What is Website Security?
If you have been running a blog or site for a while now, you likely appreciate that website security is important to you. Thus, there is no question on how much you need to spend to guarantee the safety of your site. However, you need to take a lot of care since the website security world appears incredibly confusing and intimidating.
Many people who know the basics are not worried about potential web security risks. For you to be on the safe side too, all you need to do is learn all the website security entails, the common risks that you might face, and things that you need to do to mitigate the threats.
What is Website Security?
The clearest definition of this important phrase, ‘website security,’ is the action you take to protect your website or blog against cybercriminals, including hackers.
Nevertheless, you are also welcome to use this term to refer to any steps taken to protect your site, by extension your business, from any form of harm that is not intentionally malicious. For example, when you develop strategies to protect and restore your files that you can accidentally delete, we can still say you have enhanced your website security.
Common Website Security Risks
There are numerous web security threats that you can face, but that does not mean you have to mitigate each one of them. The best initial step is to identify the most common risks. After that, take security measures. You will not need to waste a lot of time doing this because we have already compiled for you a comprehensive list here.
- Spam
Many people think that spam is an annoying thing. Some also think it is not a big issue. If you look at your inbox now, you will likely find a few spam emails. You will also probably see some popup when you browse the Internet.
Some emails can be more malicious than you think. When bots hammer comments on your site to build backlinks, you may find that some paint you in a bad light in public. Others may pass across good messages, but the problem is that they can contain malware, which makes the experience of your online visitors unbearable.
Moreover, when Google crawlers detect the malicious URLs, you risk paying an extreme price for hosting spam. Your SEO ranking may significantly drop. What this means is that many people will not be able to find your website online, which is the last thing that you can want to hear about no matter what.
- Malware
Malicious software is possibly your biggest threat. Over 230,000 new viruses emerge every day. The common types are memory dumper, injector, bot, keystroke logger, remote administration, and remote admin. Others are anti-analysis, password utility, reverse shell, ransomware, and privilege escalation.
These various types of malware expose both you and your website visitors to severe risk. It is your sole responsibility to ensure you avoid all of them.
- DDoS Attacks
These attacks prevent users from accessing particular sites. All hackers do ensure that your site is offline. This way, your customer or audience cannot reach you.
Ways to Keep Your Site Secure
At this point, you need to discover the easiest ways to prevent common security threats. Remember, prevention is always better than cure. The secret is to avoid assuming that your site is safe. Here are your best solutions.
- SSL Certificate
When you have this certificate, the data that your site collects, including emails and credit cards, is safe. If you see your browser label your site as ‘insecure,’ it means you do not have this feature, and this can scare your visitors. The certificate will prevent hackers from accessing your data in transit.
- VPN
A competent vpn service improves your overall security as it provides a secure connection between your browser and the webserver. Hence, your web traffic is secured against snoops and anyone who intends to still your data.
- Web Application Firewall
This application will prevent malicious bots that try to exploit your site’s vulnerabilities from causing DDoS attacks. This way, your website will not slow down or crash when you least expect.
- Website Scanner
This canner evaluates security issues, such as malware and other vulnerabilities. Others such as Site Lock’s scanners also remove known-malware. Through the evaluation, you will be able to identify impending attacks in time and resolve them by doing things such as updating your software.
- Secure Password
Ensure your password does not fall in the category of the 25% that one can hack in seconds. Choose characters that no one can easily guess. Besides, use unique passwords on all your accounts and keep changing them. This way, you will keep many hackers at bay.
Final Thoughts
You have all the reasons to protect your website as much as you possibly can. The only way you can achieve this is to know the risks you face and the best ways to prevent them. If you have spent many resources setting up your website up, it either earns you some a living or has some great sentimental value to you, you can feel what this means. Many people value website security because that is what determines the difference between their organizational success and failure.