Obviously, there is no such thing as absolute security, yet security has beome a very large concern for everyone who uses the internet.
First - about secure servers - when you look in the address window and see "https:// ..." instead of "http:// ..." that means you are going to a website hosted on a secure server. There is nothing "secure" about that server, however .. all servers, whether or not they are designated as "secure" are only as secure as their admins know how to make them. In this case, the word "secure" only means that transmissions between you and the server are encrypted so that if they are intercepted during transit, they will look like gibberish. Of course, the encryption could be broken but when it's only going to get the bad guy a single transmission, it is not worth the huge effort it takes to do that.
That introduces the basis for my decisions about my internet behavior. I make decisions about how big a security risk a website is by assessing two things -
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How competent do I think the administrators of the server hosting the site are?
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How large is the amount of people's data stored on that site?
The result of this is that, although (for example) I believe that Microsoft is pretty near top of the heap in capability and I also believe that they have strong motivation to keep their servers from being breached, I consider them very likely to get hacked because they present a very data rich target for would-be hackers.
I do not trust any bank websites at all. In addition to having more information that could potentially damage people if it falls in the wrong hands, plus having large quantities of that information, I do not trust their competence anywhere near as much as I trust Microsoft or one of the major Internet Security software companies.
As to WikiTree, I have a very high level of trust, mainly because, although there is a lot of data here, it does not include financial information, social security numbers, medical records, etc. That is the kind of data that would present a high profile target to a hacker. I also feel comfortable with WikiTree's concerns about protection of private information.
The bottom line is that I'll ask the question "What would a hacker stand to gain in both quantity and usefulness of the information that is on WikiTree?"
It's kind of like driving a car - every time you get into one, you are risking your life, yet you don't lock yourself into your house to avoid that risk. You try to mitigate the risk as much as possible, but you do find a certain level of risk that is acceptable to you. For example, you might avoid driving near a bar at 3:00 AM on a Saturday night. See what I mean?
