How safe are our Hubpages accounts? No encryption and no SSL

1. 96

   Cardisaposted 12 years ago

   A few weeks ago Hubpages SSL Certificate expired and we were told that the issue has been taken care of.
   
   The network that Hubpages is now hosted on does not allow for SSL certificates to be added to your domain. I should know, I have a site there. They claim that they protect your information on their servers yet visitors to their sites will have a warning that the site is suspicious.
   
   I'll now prove that HP is not secure. If you are using Chrome, in your navigation bar at the far left next to the web address you will see a file type icon. Hover your mouse and you will see "view site information". Then click to view site information.  You will see two tabs: permission and connection. Click the connection tab.
   
   You will see two major pieces of information: (1) The identity of this website has not been verified. (2) Your connection to Hubpages is not encrypted.
   
   The third proof is the site's URL. http://hubpages.com/feed/. Notice the data transfer protocol (http). Notice that the s is missing, which means the secure sockets layer is missing. Using plain HTTP means that information from the site are sent over the internet via plain text. Anyone with a sniffer software can intercept our information.

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   1. 60

      Randy Godwinposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Could this be a reason for the lack of traffic or for the mass of hubs being stolen on here lately, Carolee?

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      1. 96

         Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I have been wondering if the lack of secure feature are detering visitors. Before HP switched to Ning we got more traffic.

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         1. 82

            SimeyCposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Why would this change traffic? most people do not even realize there is a difference between security on some sites. I'm a computer geek who knows all about PII etc. (it's part of my job) - however I very rarely look at the 'http' or 'https' - I tend to look at the domain! I know hubpages.com is legit, I know amazon.com is legit etc.

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      2. 82

         SimeyCposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         This shouldn't make a difference to traffic or stolen info  - secure SSL is primarily to stop hackers getting into your personal account and stealing PII.

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   2. 76

      wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      If you go to the earnings page it is secured.  Both the padlock and the "s" suddenly appear.
      
      Isn't that the only page we really care about?  Or does being secured some help prevent hackers from coming in and changing our hubs?  It certainly won't prevent theft of a hub - outside of securing personal information what good is it?

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      1. 96

         Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         There is no security for the stats page or some of the other pages in our account.

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         1. 76

            wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I didn't check everything, but our financial accounting area is the only thing I found that has security.
            
            I'm not really up on this, but isn't that all we need?  Guess I'm not seeing any value in securing the other pages, including stats, given that a hacker can't change them, and I didn't think that was a part of SSL.
            
            Am I wrong here?

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2. 83

   K9keystrokesposted 12 years ago

   Dang....

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3. 84

   jansharesposted 12 years ago

   Sheeeesh!!! Not good. Thanks for the fyi.

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4. 70

   2uesdayposted 12 years ago

   Thank you Cardisa for posting this information so that we are aware of it.

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5. 96

   Cardisaposted 12 years ago

   Thanks for the reply guys. I am just concerned about this. With all the thefts and hacking on the internet, I cannot believe that a content site such as this would not be more secure. I know the SSL cannot prevent content thieves but it does help to authenticate a site so visitors will feel more secure.
   
   When I use IE to log on, my site scanner app tell me that the site is suspicious and I have to wonder how many people might be getting the same warning.

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