Never Neglect Your Website Security: Here’s Why

Published on August 20, 2019

Did you know that there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds online? And of those hacker attacks, 43% of them target small businesses. If those two statistics aren’t alarming enough, how about knowing that 95% of cybersecurity breaches are due to human error, which means they’re preventable.

Now, more than ever before, the security of your website is absolutely crucial to not only your success and digital health, but your business’ reputation, and bottom line as well. In 2018, cyber crimes have cost over $1 trillion worldwide.

Now you might be asking yourself, “How do I keep my website protected?” My team of programmers takes website security very seriously. In fact, it’s at the top of the priority list when developing any website. Here are a few of our best solutions to keeping your website secure, and safe from hackers.

TIP #1: Use security plugins. We use WordPress for many of our website builds, and our go-to security plugin is iThemes. iThemes is a reputable and trusted WordPress Security Plugin that protects your WordPress website from over 30 angles. It works to fix vulnerabilities, prevents automated attack attempts, and even works to strengthen login and user credentials.

TIP #2: It’s important to always keep your content management system (CMS) platform and any plugins that power your website up-to-date at all times. Ignoring updates means your site is vulnerable to attacks. It’s also important to have your IT person on-hand to make these updates to ensure the update goes smoothly, and nothing breaks any piece of your website. Your IT person can troubleshoot, test and fix any issues that might happen during an update.

TIP #3: Remove plugins you are not using. Often times, people will simply deactivate a plugin they’re no longer using, instead of deleting it all together. Our rule at Webfitters is to delete unused plugins because hackers can still access these plugin files and even install malware on your site through these files.

TIP #4: Do your research on any plugin you install. There are tens of thousands of plugins available for your WordPress website, but not all of them are reputable and trustworthy. Not only can a poorly developed plugin slow your site down, create a poor user experience or even break your website, many of them are also vulnerable to security breaches. Take the time to read through the reviews and user rating on any plugin you consider. Compare the number of active installations between plugins, the more active installations means the more that plugin has gained trust.

TIP #5: Make sure you have strong passwords, and change them often. Weak passwords can easily be hacked. In fact, hackers guessing passwords is one of the most common ways hackers break into computers or devices. Once a hacker has access to the back-end of your website, they have access to your customers information as well as the files on your website.

TIP #6: Purchase a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) for your website. You can tell if your website has an SSL by looking at your URL. Does it start with “https” or “http”? If your URL starts with “http” you do NOT have an SSL. An SSL is a security protocol that encrypts sensitive information such as credit card information as well as usernames and passwords. Without one, this sensitive information is vulnerable to hackers.

If you would like help making sure your website is as secure as possible, send me a message! The Webfitters team would love to work with you and provide peace-of-mind knowing your website is safe and secure. To see more of our work, check out www.webfitters.com.

Written By: John Walczyk

Sources:  https://www.cybintsolutions.com/cyber-security-facts-stats/