Friday, March 29, 2024

How to Protect Your Website From Hackers

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As a website owner, the last thing you want is to see all of the hard work you have done destroyed, altered, or misused by hackers. Data breaches and hacks happen all the time. It is only the more extensive data breaches and hacks that occur to big-name organizations that make it in the news. You may think that hackers have no interest in coming after your small business. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Research shows that more than 40 percent of data breach victims are small businesses. Here are some tips to help you secure your website from hackers.

Use Security Plug-Ins

Security plug-ins for websites built with content management systems can enhance the security of your website. They will actively identify and prevent hacking attempts. Most of the respected CMSs have security plug-ins available, and most of them are offered for free.

Security plug-ins address vulnerabilities that are identified in each platform. They are vital to disrupting hacking attempts that could threaten your website. In addition to installing security plug-ins, you must keep your security plug-ins up-to-date. Failure to update plug-ins code lead to the plug-in becoming the gate of entry for a hacker.

Keep Your Website Platform and Software Updated

Regularly updating apps, content management systems, scripts, and plug-ins will help you protect your website from hackers and malicious people. Doing this is a must because many of the tools used to build your website are open-source software. This means that anyone can access their code.

If hackers want to bring your website down, they can pour over the code used in plug-ins and website platforms to find vulnerabilities. Once they do, they will use these vulnerabilities to take control of your website. Specific content management systems, like WordPress, make it easy for you to automatically update. They can also give you a notification when available updates are ready to download and install.

Get Additional Protection from Your Hosting

Secure VPS hosting can help block hackers. This is done by blocking billions of IP addresses that have been linked to ransomware attacks, hacking, and spam. The list of blocked IP addresses includes other bad actors intent on hacking your site, stealing your information, and engaging in malicious activities.

Your website is protected by firewalls that allow admins to block certain IP addresses from accessing them. In most cases, firewalls are a blank slate. Administrators will need to install the dangerous IP addresses one at a time. In the cybersecurity world, this is referred to as playing whack a mole with hackers.

Secure virtual private server hosting makes things easier because the services have been consolidating bad-acting IP addresses for years. Every 15 minutes, servers synchronize firewalls to block out dangerous IP addresses. This job is done 24 hours a day. This means that your website is more secure. You and your customers can interact with your website feeling confident.

Keep Passwords Secure

It is inviting to have universal passwords. But this is the worst way to do website security. One of the most popular passwords in the world today is 123456. If your website’s admin or back end uses this password or a similar password, now is the time to act promptly and implement change today.

You may want to use a password manager to help you figure out a unique password for your website. A strong password should incorporate letters, special characters, and numbers. Avoid obvious passwords like your birthday, your pet’s name, or your spouse’s name.

These are the things that hackers will attack first. Using social engineering, they may inquire about this information from you and then use that information to launch an attack. All it takes is for hackers to find a single point of weakness to penetrate your website. From there, they can bring all the cards coming down. For this reason, you need to take the necessary precautions to keep your passwords as safe as possible.

Conclusion

You have worked hard to create a website you are proud of. Don’t let hackers and other malicious individuals undo everything you worked so hard to build. Keep plug-ins and CMSs up-to-date. Use strong passwords and secure VPS to keep your website safe.

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