Building websites has become easy due to the content management systems, thus the business owners are now the webmasters. But many of them don’t know how to secure their website from cyber-attack. Cyber attackers or hackers are more powerful and dangerous. You will be held responsible for your data and your customer’s data in the business. There is no hacker-free website, but by using some preventive measures, you can reduce your site’s vulnerability.
Website security has become more important than ever due to increase in the cyber-attack. Web security is a complicated process. If you make a small error, your website security will be at risk. There are lots of ways to improve your web security with ease. Here are the 6 things you can do to secure your website:
1. Update Software Regularly:
It is important to update all software that you have installed. Hackers will look for security flaws to hack your website. They look through the scripts to gain access to your website. The website becomes vulnerable once it is outdated. A potential hacker will attack your website at this moment. So in order to have a safe and secure website, update your software regularly. Updating your software will fully protect your website from exploitable security holes. You can also add an update notification plugin so that you will know whenever a new update is available.
2. Secure your site with HTTPS and SSL Certificate:
You need a secure URL to keep your website safe. HTTPS is a protocol that is used for secure communication over internet. The https protocol allows a secure connection from a web server to a browser. HTTPS prevents any kind of interruptions from occurring. Browsers like chrome will flag the website as insecure, if it does not conation https.
In order to have a secure online connection your website need to have SSL certificate. SSL can protect your login details and sensitive information such as bank details from hackers.
Google has announced that they will boost your website in the search rankings only if you have HTTPS and SSL certificate. It’s high time to upgrade to HTTPS from the insecure HTTP as it is on its way out.
3. Keep Strong Password:
Hackers often uses advanced software that use brute force to crack passwords. So if you want your website to be more safe and secure, you have to choose an unguessable password. In order to easily remember login information, people tend to keep same password in all places which is a major security mistake.
You need to create strong password with uppercase and lowercase letters, numerals and special characters. Passwords should be complicated and difficult to guess. So the hackers won’t be able to use brute force to break your passwords. You have to store your password in an encrypted form and also change your password after three months or sooner.
4. Limit Login Attempts:
You have to limit the number of login attempts from the same IP address. If there are more than three attempts to connect to your website from the same IP address, then you can limit the access for a period of time, thus forcing the brute force to go somewhere else.
The hackers use a script to guess your password. By limiting the login attempts you can track and limit the number of failed login attempts. You can also BAN the same IP address that is trying to access your website.
5. Secure Web host:
You have to select the correct hosting provider as web hosting is the primary line of defense against hackers. There is nothing you can do to avoid cyber attack if your web host does not keep its servers safe and secure.
Choose a highly secured and reputable web hosting company to host your website. There are many cheap hosting sites available at low cost. They are mostly shared hosting with million other website. If one website is hacked, it is certain that your website will also be hacked. So while choosing a web host make sure it has what you need to keep your site secure.
6. Backup your data:
If a security breach occurs and need to restore your website, then you must have an updated version of your website. So you need to back up your website regularly.
You can keep your website information off-site. To avoid cyber-attack, you can store backups on another sever. Also you can back up your website in the cloud and can access information from anywhere. Majority of the web host providers will provide backup from their server in case you need them. There are many plugins that can automatically backup your site.
7. Scan for Malware:
It is important to scan your website on a regular basis to check for malware. You need to perform web security scan after making any kind of changes to your applications. Also, it would be better to scan your website at least once in a week. By scanning your website regularly, you can erase the problem easily.
There are many tools to detect malware but most of the malwares are invisible to scanners. Some scanners easily detect the malware while some won’t detect all the possible security flaws of your site.
8. Apply Web Application Firewall:
A Web Application Firewall filters, monitors and blocks unwanted traffic to your web service. You can install the Web Application Firewall to protect your server and for your website security. The main purpose of applying web application firewall is to read every bit of data that passes through it to protect your site.
Most of the web application firewalls (WAF) are cloud based and the cloud service is the portal to all incoming traffic which blocks the hacking attempts. The firewall can filter out the other unwanted traffic like spammers and malicious bots in order to protect your work.
You will have to keep your site safe and secure if you want to pay off your hard work in creating the website. The security maintenance is necessary, although the website creation is easy. There are many security solutions to improve your website security. Security maintenance is very important due to the increased cyber-attack. So follow
these simple steps and improve your web security.
