How to Secure your Website from Being Hacked

If you’ve had the mis­for­tune of hav­ing your web­site hacked you know all too well the destruc­tion a sin­gle hack­er can cause. Hack­ers are more than infor­ma­tion thieves; they can ruin your com­pa­ny, tar­get your cus­tomers, and cre­ate irrepara­ble dam­age. Leav­ing your web­site vul­ner­a­ble to hack­ers is like leav­ing the door to your home open with a big sign that says, “Please steal my valu­ables. Thank you!”

Don’t fall vic­tim to Inter­net bur­glars and secure your web­site from being hacked with these impor­tant tips:

• • Stay updat­ed with the lat­est hack­ing threats. Learn the newest schemes so you always know what to look for and how to pro­tect your site against new changes. A sim­ple online search can let you know what Inter­net thieves are doing to tar­get web­sites. Online schemes are often com­plex and extend far beyond junk mail scams. Edu­cate your­self in order to pro­tect your­self.

• If you use a pass­word-based oper­a­tion, make sure you and your employ­ees change access codes often. Keep pass­words hard­er to guess by using ran­dom num­bers, let­ters and sym­bols instead of the typ­i­cal com­bi­na­tion like a pet’s name or your birth year. Do not send log in details via email or dis­cuss them with any­one unless it is request­ed by your company’s IT pro­fes­sion­al.

• • Update your soft­ware often. Hack­ers have the abil­i­ty to scan web­sites to search for vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. If they notice you haven’t updat­ed your secu­ri­ty soft­ware in a while, they will pounce. A lot of peo­ple ignore soft­ware updates when they pop up. Take the time to update and you’ll be sav­ing your site from hack­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties.

• Don’t give away all your infor­ma­tion at once. Detailed error mes­sages can give hack­ers clues as to what they need to get into your web­site. If they’re try­ing to log and receive an error mes­sage, that mes­sage should be suc­cinct and read noth­ing more than some­thing gener­ic like “Incor­rect User­name or Pass­word.” Some web­sites let you know that you’ve entered the wrong user­name but the right pass­word and vice ver­sa. Do not let hack­ers know that they’re half way there when they’re try­ing to com­man­deer your site.

• Install a WAF (web appli­ca­tion fire­wall) to act as a bar­ri­er between your serv­er and your site, inter­cept­ing any harm­ful data that’s try­ing to pass through. WAFs are use­ful because they give hack­ers a hard time and make it almost impos­si­ble for them to access your web­site.

With the prop­er secu­ri­ty option in place, you can keep your web­site safe and keep hack­ers out.