5 steps that you should take to increase your website security

“Bitstamp loses $5 million in BTC after security breach, suspends service”– January, 2015

“Amazon’s Twitch hacked- different data including credit card information compromised.”– March 2015

These and many more recent examples of website security breaches prove that security should always remain a topmost concern for any organization, of any size- big or small.

Here are five important steps that need to be taken at the user as well as admin level to secure your website are given below:

#1 Install SSL and protect your customer               

The information in transit – from origin till destination server is most vulnerable. If the information comprises your customers’ credit card details, online banking passwords, login details and other vital information which is sensitive in nature, then securing it is your foremost priority.

Also Read: What is Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act (DISHA) in India?

This can be done by installing SSL certificates which make information unreadable to everyone except to the destination server. SSL installed sites provide visual cues to the customer- like a padlock or a green bar with padlock in the address bar of a website and a site seal.

This confirms that site provide secure data and transactions and customer can trust the website to make a purchase.

SSL certificate ensures your customers’ security and privacy and you gain their trust and confidence. 🙂

#2 Protect your website, mitigate DDOS attacks

“The number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in first quarter of 2015 has more than doubled the number of DDoS attacks in Q1 of 2014” – Akamai Technologies’ Q1 2015 State of the Internet Security report..

The objective of DDOS attack is to saturate a service, be it a machine or a network resource, with mass external and bogus requests to such an extent that it no longer responds to its legitimate users.

But you can use Enterprise DDoS Protection Services to withstand DDoS attacks. With automated and manual detection of DDoS attacks through a pre-defined set of rules, multiple steps are taken to mitigate small and large DDoS attacks.

#3 Ensure data credibility, keep malware away from your site

Malware – a type of malicious software can easily be installed on your website by hackers to spread viruses, steal personal or financial data, and even hijack computers.

But once the data credibility is compromised, the trust goes and so do your customers. Thus you should have a website scanning tool on your site that can counter such measures.

Malware scanning tools and software like SiteLock daily scans a site for malware injections, website vulnerabilities and other threats to the website and proactively removes them.

#4 Install phishing alert service for protection against phishing

In internet fraud called ‘phishing’, the targeted web user is duped by asking to submit the personal and financial information, like username, password, bank account details, credit card and debit card details etc. for an identity theft, through fraudulent emails or fake web pages which are identical to an official website of any trusted organization.

Many website owners suffer huge losses due to phishing acts as although innocent, they are blacklisted by Google for indulging in suspicious activities.

You can avail Phishing Compromise Alert Service powered by Netcraft, a leading internet security service provider, to protect your brand with proactive identification of fraudulent sites and possible attacks. ZNetLive provides this service free of charge with its SSL certificates.

#5 Take regular backups and update plugins & themes.

It is easy to restore your database and files in the events of crash if you take regular backup. You can back up your files manually, or by using backup plugin and cPanel backup which provides backup to your home directory, SQL databases owned by you and any of your cPanel configuration settings.

SAN, NAS, installing additional drive on the server, using cloud storage (AZURE) etc. can provide solution to data loss. Dropmysite is another useful tool which provides secure and scheduled data backup, along with monitoring website uptime and response time with a single click.

Also keep your plugins and themes updated, as updated versions are bug free and more secured.

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Have any queries or feedback? Let me know in comments below