Easy Ways to Ensure Website Security

 In the world that we live in today,it is impossible to imagine a life that is devoid of the Internet. Since the advent of the Internet, it has revolutionized the way we lead our lives. From how we learn, gather information, entertain ourselves to how we stay connected with everyone and conduct our business and work, every aspect has been impacted significantly by the Internet. The importance of Internet cannot be emphasized enough and is clearly evident.

The way the Internet has become an inherent part of our lives with its presence in almost every aspect of our lives, makes it unavoidable to not have our privacy entangled with having a safe experience over the Internet. Every step must be taken to ensure that one has a safe experience when surfing the Internet. If proper care is not taken, then the cyber criminals can use a website to infect that site’s visitors with malware as well as steal the data from that website along with the confidential information of those visiting that website. The website owner of such a business, can incur an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) penalty which will make it challenging for this business to acquire new customers online. An infected website can get blacklisted. This can result in it losing its traffic and, in turn, revenue. Moreover, website clean-up costs way more than investing in proper security measures that will ensure the safety of a website.

The importance of ensuring proper security of a website can never be overemphasized. Any negligence can give the cyber criminals the opportunity that they are always waiting for, to exploit and take advantage of. Ensuring a website’s security can involve steps that range from being very simple and cost-effective to very complex and expensive. But there are some best practices that need to be followed and it is these on which this blog aims to shed light upon.

The first and foremost of these preventive security controls might sound so commonplace but is often overlooked, which makes a website vulnerable to cyber attacks. It is imperative to keep the software that one is using, up-to-date. This entails keeping updated all platforms and installed scripts. Any security issue that is part and parcel of a web software is an easy target for cyber criminals. Hence, programs need to be updated constantly, to overcome any fundamental security flaw that pre-exists. The importance of maintaining and updating software should be made a necessary part of one’s cyber security regimen.

When we think of cyber security, one of the very first things that comes to our minds is the word, “password”. In the context of passwords, it is of utmost importance to use a strong password. Cyber criminals are known to use Brute Force Attack to guess login information, encryption keys as well as find a hidden web page. The easiest way to ensure protection against this kind of a cyber attack, where one’s login data is at risk, is by creating passwords that are complex and contain letters of both, uppercase and lowercase, along with special characters and numerals.

Another important step that needs to be taken care of regarding one’s login pages, is to encrypt such pages. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption needs to be used on one’s login pages. SSL certificates create an encrypted connection which establishes a secure connection. SSL allows a secure transmission of sensitive data and confidential information,such as social security numbers, credit card details and login credentials. Any information that is entered on such a page is encrypted, so that it becomes meaningless to any third-party that might lay its hands on it. This proves to be of substantial help in averting any attempt at stealing one’s login credentials and other confidential data.

Keeping one’s website clean is another necessary security measure that needs to be taken care of. This should be ensured by deleting from one’s website such files, applications and databases which are no longer in use.It helps to keep one’s file structure organized to keep track of any changes that are made. Any website’s security scans must be performed regularly to bring to light any vulnerabilities related to the website or the server. Such security scans should be run in a scheduled manner, and more so whenever any change or addition is made to the website.

It is always advisable to backup one’s data regularly. In the untoward situation of one’s site becoming inaccessible or its data being lost, maintaining regular backups of one’s websites’ files will come in handy. One must make sure that one’s web hosting service provider backs up his own servers regularly. Somecontent management programs come with plugins and extensions that enable automatic backup of one’s website. Apart from that, one should back up regularly one’s databases as well as one’s content manually.

Every website has its files stored on the web server of some web hosting company. This web hosting company provides the server space, technology and the services that are needed to store and deliver the files of a website to its end users. Hence, it becomes crucial to opt for the web hosting services provided by such a company that has earned the reputation of being reliable and secure in its operation. Choosing a web hosting service that takes security issues seriously is extremely important. The web host should be abreast of the latest security threats and should use all the necessary controls to keep cyber attacks at bay, in order to keep the hosted website and its visitors safe from any cyber threat. The web host must not only provide constant technical support along with backup service (where the websites’ data is stored on a remote server) but also ensure that it is easy to restore the data in the unfortunate event of any site being hacked.

These are some of the very easy ways to keep one’s website secure as well as one’s experience of using the Internet safe. As the saying goes, “better safe than sorry”, it is always better and highly advisable to take proper security measures that help one to steer clear of cyber attacks.  Some website, at some place, is experiencing some cyber assault at this very moment. Cyber attacks have become extremely common these days and no one as well as no website with security vulnerabilities can remain immune to these attacks for long. Hence, greater emphasis should be placed on ensuring cyber security by employing every means that is possible.

Source:https://www.htshosting.org/index.php/knowledgebase/4/Easy-Ways-to-Ensure-Website-Security.html