Top 7 Essential Tips To Achieve Truly Secure FTP

 

Although plain FTP or File Transfer Protocol has been the solution of choice to transfer data for several decades, it has left many businesses at stake for the breaching of data. If you want to ensure that your servers are both compliant and secure, this post is going to help you by giving top 7 tips to ensure the secure File Transfer Protocol Hosting for business.

1.      Use Strong Hashing And Encryption

The encryption cyphers are being utilized by the secure FTP hosting sites for the protection of data while it has been transferred. This cypher is the complicated algorithm that carries data and its key and creates encrypted data for the transmission. The most important thing you must do is the disabling of the outdated or older ciphers and only utilize the strong ciphers such as TDES or AES.

2.      Disable Standard FTP

If you are running the standard FTP on your server, it needs immediate disabling. The FTP is nearly 3 decades old and this is why, it can’t withstand the modern security threats. The FTP is lacking integrity and privacy and this is making it easy for hackers to get the access to the data during transmission. Thus it is recommended to switch to secure and affordable FTP hosting services which ensures data protection.

3.      Implement the IP Whitelist and Blacklist

The IP whitelist only allows the particular IP addresses to access system like your trading partners. The drawback here is that it only works well if the partner is also using fixed IPs. The IP blacklist includes the elimination of wide IP addresses from system access either permanently or temporarily. Such as, if you wish to block some countries from accessing, you can have auto-blacklisting of FTP server for certain attack types such as DoS attacks.

4.      Utilize Strong Passwords

The passwords must be at least 7 characters in length, having both alphanumeric and numeric characters and it also carries one special character. Always ensure that the admin passwords are changed after every 90 days.

5.      Lock Down Administration

You must ensure the tight control of your affordable FTP server administration. The admin duties must be restricted to the particular user’s number and needs them to utilize multi-factor authentication. Rather than storing passwords on server, keep them safe in the LDAP server or in the AD domain.

6.      Implement File And Folder Security

The trading partner must only have the access to their required folder. Such as, only because the partner requires permission for download from a folder, it doesn’t mean that they require full access to the folder. The requirement of uploading files to the folder doesn’t necessitate the access of read to folder. Encrypt the files when at rest and retain the FTP customized file sharing server only as long as it is required.

7.      Use Good Account Management

It is very doubtful to make up the OS-level user accounts for trading partners as it enables the pathway for earning the access to other server resources. Moreover, the credentials of the user must also be kept privately from FTP application. There is no need to allow the shared accounts of anonymous users.