Chapter 1. Delving into the World of Security

Welcome to Moodle Security!

In the early days of the web, Internet was mostly used for academic purposes. Hence, all communications protocols had very little or no focus on security. The situation started changing as more and more public and commercial services started moving online and common users started actually using Internet in their daily routine. With the increase of user base we see the emerge of the malicious groups of users, the so-called hackers that are focused mostly on information theft and illegal usage. Nowadays it is quite common to be attacked by hacker(s). In fact it is so common and frequent that it is reported that only the USA's cyber attacks generate costs up to 10 billion dollars every year. The purpose of this book is to introduce you to web security while focusing on Moodle.