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7 Tips To Improve The Security of Your Business Website

Security is one of the most important factors for any user when developing a website based business since it’s not good to realize that our site has been hacked by an attacker. They can be hacking of your website or DDOS attacks. It is impossible to deal with such attacks unless you have strong protection against hacking and protection against DDOS attacks stealing data stored on the web server or use it as a tool to infect others server equipment where you have other websites.

1. Monitoring the installed applications

Nowadays open source CMS web applications such as WordPress or Joomla are very common, just to name a few. These tools make the work of launching new websites much easier, but they can also become a major security problem if we do not keep track of the updates that are released periodically. In case of WordPress, it alerts you when a new version has come out, inviting you to update it. As usual, the update process is very simple, so that practically anyone could be able to update it.

2. Get hosting from trusted hosting provider

In the market, we can find hundreds of companies that provide accommodation services, but not all of them offer the same level of security. It is very important that this hosting provider has some system for detecting and preventing intruders, even offering security barriers to block possible attacks such as the use of firewall in their systems. You should get all the firewall securities from the hosting provider and a good protection against DDOS attacks.

3. Server configuration files 

Another important thing is the configuration of the files of the web server that we acquired. Depending on the type, we can find the .htaccess file on Apache servers, nginx.conf on servers that have Nginx or web. config installed on those that use Microsoft IIS. In all these files, you can include policies that seek to improve the security of the website. There are many other things that can be done from these configuration files, it is only a matter of investigating what can be done depending on the server that we use.

4. Install SSL

In fact, the use of security certificates would not improve the security of our site, but it would help to improve the security of the information that moves through it, especially in electronic stores where users’ sensitive data is usually sent. This type of security certificates, what it does is encrypt the information that is sent through the website, preventing someone who intercepts the traffic can decrypt the data sent unless you also get the encryption key.

5. Perform regular backups

As strange as it may seem, not everyone performs them. In case of suffering any type of attack that has infected our site, the surest way to end it is by resorting to a backup copy of our portal. These backups also guarantee of your information saved in case of suffering some catastrophic event. Of course, do not make the copy on your own computer, but in some external support that is stored in a different place from where it can be retracted. This is very important if you don’t have a protection against DDOS attacks or hacking.

6. Manage file permissions

Another aspect to which everyone should devote some time is to define the type of permissions that a file can have. With this, what we get is to define who can do something about it. A file has three permissions available and each of them is represented with a value: Now, if, for example, the owner must have access to read and write, some of the related group of people should have read-only access, and the general website visitors should not have the access that can pose threat to the website.

7. Encrypt sensitive information

Nowadays, most web applications make use of a database to store the information displayed on the site or to store all the data that users send through forms on the site. There are occasions when part of that information is of great importance. In those cases, it is a good idea to encrypt the data that is stored, so that in case someone enters the database of our server cannot read the information, but only see letters and numbers without meaning. This is the case of passwords or bank account numbers, information that should always be encrypted using some algorithm created for it.

Conclusion: 

Website security is very important for the reason it is very difficult to bounce up to original level after a fatal cyber-attack. Instead, if you take preventive measures for avoiding falling prey to cyber-attacks you have very fewer chances of loss. Along with that having solid anti-hack software and a strong DDOS attacks protection can keep a headache away.

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What do you think?

16 Points

Written by Addie Davison

5 Comments

  1. This is a good preliminary list for website security but would love to see the next version tools 8-25.
    Understanding the data governance policy of the organization as regards to publishing, sharing and storing information.
    Understanding the skills of the team building the site and maintaining it.

    You’ve started well, what else do you have?

    1