You are the owner of a website which is an ecommerce website. You sell products online to different customers. They have shared their personal information such as their address, payment information and much more, with you. Now, this data could be improperly used, if it landed in the wrong hands. Hackers try to enter a website and try to steal valuable information and data.
Cybercriminals have grown more intelligent and sneaky while trying to commit online frauds and theft. The cyberattacks on any website have grown much more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Securing a website becomes that much more important, so the data does not fall into the wrong hands.
Is Website Security Important?
Let’s say that you have a website which is used as a learning method or a hobby. So it might not have any information stored on it, but your personal data and information is still available on the website. Any hacker or cyber criminal can use this information to cause harm to you. They can also steal the hosting service allocated for your website and use it to host their own website, essentially saving their money and exploiting yours.
Now, if your website has visitors and their data is saved on the website, you also have the moral responsibility to protect them from cyberattacks. Not many people will actually think about this, but by signing up to any website, they entrust their data to the website. With that being said, you are responsible for the safety of their data and protection against innumerable threats.
Also, if the website gets compromised, the hackers might remove the data and use it to host a phishing or a scamming website.
We will discuss the harm which can be caused by a cyberattack on your website.
Financial losses
First things first, you will have to bear a financial loss, because the money invested into the domain, web hosting and other website related features is not being used by you anymore. And if you had planned to earn money from your website, it definitely cannot be done, once the website security is compromised.
Also, it can have long-lasting effects on your users, if they land on your website, they are unlikely to come back if they understand the website security is compromised.
Reputational harm
Website users will not be willing to share their information and do business with the website who is not concerned about the protection of user data. This will harm your reputation irreparably.
Search engine rankings drop
Google doesn’t want its visitors to be directed to a fake or a malicious website. If Google detects anything suspicious, it will display a warning for the visitor that something might be harmful up ahead. It is called Google Safe Browsing. So, upon seeing this warning, many users would quit the session resulting in loss of revenue.
We know that you are serious about your website and earning revenue from it, so we have listed down the steps which you can take to secure your website from malicious attacks and prevent data from being misused.
Steps to Secure Your Website
The list of steps to increase website security is never complete. The threats are constantly evolving and getting more technologically advanced. You need to make sure to follow these steps or the website data will be at risk.
Isolate your website on its own server
Try and opt for a VPS or a cloud server. We understand that the website is new and you will try to save money wherever you can, but try to manage a VPS or a cloud server.
Performance will be more than enough, and all the resources might not be completely utilised. But the most important part is that from a security point-of-view, you will have a website which is highly secure.
Shared hosting allows all the websites on the same physical server to share the resources, databases and same IP address.
Use strong passwords
When you have invested a lot in getting the hosting server of your own choice, protect it with the toughest passwords to crack. Never use simple combinations such as “12345” or ‘your name’. Try and generate a password which is a mix of two or more names and a mix of important dates or numbers. Also use special characters wherever possible.
Secure your site’s configuration files and backend
The website’s backend is the hacker’s primary target. There are many things which you can do to make the backend access more secure.
- Change the default login URL
Changing the default URL will not prevent attacks from happening but it surely will make illegal access to your server tougher for the hacker. Try and come up with some difficult-to-crack backend URL.
- Enable two-factor authentication
Two factor authentication or 2FA is open o the most widely used security protocols. In addition to the username and password, it requires you to submit an OTP shared with you on the registered mobile number and email address.
It eliminates the chances of your password getting stolen and your account getting hacked. When you have 2FA enabled on the site’s backend, it will send you a code every time you try to login. This will even notify you that someone apart from you is trying to login into your server.
Restrict access to the backend
If your website is accessed by multiple people, who work from different locations and devices, it is best if you restrict the access to the backend to your IP address only. If anyone from a different IP address would try to login, they will not be permitted to gain access. Although, if you have to travel a lot, this would not work for you as you would not be able to gain access to the backend.
Protect your site’s main configuration file
Most of the websites have a main configuration file which contains the most important settings and information, such a database login.
You have to make sure that this information is not visible to the outside viewer and they cannot misuse the information. You choose to also restrict the access to the file. If you don’t want to go with this approach and restrict access, you can also try to edit the permissions.
Employ a Web Application Firewall (WAF)
A web application firewall is a security software which is installed on the server and acts as a barrier between the website and the internet. It protects against cyberattacks including SQL injections which target the database, XSS scripting and many more.
It is not a one stop solution, but any good firewall will provide protection against most of the cyberattacks.
Keep everything updated
Softwares are designed in such a way that they need to be updated with bug fixes and patches regularly. This will keep the website security at the best possible level. Almost all of the softwares installed on the server, are adapted towards handling the threats of cyberattacks and regularly are updated with security patches.
Failing to update these applications regularly will leave a huge opening for the hackers to enter into the website and steal valuable information and data.
Website security is as important as the lock on your safe. Even if you don’t have money in the safe, you still would lock the safe completely. Because you have money invested in the safe also. Similarly, even if your website is new and does not have enough data, it should still be protected against hackers because you have invested your time and money in the website and its hosting.
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