5 Ways to Secure Your Website for Bulletproof Security

When it comes to your business, your website is a pivotal component to your presence online. It is the focal point of contact between your customers and your brand. Thus, a well built, and secure website will draw in an audience and convert customers in and niche and industry. That’s why when it comes to your website security you need it to be bulletproof so you can protect against cybercriminals and other scammers online.

You don’t want to be a target for hackers so you need bulletproof security to stop or prevent any attack. A 2019 study, showed more than 150,000 small business websites were infected with malware and any given moment. Having your website be counted in that number can mean devastation to your brand’s reputation. Bulletproof security means that your website is protected against hackers. In addition, would-be cybercriminals are ready to exploit website vulnerabilities to gain access. That’s why in this guide we’ll outline five ways you can safeguard your site against security breaches. This will helps to protect your brand and by extension, your customers and sensitive data remains bulletproof. Let’s get into it.

5 Ways to Get Bulletproof Security for Your Site

1. Use a secure password

This may seem elementary but using a secure password to log into your website is tantamount to your initial security—it’s a no-brainer that your password is counted among the first line of defence against hackers trying to infiltrate your website.

When creating passwords, you should have a very long and complex password. Here are some best practices to use when creating the passwords for your website.

1. Use a long combination of letters, numbers and symbols.
2. Change your password regularly
3. Don’t share your password with anyone
4. Keep it random

Smart cybercriminals may try to break into your website using a brute-force attack program which can bypass your password if you have a simple one. To help mitigate this and keep password security simple you can use a password-management app, which will suggest choosing a password that is complex and full of random letters, numbers and symbols. Making things a lot hard for hackers and cybercriminals.

2. Keep all software updated

Irrespective of which hosting platform or CMS you choose to host your website; constant updates are a persistent reality of a webmaster’s life. You want to be sure to check regularly for updates to your server’s operating system, especially if you use VPS hosting, check plugin updates if you use WordPress as your CMS and install new software updates.

According to Sidney Mojica, CEO of TechSavvy, “Many of those updates will include fixes to security lapses, and failure to update promptly will leave your site open to attacks. Hackers and other cybercriminals scan thousands of sites in hours looking for websites that have vulnerabilities in their software. So, you always need to stay on top of your game too.”

If you’re opting to use WordPress hosting as your CMS you can install the bulletproof security plugin to add an extra layer of security to your website. Simply search for the plugin and follow the installation process to add more security against hackers and other cybercriminals.

3. Use a web-application firewall

When it comes to protection for your website there are many web-based firewalls you can use—some are hardware-based that you can install on the computer where you manage your website and others are solely software-based. A good firewall with analyse the traffic flowing in and out of your website’s server and prevent any hacking attempts made. Now, the most popular choice in firewall protection is cloud-based and can be installed by your hosting provider. In fact, some host already come with firewalls installed depending on which hosting solution you choose for your website.

4. Install and use SSL/TSL certificates

With the rollout most browser platforms had in 2019, having a secure website has now been dubbed mandatory especially if you want to rank high in search engines. Have you noticed that most of the big websites you visit have a lock icon and the URL begins with HTTPS? Well, that’s because websites that have an SSL certificate installed.

An SSL certificate is the first line of defence your website has against cybercriminals. However, beyond that, when someone visits your website and sees the lock icon, they know that they can trust that you protect your website. SSL is an secure transfer protocol that ensures end to end encryption. This means that when your computer communicates with the webserver a website is hosted on the connection is kept privately secure and no one can intercept the connection.

Encryption makes it more difficult for cybercriminals and hackers to access your website and hijack your traffic without authorisation.

Having an SSL certificate installed ensures that your website is trusted, secure and it boosts your SEO since google prefers to rank sites that are secure if you do not have an SSL certificate enabled Google will let users know that your website isn’t safe or secure. SSL is a compulsory level of security that every website needs to have.

5. Have cloud-based back-up enabled

Sometimes despite our best efforts, cybercriminals and hackers still manage to breach our defences and then we’re left with the fallout of a hacked website. That’s why you need to have a secure cloud-based backup to help you safeguard your website in the event of a breach.

With cloud-based back-up enabled, your website will be backed-up multiple times a day or whenever you set it. The more frequent the better. In fact, it’s best to use a rolling save system. This way, you have multiple backups available to isolate the exact time a problem occurred.

This way, if there is a breach you can restore it from the last back-up and then secure your website. This helps eliminate downtime and mitigates the damage done to your website if you are attacked.

Additionally, your backups should be set both on-site (keeping a hard-copy of your website on a drive that is password protected) and off-site (in a cloud from your hosting provider). This way,  even in the worst attacks, you can still recover. Apart from cyber-attacks, natural disasters (destruction of hardware) or malfunctions at web-host data centres have been known to result in permanent loss of data. So, keeping copies of your website backups near can also come in handy.

The Take-Away

Your online presence is paramount to the overall success of your business. That is why your website needs to be kept secure, not only to protect your business but also your customers. Your audience is trusting you to keep them safe when they visit your website. So, security should always be high priority for you.