Many times website owners have a query in mind: what should I do about the security of my website. How do I protect it from hackers or data breaches?

If you are worried about the same, you need to scroll down to know various easy but important ways to protect websites from hackers, web attackers, phishers, etc. 

 But before that, I would like to confront some statistical overview on the website hackers, how website security impacts the business, and different website security threats. After that, we will discuss various ways to protect your website.

Facts,

  • Hackers steal billions of dollars every year. 
  • Every 39 seconds, there is a new hacker attack.
  • 29% of businesses who confronted data breaches end up losing revenue. 
  • 11. 95% of cybersecurity breaches come into play because of human errors. 
  • 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses.
  • Globally, the normal cost of a data breach reaches $3.9 million across SMBs.

What are the different Website Security Threats?

Hackers always want to break into your site, and they want to put a phishing attack. If you get into phishing attacks, either phishers will steal what they wish to, or Google blacklists your domain. Moreover, lets us dive into a few Website Security Threats:

  • Spam
  • Viruses and malware
  • WHOIS domain registration
  • DDoS attacks
  • Search engine blacklists

Now, the next steps are what things we can do to keep websites safe from hackers. 

9 Best Practices That Website Holder Should Take To Keep Hacker Away From Their Website

1. Implement Strong Password 

According to the Data Port, around 90% of web users are concerned about their password; will it get hacked?. Also, 53% of people depend on their remembering skills to manage passwords.

In order to secure your website, proper password implementation and management is important. You need to have a strong strategy to manage your website password. For that, avoid using weak passwords such as “123456”. 

But why?

Such passwords are very common; around 23 million account holders use the same password. So the chances of you getting your website hacked grow high. 

Besides, it is also advisable not to use the same password for every account. However, it has been found that 6. 51% of people implement the same password for personal accounts and work, which is really bad practice. 

The best practice to have a strong website password is to set up a password that nowhere relates to your hobbies, lifestyle, interest, etc. So, you can use a combination of names, dates, locations, special characters, and more. Eventually, it becomes harder for the hacker to crack such a password. 

2. Limit Access & Execute Strong Authentication Methods 

Further, keeping your password complex, strong, and frequently changes ensure you are also managing it to the fullest to have a strong web authentication. 

  • Ensure you have multi-factor enabled whenever you are using a WordPress-like CMS 
  • Protect passwords with 2FA or 2-Factor authentication. 

Besides two-factor authentication, there are other authentication mechanisms such as hardware tokens, digital signatures, etc. These elements can help you fight against hackers and thus make your site more secure. Also, you can limit website access for better security. 

  • Make sure your admin area is secure with 2FA or IP whitelisting. 
  • Audit your admin account regularly. 
  • Implement regular audits for API users.
  • Clean up unnecessary accounts. 
  • While sharing the credentials with your partners, try to provide an OAuth-based API called Password Anti-Pattern.

3. Ensure You Are Not Allowing Unvalidated File Uploads to Your Website

When website security is concerned, you must not allow anyone to upload files or any type of content to your website.

As per the OWASP(Open Web Application Security Project), it is terrible to allow anyone to upload anything to your website. 

You must implement the available rules on OWASP File Upload Cheat Sheet; it plays a vital role in website security. If you are ignoring such practice, you are just inviting hackers, nothing else. 

Moreover, have a quick check you are using SSH and SFTP ports to execute a safe transfer of files.

4. Use Encryption Protocols Like HTTPS

The HTTPS protocol’s role is to offer a high-security level to your website over the web. It maintains the data integrity between the site and the user’s computer. That means, regardless of what type of content you are serving over the web, this protocol will help you in building a protected connection between your website and visitors. 

Hackers always seek to steal data shared by the users over web services. Yet if you are not using encryption for your web content, you are at higher risk of getting hacked. HTTPS website encryption is a crucial step to encourage data integrity between servers and browsers. 

The reason why many website holders are using it too offers safe and secure web services. 

