Technology has been on the rise over the past few years, and life is becoming easier than ever before due to the utilization of various technological utilities such as Internet of Things (IoT) and others. The same technological advancement has made it simpler to construct and maintain websites, which is as a result of different tools and services such as WordPress, Magento, Joomla, and others.
Given the benefits that come with Content Management Systems (CMS) and other platforms, it’s no longer necessary to spend months or even years practicing and perfecting your skills in web development. That’s probably the reason why there has been an increase in the number of websites with each one of them being built to achieve certain goals.
It doesn’t matter what your goal is; one thing you must acknowledge is that the ease of launching websites comes with its set of disadvantages or unwanted effects – increased cyber-attacks. As you are busy trying to develop and load your website with content, someone somewhere is also sharpening their hacking skills with evil intentions in mind.
As such, securing your website is imperative to protecting your business or whatever it is that made you come up with a site. What are some of the things you can do to achieve that?
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Update & Update!
A custom or bespoke build is more taxing to create and maintain as compared to using CMS platforms and other tools that make it easier to get a website up and running. The problem with using such platforms or tools is that you are prone to attacks if you fail to update them. As such, you have to be on the lookout for new versions as they, at times, are security patches to keep your software and your website updated.
Most attacks are not even carried out by humans; they are launched by bots which are always scanning for vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them. As such, you cannot always rely on CMS platform updates which is why it’s advisable to use a website firewall. With such, you can be sure that your website remains protected as you wait for security updates for the reason that a website firewall acts as a “Virtual Patch.”
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SSL Encryptions
This is another useful technique to keep the bad guys at bay, as it ensures that information does not land on the wrong hands while being transferred. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a security technique that enables the creation of an encrypted link between web browsers and a server(s).
Establishment of the link goes a long way in ensuring that any data being sent between the server and web is not intercepted through attacks known as Man in the Middle (MITM) attacks. SSL is an excellent way to ensure that any personal data such as passwords, credit card info, social security numbers, and others are kept safe.
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Secure Hosts to The Rescue
Your data is of great value, and hackers know that. As such, they will try in all means to get it from wherever you have stored it. That’s why you must be careful when choosing the company that hosts your website. Such a company needs to appreciate the importance of keeping sites secure, hence safeguarding data.
If a company providing hosting services fails to utilize techniques such as DDOS PROTECTED Virtual Private Servers (VPSs), then the sites it hosts become prone to different threats such as DDoS attacks. A DDoS protected VPS at JavaPipe is a special VPS that benefits from a cyber-attack immune network or data center to prevent DDoS attacks.
With such, it’s usually impossible for malicious attackers to execute DDoS attacks which can even be used to blackmail commercial web owners sometimes. In addition to ensuring that the host is secure, the company providing you with such services should also make an effort to back-up users’ data to remote servers. That way, it becomes easier to get it back if, unfortunately, your website gets hacked.
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Test, Test, and Test!
The internet never stays static and will change as long as it remains with us, and you can expect your site to be dynamic as well. That’s why you have to keep on scanning your website for vulnerabilities at all times using different methods. There are several free tools on the internet to help you determine how safe your website is, but the best method is to carry out scans.
Scans include vulnerability scanning as well as penetration testing. Vulnerability scanning is a non-intrusive method that is all about sending different queries and requests as well as traffic to the site, to determine whether any vulnerabilities exist. Penetration hacking, on the other hand, is an intrusive method which involved carrying out “attacks” while emulating the behavior of hackers – you become a “thief” to catch one.
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Use of Complex Passwords
Hackers can employ advanced software and techniques to steal login data such as passwords, with the most common method being brute force attacks. That’s why you need to come up with a strong password policy in your organization so that every password remains complicated and troublesome to decode. Strive to use a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters, special characters, as well as digits. It’s advisable that such passwords contain not less than 10 characters for increased safety.
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Clean Your Website
Any database, plugin, or application that is not being used on your website should be deleted since it can be an entry that can be utilized by hackers. Always keep the structure of your site in an organized manner so that you can track any changes and delete older files that are not in use.
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Get a Security Expert
Unless you have an in-house cyber security team, which would be quite expensive to maintain, consider hiring security companies to boost the security of your website. Even though you will be at a position to handle some security issues on your own, things like security audits, repairs, vulnerability scans and others, that are important to the security of your website are better off performed by experts. Therefore, do your research and hire a reputable security company that can help you keep your site secure.
The internet is here to stay, and so is the security of your website, but only if you take serious steps to prevent it from being successfully attacked. Even though the above steps are not a guarantee that your website will never get hacked, they go a long way in reducing your site’s exposure to the constants threats that come with internet usage.
