Follow These 7 Simple Steps & Strengthen Your Web Security Dramatically

With countless websites getting compromised every day, website security has become a major concern of business owners across the world. Even a minor data breach can damage a company’s reputation. According to a report done by IBM & Forbes Insight, 46% of organizations have suffered reputational damage due to a data breach. It has therefore become more important than ever for businesses to take every possible step to increase their security.

According to the 2016 IBM X-Force Cyber Security Intelligence Index, healthcare is the most cyber attacked industry. The report states that over 100 million patient records across the world were breached last year.

Healthcare organizations are juicy targets just because they have a huge amount of personal information such as social security numbers, payment information, health insurance information, etc that can be used for fraud. According to a recent Washington post story, these data are sold by hackers on a black market in the dark web.

However, the good is that you can easily avoid being hacked by following a few simple steps. So take a look at these simple security steps that can help you strengthen the security of your business website and protect your website from hackers.

Always keep your software updated

Everyday numerous websites are compromised just because they use outdated and insecure software. Older versions of a CMS, especially WordPress, are more prone to attacks. Therefore keeping all platforms or scripts that you have installed updated is highly important.

Perform Regular Backups

Hackers are getting smarter day by day. Despite taking careful precautions, disaster can come anytime. Hence, it is incredibly important to backup your website on a regular basis. There are numerous backup solutions available today. Also, you can sign up for Sucuri Website Backup solution, a very simple configuration that works off FTP / SFTP & stores all your content in the cloud, including the database.

Don’t forget to choose secure passwords

Never choose simple and easy-to-guess passwords. If you do so, hackers may try to maliciously access your website by trying exhaustive combinations of letters as well as numbers in order to guess your login credentials. Your password should be unique and complex. Hence it is better to use a combination of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, & symbols.

Always encrypt your login pages

You should always use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption on your login pages. You can transmit all your sensitive information like social security numbers, login credentials and credit card numbers safely with SSL. Information entered on a page is encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.

Keeping website clean is also very important

Never forget to delete any applications, files or databases from your website that are no longer used. Also, it is important to keep file structure organized so that you can keep track of changes and easily delete old files.

Keep scanning your website for vulnerabilities

Always perform web security scans regularly in order to check for website as well as server vulnerabilities. You can get numerous free tools on the Internet that will help you measure how secure your website is. However, these tools will not be able to detect each and every possible security flaws of your website.

Choosing a secure host is important

It is very important to choose a reputable and secure web hosting company. Your host should always back up all your crucial data to a remote server so that it becomes easy to restore them in case your website is hacked. Your host should also provide ongoing technical support whenever you need it.

Conclusion

Always remember that security is in your hands. Hence don’t forget to follow these simple steps if you want to increase your website security. After all, prevention is always better than cure.