Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers

Security

The walls of our ironclad security fortress are largely invisible to our users, as they should be. There is no reason to publicize our security measures unless we are trying to provoke hackers and crackers. Users notice authentication challenges, such as usernames and passwords, use of encryption (secure sockets layer), and the use of cookies.

There are three general levels of security that apply to portals. For a public portal, the first and loosest level is support for anonymous users. If you are trying to attract new customers, constituents, or other users to your portal, you need to allow them anonymous access. There is little point to improving your search engine results if the first thing users see is a login screen, and they are ...