How to secure your Website?

Ever wondered of how to secure the website? I bet you haven’t until now. In either case, no need to worry much as today’s post is all about how to secure a website. Let’s start with the introduction first.

After developing a website and uploading content over it doesn’t complete your task. Website security is an important issue that can’t be left behind at any point time be it for a website related to a small business or a bigger one. According to a report, 43% of the victims of data breaches were small website holders. So, every website needs security from hackers, intruders, malware, etc. If not, then you can see your entire site being attacked and the content wiped off. Thinking of this only can shake the mind of the blogger or the owner of that website. So, without wasting any time, let’s begin with some of the best practices which anyone can make use of in order to secure his/her website from attacks.

Table of Contents 

1. Update your Website Regularly 
2. Use Security Plugins
3. Use Secure Passwords 
4. User Access
5. Invest in Regular Backups
6. Use SSL and HTTPS 
7. Use Secure Hosting Provider

Now, these all will be discussed in detail in the upcoming section. So, stay tuned until the end to find out the answer to your query, How to secure the website? So, stay tuned till the end.

1. Update your Website Regularly 

One of the most common ways of securing your website is to update it on a regular basis. Using a CMS like WordPress for creating a website, makes it easier for hackers to pore over the code as WordPress is an open-source platform and this makes each and every code easily accessible to anyone. Therefore, one of the common practices to prevent this is to keep everything including the software, plugins, tools, etc. on WordPress updated. To, do so, you can check for their updates in the Updates section of your WordPress dashboard.

Here, you will see updates related to your plugins, themes, etc.

2. Use Security Plugins

Being an open-source development platform, WordPress codes are easily accessible to anyone including the common man and the hackers. Just like antivirus is installed In the computer to prevent it from viruses, WordPress comes with various free and paid security plugins that one should install on the website. These provide a constant layer of protection to the websites. Some of the popular WordPress security plugins are listed below:

• iThemes Security 
• Bulletproof Security 
• Sucuri
• Wordfence
• fail2Ban

Additionally, you can give SiteLock a try for your CMS-driven site or an HTML page as it does more than protecting the website. It monitors every activity going on your website from any malware detection to any sort of security vulnerabilities on it. Sucuri is a paid plugin for security purpose and along with SiteLock, forms the deadly combination for malware and hackers. So, these are worth trying.

3. Use Secure Passwords

It’s human nature to go after the simple things in life. The same happens with the passwords that we create to protect our accounts. And, the award for the SIMPLEST password ever created and used goes to 123456. Isn’t it? But it’s an evil practice to use such simple and easily hackable passwords with WordPress especially. Not only this one, but there is also a complete list of such passwords via which any unknown can login into your site. 

A password is the only thing, where you are motivated to use a bunch of special characters, numbers, hidden characters, etc. to develop a long and robust password. Also, make sure that anyone who you have granted access to your website, uses a strong password too to prevent data breaches. So, make some efforts in figuring out the best password for your account and for that, you can use password generators.

4. User Access

User access is another reason for causing a security vulnerability on a website. Users get access to upload any file with a virus onto your account/site or fills up forms which help hackers to attack your site. So, keeping control on which files to be uploaded and by whom, is the right thing to practice. Hence, if possible, remove any form or area on which anyone can add files. Listed below are two precautions to be taken if the above is not possible.

• Limit the format for pictures, files, etc. to be uploaded to a single one. For example, .jpg is best for pictures.
• Try to add an email address for submission of files rather than providing options for uploading them.

So, user access plays an important role in protecting your website as you don’t know the who exactly is uploading files onto your system/site.

5. Invest in Regular Backups 

Like every coin has two sides, in a similar way, even if you have done everything I mentioned above, you may encounter a scenario in which your entire content may get wiped out. This is also a form of a hack. The most common cause for this is not having a proper backup system and that too, an automatic system. I know data breaches are common nowadays, but even then, the recovery can be easy if you have a backup. You can manually back up your entire site manually but once a wise man said, invest in automatic backups. So, get some investment done in automatic backups, today!

6. Use SSL & HTTPS 

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is a certificate that confirms that your website is secure and safe for sharing sensitive data like personal information, important data, and credit card information between the server and your website. There are three options while choosing an SSL certificate and these are:

• Domain Validation 
• Business Validation 
• Extended Validation 

If you desire for that green ‘Secure’ bar before your URL, then both, Business and Extended Validations are mandatory by Google along with the HTTPS encryption. 

(Source: www.hostgator.com)

Today, an SSL certificate is necessary for any kind of websites including the e-commerce sites. 

Now, after getting the SSL certificate, you are not done yet! You have to make sure that your website qualifies for HTTPS encryption for safer browsing over the World Wide Web. It has to be renewed at regular intervals. If you are using WordPress, then HTTPS encryption is already in use.

Note: With BlueHost, you get a free SSL certificate installed.

7. Use Secure Hosting Provider 

Lastly, as the topic suggests, choosing a hosting provider has many things to do with website security. So, choosing a secure hosting provider again will consume your time. But, as my ritual is of helping you with your problems at every point of time, I am providing you with the best hosting provider, SiteGround. SiteGround is an exceptional hosting provider at affordable pricing and provides its users with 24/7 support regarding any query. Plus, an SSL certificate and HTTPS encryption come with all their plans. ModSecurity is also installed on all the servers of SiteGround that monitors any suspicious activity on your website. Additionally, I am listing down some of the key points to be kept in mind while choosing the BEST hosting provider.

• The chosen hosting provider should provide 24/7 monitoring to prevent zero anomalies with the website.
• All the plans should have a robust anti-virus system installed so as to minimize virus attacks.
• The server should have a firewall to filter out spam website requests from unknowns.
• Lastly, your preferred hosting service should have an option for domain name privacy.

In my opinion, SiteGround easily fits with all these expectations and thus, a must-try option.

So, with this, our blog on How to Secure a Website comes to an end and just to inform you, these 7 tips and tricks are some of the many tricks one can employ for the security of his/her website from hackers.