5 Tips On How to Protect Your Website From Hackers
As a website owner, is there anything more terrifying than being hacked which altered or entirely wiped out all your hard works? With all the buzz around website hacking and personal data theft, it is very important for website owners to keep every sensitive information safe and secure.
How to make your website more secure?
Electronic thieves are invisible and fast. They use automated scripts to find holes and will exploit any vulnerability they can find on any website to manipulate important information or entirely destroy your website in a matter of minutes in different styles and attacks. You’ve worked hard on your website (and your brand) – so take the time to protect it with these basic hacking solutions!
Keep software updated
Ensuring all software is kept up to date can keep your site secure. If you do happen to be using a particular version of an item of software on your website that has proven to be vulnerable then it is important that you update as soon as possible so that you don’t come under attack; updating on a regular basis also has the added advantage of providing access to the latest and best features.
Install a web application firewall
Firewall can be software or hardware based which serves as an added layer of protection that prevent outsiders from penetrating your network and also filtering out other types of unwanted traffic, like spammers and malicious bots. It sets between your website server and the data connection and reads every bit of data passing through it.
Antivirus
Antivirus software is the most common tool in defending threats against different types of malwares and viruses. Symantec has a wide array of security and antivirus protection tools. What’s new is they have a cloud-managed solution that sets up in just a few minutes without additional staff or training, requires no new hardware, and updates automatically so you don’t waste your time worrying and just have more time running your business.
Data backup solutions
Data backup solutions should be invested especially the critical data that holds important information on payroll; excel files of financial statements, database on suppliers and customers. There are a lot of key vendors of backup solutions for small businesses. Some offer six common data storage solutions rather than going on one single storage technology.
Use strong passwords
Using strong passwords and changing them frequently is a no-brainer. Follow recommended password length of more than 8 characters with a mix of upper and lower case alphabets, numerals and special characters. Do not use dictionary words. The longer the password, the stronger is the website security. Strong passwords are not just a requirement for your email or financial transactions online, they are also imperative for your website server, admin and database passwords.
If you need to store passwords for user authentication, ensure that you always store them in encrypted form. Use a hashing algorithm, and also salt the hash to make it more secure.
Better safe than sorry, right? Thus, every website owner should invest intelligently in security to avoid losing business.