Oftentimes one of the best methods to resolve any issue is solving it with the simplest of solutions. By now, you know how important it is to keep your website safe from malicious actors. However, once you explore the rabbit hole of website vulnerabilities, you will come across sophisticated concepts and twisted solutions.
Did you know that websites are attacked in different ways? Therefore, the effort to step up your website security game becomes crucial now more than ever. As such malicious actors constantly look for opportunities to attack unprotected websites every few seconds. It means you need to be more attentive to important cyber security techniques to avoid falling prey to their traps.
Having said that, these are some of the basic practices you must follow to beef up your website security.
What are the Best Techniques to Improve Website Security?
According to a recent study, 61% of small and medium-scale businesses have encountered cyber-attacks over the past year. Unfortunately, these are not rare, and leveling up your website security is not just preparing for the possibility of a cyber-attack but embracing an inevitability. Here are some of the best things you can do to secure your website:
Keep Your Website Updated
To make the security wall impenetrable, it is important to update your website regularly. Refrain from being under the impression that website security gets updated with regular content on your website. Rather you can think of security updates as having the latest versions of the software and plugins used on your website.
It is important to know that the security of software and plugins will start losing its credibility with each passing time, thereby creating a loophole that the third party can use. As such, outdated websites are more vulnerable to hackers’ breaches, and thus data leakages are more likely to occur.
The fact that hackers are constantly upgrading their malicious codes makes cyber-attacks even more powerful and brutal. Therefore, an outdated site cannot stand against cybercrime. Thus, make sure you have an updated website.
Install SSL Certificate and Use HTTPS Protocol on Your Website
You can ensure a robust security measure in a website when you have installed Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate connections between browsers used by your web visitors and website. The SSL certificate is important for two websites’ security reasons: authentication and data encryption.
To encrypt confidential data, an SSL certificate is responsible for encoding the details in transit between the user’s browser and your website server. The certificate leverages encryption algorithms involving private and public keys that are critical in establishing client-server communication.
Oftentimes, websites with multiple domains and subdomains use a multi domain wildcard certificate. As a result, they can secure all the domains and some domains of a website with just one single certificate.
People also says that SSL certificates costly in price and installation takes days to finish, but it is only a myth, the fact is, the SSL installation takes few minutes if you have proper knowledge on the installation process, or you can refer some external resources for the installation, and, there are multiple SSL providers available in market which offers cheap SSL certificates with a heavy discounted prices.
Use Smart Passwords
Always remember that the only barrier between a malicious actor and the power of an admin on your website is the credentials. That means if the hacker can access the credentials, nothing can stop them from getting the privileges that the admin enjoys. It can be adding a deleting contact in your end users’ website details or viewing your emails.
Therefore, you must always make sure that your password is super strong. It might seem obvious, but you will be surprised to hear this. The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre conducted a survey revealing that some passwords might be too hard to crack but are the most vulnerable. When you think of it, there is no reason a person will not use their name as the password. In some other cases, users use the family members’ names or the basketball team they love thinking that the credential might be powerful enough not to be hacked.
The bottom line is not to use any password that hackers can easily predict. For example, one might think that their birth year is the secret code they can use, but it is not true. Always remember that hackers can crack those passwords to any extent, so set them carefully.
Use a Robust Anti-Malware Program
Typically, a ransomware program will encrypt a particular site’s content and lock the owners out of it. It means the website owner will lose all access to the content until the ransom and exchanges for the decryption key.
Therefore, it has become crucial to include anti-malware software on your website security tools. Doing this will keep you alert against any malware attacks.
Often, web hosting providers offer anti-malware software in their plans; thus, website owners need not stress about it.
Use Less Detailed Error Messages
Controlling the messages that users see in case of errors on your website will give you an edge when it comes to website security. An ideal example of an error message is the 500 internal server errors. The message arises due to a problem encountered in your website, such as when it is struggling or overloaded with responding to requests from browsers.
The problem arises when the error messages tell the users the source of the problem on your website. So, it can pose a road map for hackers that will lead them to the actual weak point. However, you can control the details in the error message only by offering the users the details they need to know. This way, you want to expose your side’s weak spots, resulting in no leaking of secrets to third parties.
These are some of the secret techniques to enhance your website security. Apply them and witness the magic!
Final Two-cents
If you want to protect your growing business, you will also protect its website. While following the techniques mentioned above is not a sure-shot guarantee of your comprehensive website’s security, they will give you the upper hand and protect your organizational and customer information, keeping hackers out of your digital environment.