5.  Keep Software Up To Date

One important thing you need to do regularly makes sure that your operating system applications, software, and security software are all updated. Each one of these services has an option to do daily updates for free. Please check and make sure that you are updating all of your products regularly. If you are skipping, it might form a vulnerable hole in the security system. Hence, hackers can take advantage of weakness and can inject malicious things into your website. 

6. Watch Out For SQL Injection

SQL Injection is one of the most popular and common types of website attacks. It is an attack in which malicious code is embedded in a poorly designed website or application and passes to the backend database. The malicious data then produces database query results or actions that have never been executed.  

Once an attacker is in the database, they can do whatever they want, including bypass authentication or even impersonate specific users. They can download complete data residing on the database server, avoid transactional alter balances, and other records delete data from a database.  Further, hackers use:

  • Classic SQL injection 
  • Blind SQL injection

Prevention steps for SQL injection are:

  • Install a security plugin
  • Only use trusted themes and plugins.
  • Delete any pirated software on your site
  • Delete inactive themes and plugins
  • Update your website regularly.
  • Change the default database name.
  • Control field entries and data submissions.

7.  Use Security Tools To Protect Your Site 

The best way to adjust your website away from hackers is to make use of different security tools. These software and tools aim to protect websites from enormous web threats. They blend several features such as DDoS, CDN(content delivery network), and web application firewalls. These tools are enriched high-end protection solutions. 

Ensure you are using security tools to lessen attacks of hackers and data theft.  Some of the tools’ names are following:

  • Imperva Cloud Application Security
  • Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner
  • Detectify Deep Scan
  • GoDaddy Website Security
  • WordFence
  • Alibaba Website Threat Inspector
  • CloudFront
  • Netsparker

8. Don’t Install Unnecessary Plugins and Themes

Even if the themes and plugins are deactivated, hackers may find the path to access them and ultimately access your website.  So you have to make sure you have deleted inactive themes and plugins.

Deleting all the unnecessary inactive ones is potentially helpful in protecting websites from hackers and data breaches. However, if you think that you might need a theme in the future, you can always download it again and reactivate it at that point.  But there is no point in keeping it on your site and potentially leaving the door open for hackers. 

9. Be Careful With The Suspicious Links

Every email is not useful; sometimes, we receive emails where scammer hackers want you to reply so that they can steal information and make it useful in the way they want. 

A typical phishing email claims that some urgent action is necessary on your part and that to carry out the action you need to click on a link or a button or need to open and review an attachment. You might get messages like:

  • Something is wrong with your website.
  • You can rank websites by following some action. 
  • You need to update some things like themes, plugins, etc. 

If you do so, it can harm your website, so you have to recognize these phishing emails to protect your website from getting harmed. 

Final Words!!

With the increasing number of organizations worldwide, data security is the primary need for all different industries, especially those spread over the web. Although we have discussed it in the above paragraphs; besides, customers can not compromise with their privacy. 

Also, enterprises can’t continue to address the cost in lawful charges, compensations, and lost client trust. Luckily, the tips mentioned above are proven to protect your business and prevent your website from getting hacked by hackers. 

Do you want to hire a website developer? Or Do you want to work with a website development company that can help you develop a website that follows the security measures mentioned earlier? Let us know your website security-based queries in the comments.

FAQs

Q1: What can be used to protect websites against hackers?

A1: The different practice you do to protect websites against hackers are:

  • Keep Software Up to Date. 
  • Check SQL Injection.
  • Avoid Clicking To Every Message, Link
  • Server-Side Validation/ Form Validation
  • Assign Strong Passwords
  • Don’t Permit Every File Uploads.

Q2: How to secure websites from hackers in PHP?

A2: The security solutions to secure websites from hackers in PHP are:

  • Take Guard Against SQL Injection
  • Keep Software Up To Date
  • Check Session In Every Protected Page
  • Always Use .php As An Extension.
  • Protect Against XSS Attacks
  • Change Your Passwords Regularly
  • Use HTTPS Protocol
  • Use Security Tools
  • Stay Away From File Uploads

Q3: Does SSL protect your website from hackers?

A3: Yes, SSL can secure websites from hackers, as it is a secure certificate that delivers a protection layer to the websites. It offers authentication for a website and encourages an encrypted connection.