The amount of easy to target websites is growing at an alarming rate due to the fact that so many people are setting up their own businesses based from home. The blame for this mainly lies within the Internet Marketing population itself. Why is this so? Several of the so-called Internet Marketing Gurus, using the powerful methods of persuasion at their fingertips, entice people into starting their own businesses on line by providing them with ready-made, plug and play websites containing basic errors in security. The consequences of most of these sites made by marketers, not programmers, can be disastrous.

One of the most frequent vulnerabilities - and paradoxically the most easy to be fixed - is to make sure that each directory on your website has an index file. Web browsers by default, when directed to a directory, firstly look for a file named index. This could be followed by various extensions such as .htm, .shtml .php or .html, which are a few of the ones most commonly used.

If the index file is not found by the browser, the whole directory will be shown by way of a click-able navigation list, uncovering its entire contents for everyone to see, thus leaving your often restricted and precious content wide open to all sorts of malicious abuse.

In order to stop this happening, a minimum of at least one, or better still, a combination of all four of the following basic measures of security should be firmly in place.

Security measure 1:

Every directory should contain an index file by renaming the default page you wish to be shown to index. Ensure that all the internal links are updated to that page also.

Security measure 2:

Create an empty index file. When arriving at the directory, a blank page will be displayed, but you will no longer be showing a directory listing. Provide a message and a click-able link here to draw your visitors to the correct page.

Security measure 3:

Create an index file containing a redirection to the page you wish to be shown. There are many easily implemented and free code snippets at your disposal allowing you to do this and your viewers will probably not even notice there is a redirection taking place.

Security measure 4:

Do not keep any of your download-able content which people pay for in the same directory as the sales page. Keep it in a secure directory separately and set up your payment processor to that particular directory. This ensures that only people who have subscribed for the content can gain access to it. You are more likely have people trying to get a hold of your restricted content without having to pay for it when you are selling products on line as an Internet Marketer but adhering to these 4 basic measures of security will assist you to dramatically lower the risk of unlawful access to your website and make life much less of a worry in the long run.