Secure FTP and TopYacht

Background

When Site Manager (TopYacht’s web Uploader) was written about 20 years ago, the concept of  ‘secure sites’ was unknown. As the internet industry developed, the threat of attack from malicious individuals has increased.

As a method of dealing with this, hosting companies have started to insist on security certificates. These work behind the scenes in routine web browsing, with the only sign being that now sites work under the https:// instead of the convention http://.

One of the obvious risks is the hijacking of domain names. A user entering a domain name (https://www.mysite.com.au) would be forwarded to a different server if the mysite.com.au pointer on the domain-name server is corrupted.

While this is an inconvenience to browsers, it is dangerous for uploading, as files could fall into undesirable hands.

The concept of Secure FTP has been developed so that the client and server must match credentials as part of the validation process at login time.

The outcome of this is that an increasing number of service providers are insisting on secure uploads. The unfortunate thing is that several different authentication methodologies exist, each one needing its own protocol.

Additionally, as evolution takes place, additional systems will evolve.

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