For a website owner, one of the most frightening things is to find that your website is no longer online. All your work or source of income can no longer be accessed by existing and potential customers.
As a website owner, always ensure that you secure your website to prevent this from happening.
There are many ways that you should consider to secure your website. All are equally important as they will help to safeguard your portfolio or business website.
Get An SSL Certificate
Simple Secure Lockets (SSL) certificate is an integral part of website security. Without it, you will find that your website gets few if any visitors.
Why is this so?
When you get an SSL certificate, your website URL prefix changes from HTTP to HTTPS. The added “S” signifies that your website has added security.
Google, the most used search engine even announces to potential website visitors that websites without SSL certificates are unsafe. Many web users will not visit or transact on a flagged website. This is why websites without SSL certificates have fewer visitors.
The SSL certificate encrypts any information on the website. This makes your website capable of handling sensitive personal and financial information.
Regular Anti-Malware Scans
As website security improves, so do the hackers. They develop new tricks to catch up with the security measures being introduced. One of the tricks hackers use is stealth. They do this by infecting your website with malware before they can infiltrate it completely.
For this reason, a website owner must carry out regular anti-malware scans. There are many malware scan tools that a website owner can use. Comodo provides a website malware scanning tool that is free to use.
All you have to do is enter your website domain. In a few minutes, you will have a detailed report on the security status of your website. Further, any malware found on your website will be removed.
Hire A Team Of Website Security Experts
The anti-malware tool is driven by a team of website security experts. For a small monthly payment, you are sure that your website is protected by the best. Your team of security experts will ensure that any stealth hack attack is detected and blocked immediately. It will run several anti-malware scans to maintain high standards of security on your website.
Regular Updates Of Your Website Software
The majority of websites on the internet are based on a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress. The CMS service occasionally updates its software systems. As a website owner, make sure that your website accepts the updates automatically. This ensures that your CMS software is up to date and without vulnerabilities. Hackers look for websites that are running on out-of-date software. Such websites are an easy target to hack and gain access to.
Also, ensure that all plugins and any other software that you use on your website are up-to-date. Carry out regular checks to maintain your website security.
Educate Yourself
As a website owner, a key factor of website security is that you keep learning how hackers operate.
One of the key hacking techniques that relies on human psychology and sometimes ignorance is phishing. This is where hackers send you e-mails with fake links. Once you click on the link, you invite malware into your website. The emails may also ask you to provide sensitive information on your website such as access credentials. Always confirm that the emails you offer such information are credible and correct.
If you don’t do this, you will be helping the hackers to hack your website.
Backup Your Website
On rare occasions, your website security may get compromised. To recover from this position quickly, you need to have a backup of your website in another secure location.
This ensures that, if your website is wiped off the internet, you can recover it from a backup and set it up online to maintain business continuity and customer trust.
Make sure that you can backup your website automatically. This ensures that you don’t have to remember to carry out a regular manual backup. And when you need it, you will have all your recent updates on the website.
Conclusion
As a website owner, you should always consider website security. When your website is secure, your customers are happy to interact and transact on it. A secure website helps to build trust and a good reputation. You can always use freely available tools to assess and upgrade your website security.
