Is your website secure from cyber threats? Keeping your website safe plays a key role in protecting sensitive data and maintaining user trust. As cybersecurity threats keep changing, you need to know how to secure your website and put strong protection measures in place. Whether you run a small business site or a big online store, keeping your online presence safe has become a top concern.
This will guide you on how to protect your website from hackers and keep it safe. You’ll discover ways to improve your website’s security, beef up encryption, and guard against common attacks. We’ll also talk about setting up backups and ways to get your data back if something goes wrong. If you follow these tips, you’ll know how to build a secure website that keeps your info and your visitors’ data safe from online threats.
Make Your Website’s Access Controls Stronger
To keep hackers out and your website secure, you need to make your access controls stronger. Put good security measures in place so you can lower the chance that someone will break in and steal sensitive data.
Set Up Strong Password Rules
Setting up and maintaining robust password rules serves as your primary shield against online threats. Demand passwords with at least 16 characters mixing capital and small letters, digits, and special characters. Push for distinct passwords for every account to stop one breach from putting many systems at risk. Think about adding a password history feature that blocks users from reusing their past ten passwords.
To help manage tricky passwords, give your staff a reliable business-grade password keeper. This tool makes up, saves, and fills in tough, one-of-a-kind passwords for each account, boosting both safety and ease of use.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has an influence on security by adding an extra layer beyond passwords. It asks users to give more proof of who they are, like a code sent to their phone or made by an app. MFA makes unauthorised access much less likely even if someone gets the password.
When you put MFA into action, think about using apps instead of SMS codes, as they’re safer. To get the best security, look at hardware-based MFA options like YubiKey.
Limit Login Attempts
Putting limits on login attempts is key to guard against brute force attacks and credential stuffing. By capping the number of failed tries to log in, you make it way harder for bad guys to guess passwords or use stolen info.
Think about adding WordPress plugins like Limit Login Attempts or setting up a firewall to block suspicious repeated login attempts. Use tools like Fail2Ban to check logs and block IP addresses that show suspicious behaviour.
Make Your Website Secure with Stronger Encryption
Put SSL/TLS Certificates in Place
To help keep your website secure, begin by putting SSL/TLS certificates in place. These digital files encrypt data shared between your site and people who visit it making sure it stays private and unchanged. Start by making a 2048-bit RSA public/private key pair and creating a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Give this CSR to a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) to get your final certificate.
Once you get the certificate, put it in a safe place on your server where web users can’t access it. For Linux, this could be /etc/ssl, while Windows users should use the right IIS folder. Many web hosts make this easier with automated setup processes.
Turn on HTTPS
After you’ve put your SSL/TLS certificate in place, it’s time to switch on HTTPS for your website. This protocol keeps data transfers safeguarding important info like credit card numbers and login details. To set up HTTPS support the right way, use Mozilla’s Server Configuration tool.
To make the switch easier, use relative URLs for links within your site and stay away from external URLs that specify a protocol. Put HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) into action to skip the need for 301 redirects, which boosts both safety and speed.
Put End-to-End Encryption in Place
For apps that need top-notch security, think about putting end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in place. This high-level method makes sure that the people talking can read the messages keeping data safe even if someone grabs it while it’s being sent.
To put E2EE into action, use proven protocols like OMEMO or Axolotl. These systems have an impact on techniques such as the Diffie-Hellman key exchange and AEAD schemes to protect communications. Though tough to set up, E2EE cuts down developer risk by encoding user data, capping the info that others can access even if authorities ask for it.
Protect Your Website Secure From Common Attacks
Stop SQL Injection
SQL injection still poses a big threat to website security. To keep your site safe, begin by filtering database inputs to spot and eliminate harmful code from what users enter. Put proper data cleaning and standardisation into action to stop special characters from being seen as commands. Use prepared statements with parameters set for queries also called variable binding, for all database queries. This method helps the database tell the difference between user input and code greatly cutting down SQL injection risks.
Guard Against Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
Cross-site scripting attacks can hurt websites. They spread worms and steal private data. To stop XSS problems, check all variables in your web app. Then clean or fix them. When users need to write HTML, use tools like DOMPurify to remove dangerous HTML from variables. Also, change your code to use safe methods like textContent or value instead of risky ones like innerHTML.
Stop DDoS Attacks
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks can shut down your website by sending too much traffic. Use several ways to stop DDoS attacks:
- Spread traffic across several servers with Anycast network diffusion.
- Watch and study traffic patterns with live flexible threat tracking.
- Use caching best done through a content delivery network (CDN).
- Set limits on network traffic amounts during specific time frames.
Think about using a cloud-based DDoS protection service that scales well, adapts , and stays reliable. These services can keep an eye on network traffic non-stop and change policies to match new attack styles.
Set Up Strong Backup and Recovery Plans
Run Backups Often
To keep your website secure from unexpected problems, you need to have a solid backup plan. Think of it as insurance for your online property. How often you back up depends on how much your website content changes. For websites that update a lot, it’s best to back up . But for sites that don’t change much, backing up once a week or every two weeks might be enough.
Setting up automatic backups is important to make sure they happen and to cut down on mistakes. Many WordPress add-ons and web hosts offer ways to set up automatic backups, which makes it easier to stick to a backup schedule.
Store Backups Securely
Keeping your backups in a safe place away from your main site is essential. This guards your info against problems with local servers or hardware. Think about using cloud storage or hard drives kept somewhere different from your main server.
Use a 3-2-1 backup plan: keep 3 copies of your data, put them on 2 different types of storage, and have 1 copy off-site. This method gives your important website data several layers of protection.
Check Your Restore Process
Testing your backups often is just as key as making them. A backup you can’t restore is no good. Do practice runs to restore your site to make sure your backup files work and can bring your website back if needed.
When you test, restore full backups to databases, apps, and virtual machines. This thorough method makes sure you can recover every part of your website if an emergency happens.
Conclusion
Protecting and keeping your website secure from hackers never stops and needs constant attention and many different steps. When you tighten access controls, boost encryption, guard against common attacks, and put in place strong backup plans, you greatly lower the danger of cyber threats. These actions not shield your private data but also gain your users’ trust showing them you take their safety .
Keep in mind, cybersecurity isn’t a one-off job but an ongoing process to improve and adapt. As risks change, your security measures should too. To keep your website secure, you need to update your security protocols often, stay in the loop about new weak spots, and do security checks. For more advice on how to secure and build websites, book a consultation with the WeGetDigital team today. If you stay ahead of the game and put these plans into action, you’ll be ready to protect your website in the always-changing digital scene.
