost when searched for on Google. HTTPS is currently the standard protocol, for very obvious reasons as stated. Its secure and creates trust with your website´s visitors.

DNS

DNS stands for Domain Name System.

It is like the phonebook of the Internet. People access information online through domain names; like google.com, io.tskoli.dev, dev.to ...

Web browsers interact using IP addresses. DNS comes here to play the part of translating domain names to IP addresses so browsers can load Internet resources.

The process of DNS involves converting a domain names into a computer-friendly IP address. DNS servers eliminate the need for people to memorize IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1 or more complex newer alphanumeric IP addresses such as 2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a2. An IP address is given to each device on the Internet, and that address is necessary to find the appropriate Internet device - like a street address is used to find a particular home. When a user wants to load a webpage, a translation must occur between what a user types into their web browser (example.com) and the machine-friendly address (IP) necessary to locate the example.com webpage.

Web Server

The term web server can refer to hardware or software, or both of them working together.

On the hardware side, a web server is a computer that stores web server software and a website's component files. For example; a JavaScript file. A web server connects to the Internet and supports physical data interchange with other devices connected to the web.

On the software side, a web server includes several parts that control how web users access hosted files. At a minimum, this is an HTTP server. An HTTP server is software that understands web addresses and HTTP. An HTTP server can be accessed through the domain names of the websites it stores, and it delivers the content of these hosted websites to the end user's device.

So it works like this: You type in example.com and press enter, the browser requests the file necessary to load example.com using HTTP. When the request reaches the correct (hardware) web server, the (software) HTTP server accepts the request. Then finds the requested file and sends it back to the browser using HTTP. If the server doesn't find the requested file, it returns a 404 error.

Cache

A cache is a reserved storage location that collects temporary data to help websites, browsers, and apps load faster. Whether it's a computer, laptop or phone, web browser or app, you'll find some variety of a cache. A cache makes it easy to quickly retrieve data, which in turn helps devices run faster. It acts like a memory bank, making it easy to access data locally instead of redownloading it every time you visit a website or open an app.

Traditional Web Hosting vs. Cloud Computing

To have a well functioning and efficient website, you need to use a web hosting service. There are two basic ways of managing your hosting needs. These are traditional web hosting and cloud computing. Both hosting styles provide basic web hosting services and functions. However, this is achieved through drastically different ways.

What is Traditional Web Hosting?

There are two main types of traditional web hosting – shared hosting and dedicated hosting.

Shared hosting a website owner pays for a fixed amount of storage space on a single server. The resources there are typically shared by a number of other websites as well. This is the most affordable and widely used type of web hosting. It is also particularly popular amongst beginners on the World Wide Web.

Dedicated hosting the website owner pays for the total control of one or more servers so that they have access to the complete resources of the server(s). Thus the name dedicated, as the server’s resources are fully allocated to one client. Dedicated hosting is not as affordable as shared hosting. And it requires some technical knowledge to set up and properly maintain it.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud hosting – and the underlying technology cloud computing – refer to hosting on “virtual” space, not on a physical server. With cloud hosting, you only have to pay for the storage space which you currently use. This is opposite to traditional web hosting where you pay upfront for a fixed data storage space and processing power. Cloud computing is relatively new when compared to the more established traditional web hosting which has been around for ages.

So, what are the critical differences between cloud computing and traditional web hosting?

In traditional web hosting, the servers owned by the hosting company are equipped with a finite amount of storage space. The processing power can either be fully allocated to a client (dedicated hosting) or shared between multiple clients (shared hosting). A lot of first-time website owners choose shared hosting. Because the hosting company usually handles the management and maintenance of the servers. This includes security services and operating system updates.

Cloud hosting, on the other hand, entails multiple virtualized servers consolidating their resources to host several sites. These servers are all synchronized to work as one entity so that multiple servicers handle the hosting of hundreds and thousands of websites.

Traditional web hosting companies may also provide their users with extra services. For example, free domain registration, automatic backups, email account setups, a security certificate, a website builder, and search engine marketing tools.

With cloud computing, users get to enjoy administrative access to their hosting environment. While shared hosting may be more convenient for beginners, if you have a fast-growing site, cloud hosting is the ideal hosting solution for you. Cloud hosting also protects your website from malfunctioning servers. And thanks to the abundance of servers, you can easily switch among them in case one is not functioning.

When it comes to performance, cloud hosting once again outshines shared and dedicated hosting. In shared hosting, the more the accounts hosted on a server, the longer it will take to process requests for information. This results in much slower performance. Also, in this case, the performance of one site largely depends on the speed and performance of other sites hosted on the same server.

Thank you for reading, this research has given me a lot of information and knowledge about how browsing the internet works as well as how web pages are hosted. Have a great day!

Technical article about Design Theory

Huldas96 — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 17:08:15 +0000

Design is everywhere, it's around us 24/7. If we look closer then we see that things around us aren't just made with a specific purpose in mind.

Lets take a couch for an example; why sit on a couch when we could as well just sit on a rock? They both serve the same purpose, right? Well yes, but we would be sore in just about twenty minutes. A couch is designed to have some soft or firm filling and a backrest so we can sit comfortably for a longer period of time. Maybe the couch has some extra things attached like a pocket on the side for remotes or maybe even a fancy cup holder. The couch is designed with the user experience in mind. The user can sit there for a couple of hours and relax after a long day without a sore butt. This example is not the greatest but I hope I get my point across. Design is so much more then just how something looks or its purpose, its also how something works. In this article I will talk about some design fundamentals.

Understanding Color
Color plays a vital role in design. Using color is some of the biggest hurdles new designers face; knowing how to use color effectively and picking colors that work well together. When colors are used properly they can evoke certain emotion and/or guide the viewers eye to what is important. Example:

But how do you choose color? The best way is to learn some basics about color theory, it helps you see color in a whole new light. Color theory states that we have 3 primary colors; red, yellow and blue. Then we have secondary colors witch are a mix of the primary colors; orange, purple and green. Together they form the color wheel.

There are certain formulas you can use to find colors that work the well together, all you need is the color wheel. The most popular formula is complimentary, there you choose colors that are the oppisite of each other; for example blue and orange, green and red. To avoid the colors being to simple, you can play around with the saturation and value to get different tones.

Here I found a good video that goes more in depth in color theory: