Eight Foolproof Methods of Securing Your Website

Alongside their own vigilance, the security of Internet users largely depends on a website’s security precautions. While there’s a lot of methods that can increase the website’s safety, the following eight are more than enough to provide a very comfortable experience.

Eight Foolproof Methods of Securing Your Website

1. Use HTTPS

HTTPS is a secured, improved version of HTTP – a protocol that’s used to pass the data between the web browser and the web server. It uses the SSL technology that encrypts all the data that’s being transferred by creating a unique session for each user that enters the website, with the goal of preventing eavesdropping from potential hackers. While it can be a bit difficult to set up a proper certificate if you’re upgrading from HTTP with additional costs, it’s more than worth it in the long run.

2. Update Regularly

Security standards are constantly changing, especially as the Internet continues developing. This is why you have to constantly be on the lookout for potential improvements and modifications that could help your website grow.

This means that you should read and analyze different articles related to this area on a daily basis. Apply these updates as soon as they come out since they can quickly pile up which will make you a really easy target, especially for the more experienced hackers.

3. Take Care of Your Passwords

Even though this is a number one security tip, many people disregard it since it’s quite tedious. Keeping the same passwords for longer periods of time is extremely dangerous as the brute-force cracking methods rely on exactly this characteristic.

By changing them frequently, even if someone started the process of hacking the website you’re resetting them to the very beginning. There are plenty of random password generators out there that use various different symbols, making the password virtually uncrackable. Also, make sure to store them in a secure place, ideally somewhere where there’s solid encryption.

4. Set Up Automatic Backups

Having a complete, backed up image of your website is an invaluable asset. Unfortunately, remembering to do this and then doing it manually is arguably even more tedious than changing passwords. Setting up an automatic website backup system not only takes that burden off your back, but it also comes with uncountable additional benefits such as improved reliability, disaster recovery, data versioning, protection against data loss, etc. With hundreds of plugins out there designed for this purpose, you won’t have a tough time finding one.

5. Avoid File Upload

If uploading files isn’t something that your users can’t function without, it’s better to avoid it altogether. Otherwise, you should take some precautions to avoid any malicious side-effects. This includes restrictions on large files, as hackers can easily DDoS your website with just a couple of computers. Also, there’s a good reason why many websites prevent archived files from being uploaded. They can potentially hide malware that can go unnoticed and infect a large number of users, so you’re best off prohibiting them.

6. Use Cybersecurity Tools

If you’re bad at discovering vulnerabilities on your own, there are specially designed tools to help you with exactly that. Most of them try to fit everything that you might need in one single package, Of course, the more they have, the more you’ll have to be willing to pay a higher price. Some of their features include vulnerability scanning, behavioral analytics, incident management and others. A few high-quality ones even employ AI aspects to improve their efficacy.

7. Don’t Share Compromising Information

Passwords, emails, documentation and other delicate pieces of data should be held in full confidentiality. As soon as you send them to someone, whether it be through social media or apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp, you’re making them a potential target for hackers.

Anything that could cause you or your users financial losses should be kept exclusively under top-notch security conditions. If you really have to share some information with them, try to do it offline via a phone call.

8. Ignore Strange Links

Business emails are often the target of spam, malware and other bad stuff. You shouldn’t open anything that doesn’t come from a trustworthy sender whose email address you’re able to recognize. Sometimes, however, they can be a bit tricky to differentiate between, which is where Spokeo can help you.

When looking at the tool as a whole, Spokeo is a people intelligence service that collects and centralizes data from billions of property, historical, business, and consumer records. Through its email search feature, you’re able to receive feedback about the owner of that particular email address. Spokeo gives a whole lot of details including the person’s full name, social media accounts, criminal records, etc. This way, you could know for sure if the email comes from a reputable source or if you should avoid it.

Maguire Haigh is a marketing manager for Spokeo. He is interested in the latest technology trends, marketing strategies and business development. He also prefers traveling, exploring the world and meeting new people. Maguire has great experience in creating and editing articles on different topics.