Today, building a website isn’t as complicated as it used to be. With the availability of software solutions, like Joomla and WordPress, even website owners are capable of building their websites.
While building websites is a lot easier today, the security of a website falls into the hands of website owners, and in most cases, website owners aren’t sure of how they can improve their website security.
Whether you own a small business or a large corporation, your website must be safe for both your employees and customers.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for improving your website security, and no security measure can ensure that your website will be hackerproof. A few security improvements, however, can help mitigate damage to your website and protect your customers’ information.
Here are 5 essential ways you can boost your website security.
1) Update your software
This might seem like a generic bit of advice, but it’s very important. Out-of-date software and plug-ins can offer backdoor access to hackers and malware. Recovering from these attacks can be difficult as well, especially if your website is severely outdated.
Whenever your website needs an update, it’s also always best to go ahead with it without any delays. These updates not only improve your website’s performance, but they also come with security upgrades that can help your website avoid new cybersecurity threats.
Updates need to be done regularly. Leaving your website out of date for too long can make it vulnerable to security breaches.
2) Invest in an SSL certificate
The SSL certificate is an essential part of website security. What this certificate does is keeps personal information and data transfers on your website, such as debit and credit card information and activities, safe.
It does this by keeping online information confidential on the internet. This can give customers more confidence in interacting with your business, making them more comfortable when sharing personal information.
When you have an SSL certificate, a small padlock will appear next to your website’s URL, letting your customers know that your website is safe and trustworthy.
3) Choose a trustworthy web hosting service
Cheap web hosting services may seem like a godsend, but they might not always be reliable or even safe. Many of these low-cost web hosting services manage many other websites besides your one, and if these get hacked, yours is likely to get hacked as well.
When choosing a good web hosting service, take time to vet many web hosting service providers, making note of all the kinds of technical support they can provide. Be sure to also check their availability and methods of contact.
Here are a few things to look for when choosing a hosting provider:
- Check if they use a Rootkit Scanner
- See if they offer data backup services
- Ask them if they offer a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
- Inquire how often they give websites security updates
Taking a look at some Google reviews about website hosting providers can also help you get an idea of how reliable they are.
4) Set up a Web Application Firewall
By setting up a Web Application Firewall, called WAF for short, you can effectively put up a barrier between your website server and the data connection. The WAF filters all the data that passes through it and keeps out malware and other cyber threats.
Since many WAFs are cloud-based, these cloud services also help keep out unwanted traffic and annoyances, like spammers.
5) Start using a content delivery network
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are cyberattacks that can potentially knock your website offline and cause major disruptions to your business and customers. Recovering from an attack like this can take hours or even days.
Fortunately, you can mitigate the effects of these attacks by using a content delivery network, or CDN, for short. This is a cached version of your website that will be hosted on various servers around the world.
This way, even if your original website gets taken down by a DDoS attack, visitors can still access the cached versions of the website. This will ensure that your business can still carry out its online activities.
Don’t take website security lightly
A good-looking website with valuable content is a great way to attract visitors and generate new leads for your business. But a website isn’t all about looks and functionality—it needs to be a safe place people can visit to find solutions to their problems.
Work on improving your website security to make your website a trustworthy place for your potential customers, and your website will garner the attention it deserves!