Keeping your website and its users safe from opportunistic hackers is a constant chase rather than a one-off, finished job. If you let yourself slip into complacency, those hackers could find a security hole somewhere on your site and quickly take advantage.
Fortunately, though, it’s not too strenuous to secure a website once you know what to do. Just take account of the following recommended practices.
Keep your web software updated
Much like you eagerly patch up, say, your Windows or iPhone operating system whenever you are notified that a new update is available, you should make sure any platforms or scripts you have installed to create or maintain your website are up to date.
Otherwise, if a hacker uncovers a security flaw in any of this web software, you could be at this unscrupulous person’s mercy unless you remove that flaw by simply hitting an “update” button.
Encrypt pages where personal data is inputted
When people are entering sensitive data like their address or credit card number into forms on your website, you want these people to feel confident that the data will not fall into the wrong hands. You can do that by implementing SSL encryption on any of your pages asking for this data.
That way, even if a third party intercepts the data as it is sent, it will turn out to be useless to them, as it will already be encrypted.
Strip your website to the bare essentials
Yes, it can be fun to keep adding more elements – like databases, apps and plugins – to your website. However, each of these fresh additions could also give hackers another potential avenue through your site’s defences. It’s a situation where less often is more.
Therefore, if any of your site’s files, databases or applications don’t currently serve a purpose in helping to attract or keep custom, you should discard such redundant items.
Regularly back up your website and its contents
Even diligently following all of this advice wouldn’t make your website entirely bulletproof, so to say; the whole point is really just to reduce your site’s security risk, not necessarily eliminate it. Therefore, you should make sure you regularly back up all of the files comprising your site.
In doing this, you can ensure that even if anything is deleted without your authorisation, you can just restore everything back to how it was, before you start investigating the breach itself.
Implement HTTPS across your entire site
Your visitors will know they are on a HTTPS-secured site when they see “https” right there at the start of your site’s address in the browser address bar. You will want them to see this on any page of your site they visit, too, as this would help to prevent hackers from taking over the user’s login session.
Google has revealed that it awards higher search rankings to sites that use HTTPS. Here at Webahead Internet, we can help to get your site soaring in those rankings in other ways, too; just consider our SEO marketing services.
