A business website can have so many advantages. It can be used as a mechanism for accessing new and reliable customers as well as improving the effectiveness of your advertisements. In short, it is a perfect way of marketing your products.it is a perfect idea that any business should have a website.
Website owners should, however, be keen when it comes to the security of their websites. There exists a plethora of security concerns that come with sites. According to the Juniper research report, $2 trillion in losses resulted from cybercrime. Hackers are always on the lookout for any loophole in a website. They can take advantage of such loopholes to ruin the business and destroy its reputation. Therefore, website owners should put up the necessary mechanisms to ensure the ultimate security of their websites. This article explains the steps that security owners should put in place to achieve this.
1. Choose a Proper Content Management System
Content management systems enable the user to create and manage all the pages of a website on a single interface. It is, therefore, an essential tool to create a website and manage all the content on it. A robust content management system is needed to create a secure and robust site.
The content management system is also able to defend your website from any security threats and vulnerabilities and reduce security gaps. Joomla and WordPress are the two best Content Management System that you should go for.
2. Install a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate
The first step to creating ultimate security for your website is by installing a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate onto the site. An SSL certificate protects all your online data and information transfers with 256-bit encryption. Hackers and other unauthorized people cannot be able to access such sensitive information.
Multi-Domain Wildcard SSL Certificate is one of the best SSL certificates that is available today. It secures multiple domain names, subdomains and multi-level subdomains. Purchasing and installing it will be a big security strategy for your website.
3. Select a Reliable Web Hosting Company
The degree of your website security entirely depends on the web hosting provider that you choose. Each web hosting company has unique benefits that it will offer to your site. That is why you should keenly select a web host provider to maximise on the security benefits. It would help if you went for a web hosting company that provides web application firewalls to your website as well as denial-of-service (DDoS) protection. A web application firewall will prevent any attempts of an intruder to break into your website. It monitors cross-site scripting and Structured Query Language, which are two severe issues through which your confidential information can be exposed. A web hosting provider is, therefore, a crucial aspect of any website security.
4. Use Strong Passwords
Passwords are an essential security feature that secures your account from the access of intruders. A website owner ought to be very keen when choosing a password. Some of the password best practices are as follows.
- Passwords should be long enough- eight or more characters
- Passwords should be complex- avoid using guessable passwords
- Passwords should be a combination of both letters, numbers and symbols
- Users should avoid using similar passwords on multiple accounts
Apart from the use of strong passwords, a website owner should also enable a multiple-step authentication. This is where the user logs in to his account using his password and a security code that is sent to his mobile device. This system strengthens the website security.
5. Carry Out Regular Backups
Backup acts as a contingency strategy just in case things fail to go as planned. For this reason, it is wise to carry out regular backups. This helps in situations where you lose crucial data, or a hacker compromises your website. A backup will help to retrieve the lost data and content. It is essential to keep all your data in a reliable location such as a central server to protect the data against potential risks and security threats. We recommend that you work with an automatic backup system that initiates the backup on its own. This will save you the time of tasks of starting from scratch. An automated backup technology can also give excellent results. Thus, system collects data routinely and can be of great essence in the event of data loss.
6. Use Web Application Firewalls
A web application firewall secures web application though filtering and keeping an eye on the HTTP traffic that exists between the internet and a web application. There is a gallery of cyber risks that a vulnerable website is exposed to; they include DDOS and Bots. Adding a web application firewall is, therefore, a holistic security defence mechanism that, together with other mechanisms, create a perfect website security defence.
7. Manage add-ons and Plugins
Plugins and add-ons are the best when it comes to maximising the users’ experiences on your website. However, you should not overburden your website with excess plugins and add-ons as this will be hazardous. Too much of them reduce the performance of your website and impede responsiveness. It would help if you managed all the plugins from both your Content Management System and third-party users to make sure that only the best and useful plugins are added onto your site.
8. Carry Out Regular Updates
Sometimes there will be an update pop-up on your website. Never ignore this call. New versions of websites come with upgraded security features and rectified faults that the previous versions had. It would help if you took your time to install these updates to improve on your website security.
Summary
Website security is an essential component that every website user should be willing and ready to invest in. A secure website is an assurance for the current and the future wellness of the site and the business at large. This article provides the steps that you should follow to ensure for your website security.
