Website security feature

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Many of you will remember last year when our website was blocked from several browsers and marked as 'unsafe'.   We were pressured to purchase expensive security features.  We did get a lower level patch and upgraded the site to a new board version, which corrected the immediate issue.  Google has now decided to implement even stricter standards of security, and of course other browsers will follow suit.  Because this issue will now affect almost every website available, server hosts have had to offer some security features across the board, without additional charge to keep their customers.  HostGator has offered a free SSL certificate, which was uploaded to Tek yesterday.  According to the tech support person, it might take 24-48 hours for the patch to paginate throughout our entire site.  Do I comprehend all of this?  No, not really, but I understand the basic application.  You may have noticed when you do internet banking, or pay bills online, the web address you access will revert to a secure prefix.  It will change from http://,  to  https://, which indicates another level of security.  This is what will be implemented here at Tek.  When you log on, the site will reset to the higher security https:// designation.  So far, I am not seeing this in the address bar.  The admin will continue to monitor this to ensure our site is displaying properly and we are safe and secure.

 

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Our SSL certificate should now be fully functional.  Please check the site address to be sure you see the https:// prefix.  If you do not see this, please post in this topic.  

 

Thanks! 

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

It appears that forcing the SSL certificate has caused some problems with the forum.  We will now have to try to get some help from Invision Power Board.  You will find that you cannot go past the first page of any topic or in PMs.  The forum is still here, but anything beyond page one will not be accessible until we get this sorted out.

 

Sorry for this inconvenience.  We're working on it.

[caddienoah]

I checked mine...the "s" is there.

As of 9PM here, I can now go beyond page 1 on posts and threads.

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

When you reply to a topic, it may be posted on the next page of the topic.  If you access that post from the recent activity function, you will go to that post, regardless of the page it is on.  I am still not able to get to higher pages in the topics.  What skin are you using, Caddie?

[(Designer)Vondell]

I'm seeing the change now, and I am running into the bug where some links, such as the navigation between thread pages, still don't click through. But, if I right-click and "Open link in new tab", I can navigate that way and the page will open in a new tab just fine. I use Firefox, but I think all modern browsers should have some version of "Open link in new tab" to navigate threads in the meantime.

 

I don't know enough to know why the change is propagating that way, but happy to hear we're making the switch. I believe HTTPS is quickly becoming standard around the web for security reasons and from what I understand it's worth the slight transition bumps.

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

I'm working with tech support to try and figure this out.  Thanks so much for that navigation tip. 

[(Admin)Cricket]

Yes!  Vondell, you're a genius!  Thank you!  That tip should allow us to 'limp along' until the IPB techs can (hopefully) get things resolved for us!   

[jbl89]

This topic is still marked as insecure in the URL bar.
The URL is okay: https://zootekphoenix.com/forums/topic/11511-website-security-feature/

 

The issue is that it loads three insecure files here (one jpg and two gifs at the moment, one being your hug).

There's two things which might need to be done (I'm not familiar with invision board):

 

First things to check

- change a setting somewhere in InvisionBoard, where it probably still shows something like http://zootekphoenix.com/forums/uploads/ or http://zootekphoenix.com  or http://zootekphoenix.com/forums instead of https://

I assume you've changed https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/advanced-options/configuration-options/using-ssl-https-r273/ ?

 

The above things are 5 mins of work if you have the proper passwords/access to the backend of this site ( FTP, cPanel File Manager or whatever it may be ... )

 

If it doesn't work...

- worse case: you might need to run one or more update-queries on the database to replace http://zootekphoenix.com with https://zootekphoenix.com

 

 

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Thanks so much jbl89.  After getting no help from Invision, I did some research and did change the url to reflect https://.   I then emptied our cache and hopefully this has righted the ship.  If you notice any other issues, or have additional info, please post here.  Any advice or info on this is much appreciated.