According to some statistics, hackers have targeted over 80% of business websites, with 85% of small business websites reporting stolen sensitive information. These attacks literally hold your infrastructures until you pay a fee. So you need to protect your business website, valuable data, and online assets from hackers and other tech-savvy thieves. In this article, we will talk about how to protect your website data and business from hackers and other security breaches.
Why is website security important?
There are several reasons to have a secure business website, such as:
- To prevent malware or viruses being uploaded to your website
- To stop Phishing emails being posted through your website
- To make sure that your website visitors and your website is secure.
- To acquire a better ranking in the search engine like Google, Bing, etc
- To defend your business from getting hacked and to preserve against losing relevant data.
What occurs if your website is not secure?
If you don’t secure your website well, hackers can target it and exploit any weaknesses.
They have a variety of hacking tools, but the main ones are:
- Middle Man Attack(MMA) – where the user’s details are obtained between your website and the person’s browser.
- Malware Uploads – Malware is inserted to your website through vulnerabilities in the code.
Easy steps to secure your business website from hackers
Here are some of the best ways to protect your business website from hackers
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Implement system updates, Logins, and email:
Robust business website security starts by implementing best practices and sound preventative measures, to keep attackers out, which means securing what you control. You need to:
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Keep your website software up to date:
Today many SMBs and individual updating their computer system OS. Users with updated Windows OS before the attack were secure. All these attacks can bring the entire website down, and also networks, businesses and other institutional systems. The fix includes establishing automatic updates that will fix the latest security updates.
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Update your website platform and software:
Update your content management system, apps, scripts and plugins. Both malicious hackers and developers can easily access the code of these tools since they are open-source software programs. For example, if you have a WordPress website, then your base installations and third-party plugins installed will have vulnerable unless you maintain regular updates to the newest versions.
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Use Strong Passwords:
You can protect your website by creating strong passwords which are long and have a mix of special characters, letters and numbers. Never use easy to guess keywords or personal information and never use the same password across multiple online platforms. Make sure that everyone with access to your website uses a similar strong password.
- Multiple-factor authentication: It is the best practice to adopt multiple-factor authentication where your admins, contributors, and employees can access to your website’s backend with a valid userID, password, and a unique authenticator number.
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Secure your email systems:
Infected email attachments can cause a considerable number of hacks, data breaches and network attacks. Besides, organizations use email security protocols such as spam guards and virus scans to protect against hackers. Hackers are still generating new inventive ways to get access to your email and harm your computer systems. Even you can implement the best practices that include employee scrutiny and education, as well as automated scans.
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Use SSL connection:
A secure sockets layer(SSL) certificates assure the security of the online association between your website and your users. SSL gives all information that passes between browsers and servers in encrypted and transmitted securely. This prevents hackers from intercepting and accessing data in transit between users browsers and web servers.
- Use Parameterized Queries: SQL injections are a typical website hack. Your website is susceptive if your web form or URL parameter enables outside users to supply information. Bequeathing these parameters fields too open can give someone access to your database by embedding code into them. You must guard your business website against all these vulnerabilities as your database holds a lot of sensitive customer data. To preserve your business website from SQL injection attacks, you need to implement the use of parameterized queries to assure that your code is secure enough to prevent hackers from messing with it.
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Set up site backups:
Website backups are crucial to the security of your data from hackers, administrator errors and loss. You need to communicate with your e-commerce platform or hosting provider to inquire if they give automatic backup services. If this is not possible, then you need to assure that you either own backups or find third party service.
- Use CSP: Cross-site scripting attacks are another common threat you need to consider which occurs when the hacker slips malicious JavaScript code to your website pages, which can harm the pages of all your website visitors who are revealed to the code. Content Security Policy(CSP) is another tool that can help defend your website from XSS attacks. It provides your site admin to specify the domains that browsers should consider valid which is executable scripts sources when on your page. Hence the browser pays no attention to malware or malicious script that may infect your visitor’s system. Using the CSP needs you to craft and add exact HTTP headers to your webpage that produce a string of directives which tell browsers which are okay and any exceptions to pay attention.
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Observe the PCI DSS:
If your website accepts payments, then you require to see the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard(PCI DSS). PCI DSS, widely trusted, aims to optimize the safety of all debit, credit, and cash card transactions, guarding cardholders against personal information abuse. You require to guarantee PCI DSS compliance despite your size or number of transactions.
Bottom Line
A secure business website is something that customer expect when visiting your site. This security stretches beyond securing just online payments. You need to encrypt all your data transmissions SSL certificates, guard your systems from intrusions, backup your relevant data, use robust passwords and multiple-factor authentication, use parameterized inquiries and CSP, fix automated OS and plugin updates and guard your site against malware.
Krify is the leading website development company in India and the UK. We have well-experienced web developers having knowledge of all the trending technologies. For more details please contact us today!
