Website security is a chronic issue since past few years. Hacking is a common disease spreading rapidly day after day. Recent statistics shows that in every 39 seconds a website is hit by the hackers and some of them are severely harmed. Another statistics tells that on average 30,000 websites are hacked per day.
“Cybercrime is the greatest threat to every company in the world.”— Ginny Rometty, IBM’s Chairman, President and CEO.
So, you can understand how important a strong cyber security plan is to support the health of your website.
We understand that your website is everything for your business. It functions as a platform where you showcase your brand, bring latest products or services and sell them. Building a ravishing website is not a tedious job anymore. Content Management Systems (CMS) like Joomla or WordPress have made this job much easier. However, making your website safe and secure is not that easy. In recent days, hackers are continually updated their ways of breaking the cyber security. Their activities are no longer predictable.
Here, we will discuss about 9 easy steps of website security which you can keep in mind while building your website. Or if you are hiring a Website development agency make sure that they are maintaining these steps to ensure the safety of your site.
HTTPS and SSL
HTTPS and SSL stand for ‘Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure’ and ‘Secure Socket Layer’ respectively. They make your URL secure. One padlock will appear in the address bar and the URL will be initiated with ‘https’ instead of ‘http’ making it safer for users to give their personal information. SSL encrypts the data transfers between the website and the visitors. If your site is accepting payment or some files from your customer, SSL becomes obvious.
There are a number of ways you can install SSL. You can choose a web development agency which provides SSL for free or you can opt for a hosting provider with multiple plans regarding SSL. You can also install a basic SSL yourself. If you need a higher level of protection, then you have to buy an advanced SSL certification.
There are different types of SSL:
Single Domain SSL: It provides security to a single domain.
Wildcard SSL: It provides security to a domain as well as its sub-domains.
Multi-domain SSL: A single certificate is used for multiple distinct domains.
Domain Validation SSL: It is the most affordable option used for blogs or small businesses.
Organisation Validation SSL: It is used for the websites of organizations and involves thorough investigations.
Extended Validation SSL: It is used for the website security of large enterprises or e-commerce sites. An in-depth investigation is required before installing the certificate.
Use A Strong Password
You can choose a free or a paid one according to the security level you need.
Another crucial attribute for website security is the strength of password. Often we put one of our personal information (such as birthdates or name of our dear ones) as password. It can be a big mistake as they are proven to be much vulnerable. Always try to choose something that is not related to your personal details. Using numbers and special characters along with alphabets generates much strength to the password and makes it shatterproof. Periodical update of your password is no doubt a safer approach.
Use Anti-Malware Software
To shield your website from brutal cyber-attacks you must pick a solid anti-malware programme. Destructive malware encrypts the contents of your website. You can lose the accessibility of the site and can face a massive data loss which can cost you a huge amount of money. A wide range of anti-malware software is at hand today. Paid or free, you can choose any. Yet, Sitelock is the most popular. Well versed anti-malware software can provide you these security services: Malware detection and removal, Web application firewall, Web scanning, DDoS protection and many more.
Keep Your Website Up To Date:
An out-dated website has a higher level of probability to be hacked. Every now and then the security softwares and plug-ins are updated to close their loopholes making them less vulnerable. To get an uncompromising security make your website and every single plug-ins up to date after a short while. Enable the auto update mode in your website to maximise website security. Go for high quality plug-ins with updated security features. In case you are hiring a web development agency, always go for a trustworthy and well known one to avoid mediocre plug-ins in your site.
Back-Up Your Website
Along with all other security measures you must have a back-up plan for your site’s content. This will be advantageous in case, by chance, you become a victim of cybercrimes. Several back-up methods are discussed here:
Offsite Back-ups— In this method your data files are saved far away from your server to disable hackers to reach there. Offsite methods are also helpful in case of hardware failure.
Redundant Back-ups—In this method the files are distributed among various location adding an extra layer of protection so that you can avoid an immense loss.
Regular Back-ups— They provide a backup for your files after a short period of time i.e., on monthly or yearly basis resulting decline in risk.
Automatic Backups— Any new file is automatically backed up. This works according to the backup settings.
Again, if you are engaging any website development company, tell them to do this job carefully.
Accept Comments Manually
Every website has a feedback section in which the visitors can write suggestions. No doubt, this is necessary for the improvisation of your service. But hackers can use it to harm your site. They can inject malicious elements into your site. To stop this, avoid automatic comments. Accept comments manually or you can ask users for a registration before commenting. Another option is to use some anti-spam programs to filter out suspicious comments.
Accept Less Detailed Error Messages
Error Messages tell about the weak part of your site. It can be a gateway for the hackers as they can easily get the loophole to get into the site. To avoid this don’t accept detailed error messages.
ReCaptcha Security Technique
Now-a-days it is a well-known technique which efficiently differentiates humans from robots and hence saves your site from abuse by hackers. You can use some picture or simple tasks for users to ensure a fruitful security system.
Go For a Website Security Testing Tool
This kind of tools actually determines how effective the security system is. They try to breach the website and points out the magnitude of vulnerability of your site so that you can easily rectify them.
In essence, making practical choices to run your site and being careful to increase the strength of your password will make your site effectively defended. It’s no rocket science and budget friendly plans are easily available. Just keep in mind the above discussed factors and choose one wisely. However, if you are still in confusion regarding your site’s security issue or despite of considering all above mentioned factors, if you are facing any difficulty to secure your website, it is better to hire a web development company. Just check their portfolios, references and reliability and go through the different plans and payment structure they are providing before making any hiring decision.