Developing a superior online strategy is crucial for success in Digital Marketing. However, it is also paramount to think of website security, and neglecting this aspect can put both you and your customers at risk. With recent reports of security breaches on banks, federal agencies, big multinationals, and many other companies worldwide ask yourself how secure your website is. Hackers target sensitive client information and even risk draining your company and syphoning your clients’ money using the stolen data. While the issue of cybersecurity is a very complex one because it changes from time to time, it is still possible to secure your website using the following 5 simple methods.
Stay away from shared hosting
Though shared hosting is one of the cheapest solutions, especially for businesses running on limited budgets, it poses one of the greatest security risks. Often, many people using such shared hosting rarely understand that their level of risk is raised because they are bundled together with others. If the hosting services provider admits dynamic content and if one of the hosted sites is insecure, this problem will also spread to others. Instead of using shared web-hosting, consider other options such as VPS hosting or go for a dedicated server if the traffic is very high. Remember, these services are tailored to meet personal requirements and are not as expensive as they used to be in the past.
Keep your software updated
To make your website run efficiently and look enthralling, there are many components that need to operate together. Many of these applications such as MySQL and PHP among others have a number of Common Vulnerabilities (CVEs) that can give hackers unauthorised access. Though attacks via web applications are not many, it is advisable to keep your website secure by updating all the components. You can get tools such as Apt-Get Upgrade and Yum Update among others to schedule regular updates to avoid attacks.
Use firewalls and protection software
In addition to updating your website systems, make sure to use firewalls to restrict and throttle traffic coming to your site. However, using a firewall does not give your website application-level security. Consider using intrusion prevention systems that can analyse traffic in order to identify and block malicious requests. Remember that the software also requires regular updates to operate properly.
Always scan for vulnerabilities
Emerging security threats are more complex and target outdoing common updates, even bypassing firewalls. In case a threat was not detected or addressed by the aforementioned methods, the best way is carrying a comprehensive website scan for vulnerabilities. Consider using top website scanners such as DOM-based XSS that identify the problems and fixes them. You can also set the scanners to run automatically every day.
Consider contracting a web security provider
Because of the complexity of website security, many people, especially those with no background in computing prefer contracting experts for assistance. This is an easy method because your website is integrated with top security management features that proactively identify and block threats. Some of these security companies have globally spread data collection centres that help to identify threats even before they are released by attackers. While this option is simple and highly effective, it is costly because the entire responsibility is transferred to a third party.