The official weblog of ClickBook.net. ClickBook streamlines the process of appointment scheduling for small business, schools and other organisations. For technical updates please visit the Technical Blog.

Heads in the ’Cloud’: Security Considerations when Choosing an Online Service

Mark Demicoli  17 December 2012 09:45:37 PM
The security of your account is by far the number one priority to consider when choosing any online service.  Reputation goes a long way, and we find the majority of our long term customers have come to ClickBook by referral, somewhat of a testimony to ClickBook's reputation for reliability and security.  In this post, I'd like to talk a little about what underlies ClickBook's basic security philosophy and the security features that have flowed from it over the last 5 years of development.

Image:Heads in the ’Cloud’: Security Considerations when Choosing an Online Service

You may have heard about the 'Cloud' in the last couple of years.  The Cloud is essentially a new marketing word for what the industry used to call Shared Server Hosting.  In reality, it's just another way of saying "We do not host our own computer server - we have outsourced that job to Company X".  This type of business decision introduces what is called Third Party Risk.  In other words, elements of your business are in the hands of someone else.

Other risks include reliability issues, because "The Cloud" is like a shared office space between hundreds or thousands of other services.  Such environments depend on a significant Administration overhead and often creates 'bottle necks' causing service availability to falter at times.

Another key problem with Cloud services is that there are many, many 'eggs in one basket' (ie thousands of businesses running servers from the same infrastructure) which makes such 'Cloud' providers a prime target for criminal activity, such as hackers and internal 'white collar' illegal activity.


We Are Not in the Cloud


ClickBook's policy steers away from this concept and maintains it's dedicated servers at a high security facility.  We are certain that this is the best option to protect yours and your customers` data.

Learn more about the dangers of The Cloud here.


Database Encryption
& Daily Backup

ClickBook's data is encrypted on the hard-disks of our dedicated computer servers and backups are taken daily.  These measure are security layers to mitigate physical compromise or natural disaster.  In any worst case scenario, we can have the system up and running from off-site backup to newly commissioned servers within a short period of time.  Call us paranoid, but at least call us vigilant about the integrity of your information.


Wrong Password Lockout


If you've ever typed your password wrong too many times in ClickBook you already know the drill.  ClickBook automatically locks your account if anyone attempts to access it with the wrong password too many times.  What's more you will be notified about the incident if it wasn't your doing.  This is a very important measure to prevent what are called 'brute force' attacks - attempts to access accounts by guesswork.

Bottom Line


ClickBook is seriously concerned about the continuity of our business, and that means placing the continuity of yours as first priority.  We have taken extraordinary measures to ensure the reliability and security of your service.