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Website Security – 4 Ways to Secure Your Website

One of the biggest priorities when running an online business is website security. Having a secure website will cause your customers to trust your business, thereby boosting sales and increasing your return on investments. The online community is teeming with malicious hackers that are willing to do whatever it takes to penetrate your site’s security and compromise the delicate financial information of your clients. You should have the same fervor when attempting to deter these careless intruders. Most customers will not shop at an online store that is not secure, therefore creating a secure environment is essential in the world of online business. The following 4 tips will help make your website a safer place for your customers to shop.

Strong Administrative Passwords

Protecting your website means protecting the administrative interface. Once a hacker gains access to your site’s administrative interface, they can gain control of your entire online business in a few short steps. Once they’ve access the administrative control panel, hackers can do anything from defacing your website, to committing identity theft or fraud in the name of your business. To prevent hackers from easily gaining access to your website, you’ll want to use strong passwords that are mix of letters and numbers. These alphanumeric password should be at least 10 characters in length. Try to avoid using any commonly used words or names. Also try not to use dates that are significant in your life, as a hacker may be able to access this information.

Firewalls

Firewalls filter information that is transferred to and from your website. By configuring a secure firewall, you’ll be preventing all unauthorized access to your website. Setting an industry standard firewall at the highest possible security preference is one of the best ways you can deter hackers with ease. Remember that simply having a firewall is not enough to keep you site safe. The firewall must be configured properly.

Antivirus

Make sure you use only the best antivirus programs. If your computer contracts a virus, the hacker that distributed this virus could gain access to sensitive information on your computer. Some viruses will install hacking utilities known as KeyLoggers, which record the data inputted from your computer’s keyboard. This means that everything you type is recorded and then sent to the hacker, including your system and website passwords.   It is imperative that you ensure that your antivirus program is regularly updated to the latest definitions. This will help you to protect your computer from hackers who attack your system in efforts of gaining control or information. Simply having an antivirus program installed is not enough. New viruses are created everyday, so it is important to keep your Antivirus program updated regularly.

Security Testing

Once you have all of the above security measures in place, you’ll want to test the security of your website routinely. Try to use a security analyzing tool regularly. These tools will usually find any existing security lapses and assist you in correcting them. Remember that in order to have good website security, these security measures must be practiced regularly.

False User Authentication: A Common Hacking Tactic

User authentication is an important security measure put in place to protect your website and it’s applications, however this very same system can be used to a hacker’s advantage as well. When your website’s users require access to a certain area of the site, they must provide their login information (username and password) to prove that they are an authentic member of your website. Once the identity of the user has been validated based on the provided information, the authentication application then grants them access to that area of the site. While this helps to deter the novice hacker, a more advanced intruder can use simple HTTP protocol to circumvent this process and gain access to sensitive ares of  your website.

What Can Happen

A hacker can use the authentication process to invade a member area by falsely convincing the authentication application that they are indeed a valid user. If the hacker only has the ability to  access  your website as a standard user, then the damage they can inflict will be minimal.  However, if the hacker can gain administrative access to your website, they can take complete control of the website and all of it’s stored data in a very short period of time, usually within an hour or two. Of course this could be a potentially fatal situation to your online business, especially if they gain access to critical financial information.

The Process of False User Authentication

Usually the process begins with the hacker finding the login screen where they can enter the necessary  information to complete authentication. Once they’ve found the location of the authentication login page, they can then enter the URL of the login page into a hacking software that will repeatedly enter random information into both fields until a working combination is found. Many times the hacker will simply try this process manually before resorting to using the automated software. For this reason it is important that you do not use a simple or default administrator username and password such as “admin” or “1234.”  When the hacker uses an automated program to bypass user authentication, it is known as a “brute force attack.”

Preventing and Combating False User Authentication

Hackers use tools that return error codes and other information from the web server to find out when their attacks are working, essentially repeating the process in a trial and error fashion until no error message is returned. One way to keep hackers from accomplishing this is to adjust the server configuration to generate an “HTTP 200 OK” response whenever an unexpected request is ordered. Effectively this will make it very hard for the hacker to understand which attempts work and which attempts were denied. Another effective way to prevent brute force attacks is to place random phrases that must be re-entered by the user requesting access. This is called a “De-captcha” and it can be downloaded as an application and used in conjunction with your control panel. De-captcha tools make the process of false user authentication very difficult to bypass for most hackers.

The Most Prevalent PHP-Related Security Risks

PHP is thought to be most useful programming language around, by many web developers. For this reason PHP use is becoming increasingly popular in corporate programming and building independent applications. While PHP scripting has the ability to create just about anything you’d like with it, the programming framework is not without it’s security flaws. There are hackers that know how to take advantage of the loopholes in PHP scripting, and they do so everyday through simple web platforms such as WordPress and Drupal. To prevent this from happening to you, you’ll want to know what the most significant PHP security lapses are so you can take the proper security measures.

Code Exploits

Sometimes hackers can use certain lines of code to request and retrieve information from your website. For example, the “allow_url_fopen” option allows users to  request file functions such as “file_get_contents()”, which would in turn allow a perpetrator to retrieve sensitive data from your website via a remote FTP connection.  If you PHP is configured with default settings, then this this function is still enabled, and you will need to manually disable it to keep hackers from executing code exploits on your website. Disabling this function will not take away from the functionality of your website at all, as it is not commonly used. If you do need to use it personally in the future, you can simply enable it as you see fit.

