In today’s digital age, having a website is essential for any business or individual to establish an online presence. However, with the increasing number of cyber attacks, it’s crucial to ensure that your website is secure and protected. In this article, we will discuss the top 7 Ways To Secure & Protect Websites.

From using SSL certificates to using strong password combinations, we will cover the most effective methods to keep your website safe from hacking and other malicious activities.

Top 7 Ways To Secure & Protect Website

Here are the top 7 ways to secure and protect your website:

1. Use Strong Passwords

Using strong passwords is one of the most important steps in securing your website. It is estimated that 70% of people use common and weak passwords, making them vulnerable to hacking and other malicious links.

A strong password is one that is difficult to guess and contains a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. It should be at least 12 characters long and should not include easily guessable information such as your name or birthdate.

Examples of strong passwords:
“T0pS3cr3tP@ssw0rd!”
“C@tD0gL0v3r#1”
“B!gB3@rH1k3r$”

It is important to not use the same password for multiple accounts, as if one account is compromised, all of your accounts are at risk.

To protect your website, you should also encourage your users to use separate passwords and consider implementing password privacy policies that enforce the use of strong passwords. Additionally, using two-factor authentication or multi-factor authentication (MFA) can add an extra layer of security to your website.

It is also recommended to use a password manager to generate and store strong and unique passwords for all of your accounts. This can help to ensure that your passwords are not easily guessable and that they are not reused across multiple accounts.

2. Install an SSL Certificate

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that creates a secure and encrypted connection between a web server and a web browser. It is designed to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information such as personal data, login details, and financial information.

An SSL certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity theft of a website and ensures that the connection between the website and the user’s browser is secure. When a website has an SSL certificate installed, the web address will begin with “https” instead of “http” and a padlock icon will appear in the address bar. Having a SSL Certificate also helps in improving website’s search engine rankings.

Examples of SSL Certificates:

1. RapidSSL
2. Comodo SSL
3. DigiCert SSL
4. GlobalSign

It is especially important for e-commerce websites, online banking sites, and other sites that handle sensitive information.

 

3. Keep Your Website Up to Date by Enabling Auto-Update

Keeping your website up to date is another important step in securing and protecting it from potential vulnerabilities and hacking attempts. This includes regularly updating the core software and frameworks that your website is built on, as well as any third-party plugins or extensions that you may be using.

Enabling auto-update is an easy way to ensure that your website stays up to date. This means that updates will be automatically installed as soon as they are available, without the need for manual intervention. This can help to ensure that your website is always running the latest version of the anti-malware software, which can help to reduce social security risk.

It is important to note that not all software and frameworks support automatic updates, in that case, it is important to manually check for updates and install them as soon as they become available.

4. Invest in Automatic Backups

Investing in automatic backups is a crucial step in securing and protecting your website. Backups are a copy of your website’s files and databases, which can be used to restore your website in the event of a disaster, hack, or other problem. Automatic backups mean that your website will be backed up at regular intervals, without the need for manual intervention.

Having automatic backup storage in place can save a lot of time and effort in case of any unexpected issues with the website. It ensures that you will have a recent version of your website that can be easily restored, which can help to minimize any downtime or lost data. Automatic backups also give you peace of mind, knowing that you can restore your website to a previous version if there is a problem or in case of a malicious attacks against websites.

Examples of automatic backup options:

UpdraftPlus for WordPress, which allows for automatic backups to be stored on cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and more.

cPanel, which provides an automatic backup feature that can save backups to your local computer or a remote server.

Jetbackup for cPanel, which allows for scheduling automatic backups, and keeping multiple versions of backups.

AWS Backup, which allows for automatic backups of Amazon Web Services resources.

It’s important to note that automatic backups should be regularly tested to ensure that they are working correctly and that you are able to restore your website from a backup if necessary. It’s also important to store backups in a separate location and cloud providers ensure that they are not lost in the event of a disaster or attack.

5. Back Up Your Site Regularly

Backing up your website on a regular basis is critical to securing and protecting it. Backups are a copy of your website’s files and databases, which can be used to restore your website in the event of a disaster, hack, or other problem. Regular backups ensure that you have a recent version of your website that can be easily restored, which can help to minimize any downtime or lost data.

There are different backup solutions for your site, depending on the type of website and hosting you are using. Below are some examples of how to back up your website regularly:

WordPress

You can use a plugin like UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy to create and schedule regular backups of your website. These plugins can save backups to your computer or to a cloud storage service like Dropbox or Google Drive.

cPanel

Many web hosting plan providers offer cPanel as a control panel to manage your hosting account, which includes an option to back up your website. You can schedule regular backups and save them to your local computer or a remote server.

Manually

You can create backups of your website’s sensitive files and databases manually by using FTP or a similar tool to download the files to your computer, or by using a command line tool like mysqldump to export your database.

It’s important to note that, to store backups in a separate location, such as a cloud-based storage service, to ensure that they are not lost in the event of a disaster or attack. And also it’s important to test your backups regularly to ensure that they are working correctly and that you are able to restore your website from a backup if necessary.

6. Use CAPTCHA and Spam Filter Plug-ins

Using CAPTCHA and spam filter plug-ins is a key way to secure and protect a website against spam and automated attacks. CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, is a tool that requires users to prove that they are human by performing a simple task, such as typing in a series of characters or clicking on a specific image. This helps to prevent bots and automated scripts from filling out forms or making comments on your website, which can be used for spam or malicious code purposes.

Spam filter plug-ins, on the other hand, help to automatically identify and remove spam comments, form submissions, and other unwanted content from your website. These security plugins use algorithms and heuristics to identify and block spam, and often allow you to customize the level of filtering to meet your specific needs.

7. Set Up a Firewall and Enable Platform-Specific Security Measures

Setting up an application of a firewall and enabling platform-specific security issues is another crucial way to secure and protect a website. A firewall acts as a barrier between your website and the internet, protecting against unauthorized access and unauthorized data transmission. The firewall filters incoming and outgoing traffic based on your specified rules and blocks any suspicious activity.

Platform-specific security measures, on the other hand, refer to the security measures that are built into the specific platform or content management system (CMS) that your website is built on. These security measures are designed to protect against common vulnerabilities and exploits and can include features such as secure file permissions, regular software updates, and security threats.