Packet Sniffing

keat63

• June 09, 2016 05:53

I'd just like to run something past any security experts if possible. I have a dedicated server hosted in a data centre somewhere in the UK. No doubt there are hundreds of these things, as well as VPS's, and hosted plans in the same building. What are the chances of hackers packet sniffing the whole data centre from within. Maybe an application sitting on another dedicated server. Is this possible ?

• 

  Dave Smith

  • June 09, 2016 16:30

  There is always a risk no matter where you select to host your box/boxes. Everything is a potential threat and should be treated as such. In the past I have contacted many providers to inform them of gaping holes in security. Anything is possible.

  0
• 

  quizknows

  • June 09, 2016 22:29

  It's unlikely another customers dedicated server could sniff anything useful. However, anything going through the hosting companies routers/switches etc they (the hosting company) could look at. This is why SSL, SSH, etc are quite important. Intercepting encrypted data is pretty useless unless you're a sophisticated hacker. On the other hand, normal HTTP / FTP you can get quite useful data from. Basically, if it's sensitive data, use HTTPS, SSH, etc... some level of encryption to protect from other parties. If you are curious, fire up wireshark or something on your own network and experiment with what you can see. You will find that HTTP is quite easy to decipher, while HTTPS captures are basically useless.

  0

Please sign in to leave a comment.