How secure is your website?
It is very important to understand some ways you can use to protect your website from being hacked.
Apart from spending a lot of time marketing your website, it is crucial to spend time in making sure your website is secure.
Below are some guidelines that will help you protect your website from hackers.
STAY UP-TO-DATE
Whether you made your website from scratch or you are using open sources such as Joomla or WordPress, always ensure it is updated.
Also, ensure your theme is updated.
If you are using plugins from third party developers, ensure they are also up-to-date.
HAVE A STRONG USERNAME AND PASSWORD
Never at any one time use a password like ‘ADMIN’ or ‘123456’ for your website. Doing this will make it easy for hackers to access your Content Management System (CMS).
To have a strong password, combine lower case, upper case, and alphanumeric symbols and make sure they are more than 10 characters in length.
ROUTINELY UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD
To avoid being hacked easily, update your password on regular basis.
Whenever you update your password, ensure it is stronger than the previous one.
LIMIT THE NUMBER OF WRONG LOG IN ATTEMPTS
Hackers always make hundreds of attempts before they finally get into your website.
Limit the number of wrong log in attempts by temporarily blocking the account or IP. This will slow down the hackers.
You can also download and install a host of extensions or plugins to your website. They will prevent brute force.
USE HTTPS (HYPER TEXT TRANSFER PROTOCOL SECURE)
Using HTTPS, all data from a web server to a browser will be encrypted; thus it will be highly protected and secure from hackers.
HTTPS will also help in improving your site’s SEO ranking.
Google ranks websites with https higher than those with the common http.
ALWAYS HIDE ADMIN DIRECTORIES
Your website is primarily made with Content Management system (CMS). Make sure your admin directories cannot be guessed by intruders.
Never allow your admin directories to be indexed by search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and Bing.
SCAN YOUR WEBSITE ON REGULAR BASIS
Sometimes, you may not know whether your website has been hacked.
Scan your website routinely to prevent it from being affected by suspicious codes or Malware.
If you find out that your website id affected, do not upload backup files. Opt to fix the issue instead. Doing the former will make your website an easy target for hackers.
BACKUP YOUR WEBSITE FREQUENTLY
Have a backup file ready, just in the event your website is hacked someday.
Backup your files and database at least once every week.
If you run an ecommerce store, make sure files and databases are backed up every day.