Many web hosting companies advertise just how good their dedicated hosting packages are and they really have to because their high costs are definitely not attractive to the average customer. One of the things that these dedicated servers bring to the table is better security. This is true on many levels because dedicated servers are the opposite of shared servers. Once you subscribe to a dedicated server plan, you will have the entire server to yourself. It is not shared with others so your data is sure to be protected. While this is true, dedicated servers do not render your site immune to all kinds of issues unless the plan has specific features. Here are some of the security concerns that should not be overlooked.

Control Panel

The control panel is a special web application that serves as the admin entry point to managing your dedicated servers. Many of these control panels are written in PHP and unfortunately, no PHP application is completely secure. Fortunately, developers are working hard to stay ahead of the hackers by releasing major security updates as soon as devastating vulnerabilities are found. What you need to make sure is that these dedicated hosting providers are up-to-date when it comes to the control panel and other components. Some dedicated hosting packages allow you to quickly install scripts for your site. You need to make sure these scripts are updated as well so you have maximum security on the software end. Visit the websites of these scripts and control panels and compare them with the ones that the dedicated servers have. If the website hosting provider is not open on what versions they are using, do not hesitate to create a support ticket or contact them via support.

Log-in Sessions

Even if your control panel is secured as best as possible, your site can still be at risk the log-in session is not secure. Your browser should be able to detect if you are entering a secure environment. If not, upgrade your browser or simply find another provider that makes sure that you are entering your password and other critical information in a secure zone.

Anonymous FTP

Just about all dedicated servers give you an FTP account so you can quickly upload new files to your website. However, there is a setting that allows FTP access without a username or password. This is known as anonymous FTP and it is risky to leave this feature on if you have a dedicated hosting plan. This means that any individual that knows your site's IP or domain can upload files to your site. Even if these files are not malicious, they can still cost you bandwidth and disk space if you leave it open for uploading.

Root Access

Many dedicated servers give you root access so you can control all aspects of your server. This can also place your server open for security breaches. You can counter this issue by using your control panel to scan any potential security issues. This will determine if your control panel or other components require updating so you are really sure that viruses or worms cannot infect your server.

There is no dedicated hosting package that can really protect you but even with this fact, many top websites hardly suffer from major downtimes because the webmasters are very responsible in managing their dedicated servers. You should be as well if you are going to manage dedicated servers in the future.