How to Secure a Website: 8 Easy Steps
An online presence can provide your business with valuable visibility, but making a safe website ensures customer confidence in dealing with your business. While introducing a company’s website can generate convenient interactions and more brand awareness with customers, it is also essential to prioritize the security while building your website; otherwise, your site could repel the customers.
Nowadays, every website owner questions "how to make a website safe". It is suggested that HTTPS and an SSL certificate are the simplest way to protect an address, but also some other things can prevent the malware and attackers from compromising your website.
Here are the things you can implement to make your website safe:
1. Keep your website updated
If you are failing to update your website’s scripts, security, and software, then you are allowing the malware and intruders to take significant advantage of your site.
Whenever the latest update for your site is available, you must install it as soon as possible. Also, it would help if you kept your website’s certificates updated. While this will not directly increase your site’s security, but it can ensure that your website will show up in the search engines.
2. Use Security Plugins or Software
There are many types of website firewalls that you can purchase for constant protection, and also there are some hosting companies that offer adequate security plugins as well.
As you protect your personal computer with an anti-virus program, it is also essential to secure your site with effective security software.
You can easily find free firewall options or security plugins for Wix, Weebly, WordPress, and other hosting services.
WAFs (Website application firewalls) are mostly cloud-based, which means there is no need to download separate software on your computer to use them.
3. Prevent the users from uploading files
By allowing the users to upload files on your website, you are automatically creating a security vulnerability. If it is possible, you must remove all the areas and forms where website users can upload files.
By limiting the forms, the uploads will support only one type of format (for example, a JPG for images,) which can quickly fix your problem.
It is also risky if your website relies on some webpage form to cover the letter submissions. You can resolve this problem by creating an email address and adding that address to your contact page. By doing this, the users can directly email their files instead of uploading them to your particular website.
4. Install an SSL Certificate
Having an SSL certificate ensures that your site is protected and can transfer the encrypted information between your server and someone’s browser. Usually, you have to pay a fee to maintain your SSL certificate.
You can either choose a paid SSL distribution or a free service, according to your budget and business needs. Whenever you select an SSL certificate, you get three options, extended validation, business validation, and domain validation. Both the extended validation and business validation are needed by Google to get the secure bar next to your website’s URL.
5. Use HTTPS Encryption
Once you have installed the SSL certificate, your site will qualify for HTTPS encryption. You can also activate the HTTPS encryption by installing an SSL certificate to your site’s Certificate section.
If you are using a website platform like Weebly or WordPress, your website must include HTTPS. The HTTPS certificate should be renewed after every year.
6. Create Secure Passwords
Using unique passwords for your webstie’s aspects is not always effective. It would be best if you used some random and complicated passwords that are not replicated anywhere and store the key outside the website’s directory.
For instance, you can use a combination of numbers and letters as a password. Then you must store the password on a different hard drive or computer, or in an offline file.
7. Hide your Admin folders
By naming the website’s sensitive folder to “root” or “admin” might seem convenient, but it is the first place that hacker looks for. By changing the folder or file name to something else, you can make it hard for the hacker to locate your sensitive information.
8. Keep error messages simple
If your website’s error message is showcasing too much information, then malware and hacker can modify the data to gain access to your website’s root directory.
Instead of adding details to your site’s error messages, you must offer an appropriate apology and link them back to the main website.
Conclusion
These are the effective ways to make your website safe. You must read the article and focus on each step to ensure that you can protect your website from such vulnerabilities.
