Imagine you created a website for your business and you’ve been using this website to drive sales for years then all of a sudden, you lose total access to from both the front and back end because you didn’t take proper steps to protect your website from hackers.
I’ve been there. And this year alone, we’ve had to recover a number of hacked websites for clients who oftentimes are always left wondering how the hacking came to be in the first place.
If you’ve ever had your website hacked or infected by a malware, you’ll realize how traumatizing it can be. Especially when you lose total access to the website.
But, things like this can be avoided if you and your website developer are able to take the proper measures to protect your website in advance. And in this post, I’ll be sharing with you some of the measures you must take to keep your website safe from hackers.
Keep your Website Updated
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One of the most crucial steps you’ll take to protect a website from hackers is to keep it updated because cyber threats are currently evolving and these updates are necessary to patch or protect against vulnerabilities.
Software developers are releasing updates to fix vulnerabilities at intervals so hackers cannot exploit them. And if you’re not updating your website to meet up with the most recent versions of the application you’re using, you’re actively leaving the website vulnerable to attacks.
It gets worse if you’re using content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla etc. to run your website because outdated CMS, themes and plugins are always popular targets for attack by hackers.
To be on the safe side, take steps to update your website including plugins, themes and CMS (if you’re using any). This will take care of vulnerabilities that could have been hijacked by hackers.
Also, if you’re using a CMS, there are features you can use to enable auto update for your plugins. This keeps your website updated even if you’re not physically present to do that.
But while setting up auto update, be available to monitor developments on the website at intervals to ensure everything runs smoothly as some updates could cause disruptions.
Use Strong Passwords
Passwords breaches are very rampant. And a large number of hacked websites are as a result of weak password. So, it is not merely important to use a strong password if you want to protect a website from hackers, it is very crucial to use one if you want to keep your website functioning.
Steps to take to protect your website password
- Use a strong mix of passwords that is difficult to guess. A brute force attack uses an automated software to try a number of passwords until it matches the right one. Without using a password that is difficult to guess, your passwords could be susceptible to a brute force attack.
- Avoid using publicly available information like your birthdays etc. as your password as this information could be targeted to be used access your website if a hacker has access to it.
- Also, as much as possible, do not use the same passwords across all your website or platforms as a breach on one of the platform can give access to a breach on other of your platforms using the same passwords.
- Force all website users to use a strong password. If you’re running a website that is accessible by different users, each with their profile, force each user to use a strong password
Even after taking these measures, take steps to change your passwords at intervals to further enhance your password security.
Install and use an SSL Certificate
An SSL (Secret Socket Layer) certificate is a security protocol that enables an encrypted connection between a website and a user’s browser. It is what ensures that a website user’s browser like login details, credit card numbers etc. are safe, while they are using your website.
To protect a website from hackers and ensure your user’s data are not hijacked by third parties while they are connected to your website, you have to install an SSL certificate on your website and also ensure it is end to end encrypted.
Beyond protection also, the SSL certificate has continuously featured in some lists as a key factor for website ranking and search engine optimization at large in terms of website safety.
Generally, beyond its technical function, it is also a feature that aids user experience as a website without an SSL certificate will always throw up the “insecure error” in some browsers. This error can discourage users from proceeding to use your website.
Set Security tools & Implement their Functionalities
There are a number of security tools you can use to secure a website from hackers. Some of these are on the hosting backend of your website like your cPanel etc., others are tools from third party platforms and tools you can add to your website.
These includes applications like:
- Immunify 360: This application is available on the cpanel of your website. You can use it to scan the entire website against malwares, virus etc. It can also disinfect the website directly from the cpanel, if there are attacks at that level.
- Cloudflare: Some webhosting offers traffic filtering, using advanced security platforms like cloudflare and other alternatives to protect against distributed denial of service (DDoS) etc. even if your hosting does not have this option, you can set up your website on cloudflare.
- CP Guard: There is also the CP Guard, a robust security feature on the cPanel that protects websites against viruses, malwares and brute force attack, using Realtime monitoring. Be sure your hosting has this feature in place.
- Web Application Firewall (WAF): A website application firewall acts like a security shield for your website, filtering traffic to block web based attack before they get to your website. You can set this up using your cpanel or with third party security plugins.
- Security Plugins: There are a number of security plugins that can secure a website from hacking by scanning the website for malwares, hardening login pages and monitoring for file changes.
There are also a number of other tools you can use to protect a website from hackers and malwares like Hotlinking protection, Leech protection, IP Blocker etc. setting up these tools properly can give your website an enhanced layer of protection.
Run Periodic Security Scans
Sometimes you may not know what is going on with your website until things get out of hand. This is why periodically scanning your website with security applications is a great way to identify vulnerabilities, changes and find out the inner workings of your website security.
It is a security measure you have to take seriously if you plan to protect your website from hackers and malwares. And it has to be done both from the cPanel level (if you have a cPanel) and at the website backend level.
Scans help in early detection of vulnerabilities before it becomes a problem. It can get you to know what you’re dealing with, steps to fix security vulnerabilities and how to stop de-escalate security issues.
Continuous scans can also ensure your security architecture adapts to new attack techniques, thus helping the tools to spot attacks before they happen.
Instead of having to set up the scanning by yourself, you can also have it set up to run at automatically either with the use of a third-party security plugin or setting up the security architecture on your cPanel.
Use a Secure Hosting
Your web hosting can influence your website’s vulnerability to attacks. Unfortunately, this has not always been listed as a top item to look out for when choosing a hosting in most cases.
But here’s the truth; if you’re not using a secure hosting provider, all your effort to protect your website from hackers might prove abortive.
So, while shopping for a hosting provider, you have to consider their reputation in terms of website safety. Find out what other users are saying about the hosting company in that regards, before making a final decision.
Also, remember that hosting options like shared hosting for instance can leave some websites vulnerable to attacks from third party websites, hosted on the same servers.
One of the first hacking attack we had many years ago was caused by a situation like this. You have to watch out for a potential situation like this before deciding on using a hosting platform.
Keep an active Backup
A website backup can serve as a life saver if your website gets under a cyber-attack. In fact, if your website gets hacked, you might not be able to retrieve the website or have it restored exactly as it was in some cases.
If that happens, you might have to rely on restoring an old back up of the website otherwise you might risk losing the website entirely if it was not backed up.
For best result, a backup is a proactive measure that might not necessarily be taken to protect a website from hackers but one that gives you a lifeline if your website gets badly attacked.
Like I said earlier, if a website is badly affected, it might be difficult to retrieve the website so you can naturally get to use the most recent back up.
For the best results, consider having a copy of your website backup, outside your hosting platform, just in case the backup on your hosting becomes corrupted.
Final Words
Securing your website from hackers is a crucial step you must take if you want to preserve the integrity of your brand, keep your business growing and also protect the interest of your users.
In addition to what you just learned today, there are so many ways you can take to protect your website. For example, change default settings, monitor and manage what is uploaded on your website if you’re accepting uploads, limit log in options and also have in place an incident management plan for website recovery.
Beyond all of this, take your website maintenance as an important priority. Even where you hire third party service providers to manage your website, login at intervals to ensure everything is running as expected.
And finally, you don’t have to wait for your website to get hacked before you reach out to our team to manage, monitor and keep your website up and running. Reach out to us here let’s get started.
Now it’s over to you. What are your main challenges when it comes to protecting a website from hackers? Drop your comments below.
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