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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.

Is Your Business Website Secure?

People are using the internet to commit malicious crimes everyday.  And while virus infections and scams pose a significant threat, one of the biggest problems of all is website hacking.  If you’re running a business online, losing sensitive data to a security breach could be enough to shut you down for good.  If you truly want to know how secure your business website, we suggest posing the following questions to yourself:

What are your trying to secure? For most companies, this includes confidential data such as customer records and payroll information.  However, you shouldn’t forget all the essentials like staff morale and most importantly, your company’s reputation.

What are your risks? The scope of today’s threat model is larger than it has ever been.  Not only do you have to worry about malicious software and hackers, but internal theft and physical threats as well.

Who is responsible for security? Do you have an experienced system administrator or are you going at it alone?  Many companies leave themselves wide open all because they do not have the internal resources needed to enable adequate security.

What are your doing about security? What are your plans for security?  Have you installed the appropriate software technologies to protect your network?  Are you enforcing security policies and training staff to make sure they know the risks?

Making sure your business website can be a full-time job.  Fortunately, there are several preventive measures that can be taken to prevent a disaster.  While some of it only seems practical, far too many companies overlook the intangibles and increase their likelihood of being victimized.  This checklist will help you understand what you need to do right now to start protecting your business.

Invest in Physical Security - While cyber crimes have become highly sophisticated, the easiest way to disrupt any business is to still their PC or server.  You can make this far more difficult by physically locking your office and coupling that with motion detectors and alarms.

Frequent Backups - The importance of data backups is something that just can’t be stressed enough.  Even is disaster does strike, you can ensure a speedy recovering by regularly backing up critical data and storing it in an off site location.

Implement Access Controls – As unfortunate as it is, everyone can’t be trusted – even some of the members on your staff. You should only provide employees with access to confidential data on a need-to-know basis in accordance to their role in the organization.  Nothing is guaranteed but this can dramatically minimize the risk of sabotage and data theft.

Continuous Training and Policy Enforcement – The mere behavior of your staff can be a major security risk.  Make sure your staff has a clear understanding of what they are and are not to be doing online.  Put some policies in place to ensure that everyone is operating with security in mind and come up with some repercussions for those who don’t comply.

Protect Your Website - When doing business online, the website is what forms the foundation for your organization.  The more you rely on your site, the bigger target it will become.  Therefore, it is critical to do everything to possible to make sure your applications and the site itself is secure.