How to improve your website’s security

You may not think that your website has anything worth being hacked for, but websites are hacked and compromised all of the time, unfortunately. Whether it be for information or to just mess with the site itself, sometimes it’s to abuse the use of your server, and in this blog post, we will be explaining how you can improve your website’s security to lower your risk of being hacked.

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Keep software up to date

This is one of the most obvious points. Keeping your software up to date is vital in keeping your site secure. If you’re using an old version of the software, there’ll be holes that hackers could easily find themselves getting through to try and target you.

For instance, WordPress updates every few months to keep their security up to date and to fix any bugs the framework may have, to ensure that its users don’t get breached.

Install an SSL/TLS certificate

Installing an SSL certificate on your domain is one of the most practical ways to keep your website secure and especially the users. If your data is unencrypted, it makes it a lot easier for hackers to attempt to steal or compromise it.

If you run an e-commerce store, it’s essential to have an SSL certificate as it protects your customer’s card information, address, names and more, which can be dangerous for them if the information gets into the wrong hands.

Change passwords regularly

Easily guessed passwords are sometimes a cause for sites getting hacked. It’s tempting to go with a simple password that makes it easier to remember but refrain from doing so.

There are a few random password generator websites on the web, such as www.passwordsgenerator.net which allows you to choose the different variables that you want in your password.

Every few months it may be practical to change and update your password.

Do:

• Have complex passwords
• Use letters, numbers and symbols combined
• Change it every few months

Don’t:

• Share your passwords
• Make them too simple e.g. 123456
• Have them relating to yourself as they’ll be easily guessed e.g. birthday, name

Backups

Even though this isn’t relating to how to prevent hackers, backups are useful and should be carried out often in the event of an attack. If you backup your website every now and again, you have peace of mind that if your website was to be compromised, you have a backup file in place so you can easily restore it.

You can set up backups automatically depending on the software but it should be part of your website maintenance strategy to include backups frequently.