7 ways to enhance your website’s security

Here are some tips to secure your website to avoid attacks and keep your or your customer’s data safe.

As a website owner or a developer, you are responsible for the website’s security. That means protecting your and your customers’ data is a part of your responsibility. To avoid the most common attacks, there are some security measures you can take. Here are some tips to enhance your website’s security.

Stronger passwords

Choosing a strong password for your accounts is one of the most basic, but also an important part of your website’s security. A strong password should be longer than 9 characters and include special characters, letters, numbers, capital, and lower-case letters. You should also avoid easy-to-guess words, such as names or birthdays. There are also online services help you create strong passwords.

Update software

Software developers release patches and updates to enhance their security. Most of these updates and patches fix exploitable vulnerabilities. Thus, to avoid the most common attacks that target these vulnerabilities, always keep your software up to date. Also, don’t forget to get a backup before updating.

Plugins

There are many plugins to install on your website to enhance your website’s security. Whatever CMS or web platform you prefer, you can search for the most popular plugins to protect your website. Also, don’t forget to update your plugins too.

SQL injections

An SQL injection is a method that malicious code is inserted by a query. To remove such risk, you can use parameterized queries. To minimize the SQL hacking attempts, you can limit the terms that can be used to access your website.

Content Security Policy

You can defend your website against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks with a content security policy or CSP for short. XSS is an attack that when a malicious JavaScript code is added to the web page which can infect visitors who visit all other pages they browse. If you add a proper HTTP header to your webpage, you can use CSP that will disregard the infectious script.

SSL

Most web hosting service providers offer a free SSL certificate. SSL protects the data transfer between the server and the client by encrypting the data. Users will also know that your site has an SSL certificate with HTTPS in the address and the green lock icon in the address bar in the browser interface.

Security tools

If you completed all the steps above, as a final step, you can test your website’s security with a security tool. They are also known as penetration testers or vulnerability testers. These tools imitate the scripts used by the hacker to test your website’s security to look for any vulnerability. Most tools offer a resolution for the issues they have found.

 

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