Risky Functions

Just as in the above situation, every risky PHP function should be disabled to prevent a similar scenario. There are three functions in particular that pose especially dangerous threats, and those are the “EVAL” “shell_ exec” and the “passthru” functions.  Disabling these functions is simple, and can be done by making slight adjustments to the “disable_functions” values in the “php.ini” file. Disabling the EVAL function is actually vital, because it allows a user to request remote control of PHP coding on your website. If this is used in conjunction with another exploit, it can mean serious problems for you and your website. Before you disable these functions, it is a good idea to make sure they are not needed for any particular applications or plugins you are using on your website.

Unsafe Application Coding

The  flexibility of PHP is what usually makes it easy for a hacker to breach the security of a website or server. The problem is that the security gaps are most likely not your fault, but rather they lie within the content management system you are using. Many of the applications that people use to make their website management easier, also make it easier for hackers to infiltrate their administrative interface.    This is why it is important to make sure you are using only the most secure plugins and applications to manage your website. In all actuality, it is better to have less functionality than to have a severe security breach on your website. Try to keep the amount of plugins you use to a minimum, and make sure the plugins you use have very secure coding.

Responsible Programmers

Being a programmer is not a simple task, and there are many things to consider when creating an application.  The problem is, there is so much to know, and not every programmer is up to the task of making sure their applications are fool-proof. In fact most of them only want to make an application that will have enhanced functionality and will be popular in the e-community. However, if you are truly serious about maintaining the security of your website then you will use applications that are developed by responsible programmers. This is the primary reason why corporations hire their own private programmers.

Maintaining Website Security for Customer Satisfaction

There are many vengeful characters on the internet that would love nothing more than to deface your online business by hijacking your home page and placing inappropriate content there. If you are a successful business owner, then chances are you have plenty of people who are jealous of you. If one of these jealous individuals has the skills, they can possibly take control of your website temporarily and scare away some of your potential customers. Sometimes these individuals are your competition, but most of the time they are just annoying hackers that do it for fun.  On occasion opposing corporations will even pay hackers to deface websites in order to keep a stronghold on the market! Being the victim of one of these attacks can be embarrassing and financially detrimental.

How do Hacker’s Deface Websites?

Hackers employ a number of tools and methods to gain control of a website’s content. In most instances they will gain access to the server via a security lapse in the operating system, unsafe web site applications, or another flaw in the server’s security. If the hacker cannot access the server through a basic loophole, they may execute browser based attacks with remote code. Regardless of how the hacker gains access to your site, you should be prepared and secured against such an attack.

Preventing Defacement With Website Security

To prevent defacement, you will need to make sure your data is secured on both your server and your computer.  Website security should be a top priority any time you are looking for a web hosting provider. Make sure you ask about protection against website defacement when you are inquiring with the companies customer service rep. If you host a private server then you will want to make sure the server is in a safe place. Co-location hosting is an option for people who are looking or top-notch security without having their own warehouse or storage facility.

Preventing Defacement with Server Security

Having your server stored in a secure place will keep your hardware secure, but it will not fully secure the data stored on the hardware. In fact, most hackers don’t even consider stealing your hardware, they would rather access it remotely through a security lapse in an application stored on the server.  Keeping your operating system updated with the latest patches will make the hacker’s job much more difficult.  It is also a good idea to keep your web applications and any other software associated with your server updated and secure. Even after you have acquired all of the updates needed, it is still necessary to encrypt any data stored on, or sent through the server.

Preventing Defacement with Secure Applications

Quite often, hackers gain access to the server through a web application with weak security. In fact, most web applications have faults that can be easily exploited. For this reason you should only use web applications that you know are secure. If you have the resources, you may want to have your web applications designed by a personal team of developers who are aware of your security needs. If you cannot have this done then it is prudent to minimally research the possible security flaws that exist within the applications you are currently using.

Website Security: Avoiding Downtime That Results in Loss of Profit

Running an online business is not an easy task, and it can be very difficult to stay on top of all of the responsibilities that come with it. Customer satisfaction and safety is of the utmost importance when running an ecommerce site, and the only way to ensure the security of your website is by following strict security protocols on a regular basis. Hackers are constantly searching for security loopholes and lapses that they can exploit to gain access to sensitive information such as credit card numbers. Sometimes, even when they are not successful at retrieving this information, they can still cause your site to crash by consuming server resources.  When you site goes down, even for a few minutes, you could possibly lose several customers and thousands of dollars. To prevent yourself form losing business due to poor security measures, the following precautions should be exercised.

Serious Firewalls

Even though most web hosting providers employ firewalls by default, a lot of these firewalls are not properly configured and the restrictions can easily be circumvented by a knowledgeable hacker. If you want to ensure the security of your website(s), then you should inquire about he strength of the firewalls and it is important to have the capability to adjust firewalls to your specifications. If your web hosting company does not allow you to make changes to your site’s firewall, then you need to consider another service.

A good example of the need for firewall administration abilities, would be when a hacker is sending malicious traffic to your site form a certain IP. In this instance, it would be crucial to block this IP, and as a domain owner with a hosting account, you should have the right to do so.  The safest web hosting services offer IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems). Any breaches to your firewall can cause downtime and loss of business, therefore it is crucial to have the serious firewalls protecting your website a all times.

Protection from Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS)

Although a DDoS attack is a very basic and commonly used attack, it is also extremely difficult to prevent and treat. This simple yet effective attack can cause downtime in many websites by affecting the server functionality. This means that even users who are unrelated to the attack will suffer.  Therefore it is important to inquire about an Anti-DDoS feature before purchasing a web hosting plan.

Proper Data Encryption

If you plan on selling your services or products online, then data encryption is essential. All web hosting plans should include SSL encryption. SSL encryption will transform sensitive date from plain text into special code that make interception by a hacker very difficult. While most web hosting companies offer this feature by difficult. You may want find one that will give you the option to purchase a private certificate for added security benefits.