To keep your website safe, take proactive security measures such as routine backups.
For many businesses, websites amount to a necessary evil. Meaning?websites are for potential clients, current customers and the like. Businesses have them because everyone else does. Ideally, however, a business would treat a website like a parent treats a pet or a child. A website needs constant attention and upkeep, and neglect leads to bad results?like hacking. Here are three ways your business should be doing to keep its website secure.
1. Reduce your chances of being hacked into
Prevention is the best medicine, and that?s still true for website security.
Keep your software up to date; follow security websites for update announcements and patch announcements.
Minimize access to your website to three levels: the web application, the web server and the operating system.
Test your password strength, and never update from public Wifi spots such as those at coffee shops. In fact, shift your website to https instead of http as much as possible. Using https adds an encryption layer, and it helps your site rank higher in Google searches.
2. Camouflage admin directories.
One way that hackers take your website?s data is by breaking into the admin directories. They find the directories by scanning for words such as ?login? and ?admin.? Fool hackers by giving your admin directories bland, everyday names that only the webmasters know.
3. Be ready for when your site does get hacked.
Perform automatic, routine backups of your website. You should have everything you need to get the site back to where it was at the time of the hack. Keep backups off site and on a different server than the web server. Finally, make sure that you have an emergency plan in place.
Use tools such as Google Safe to notify you when you?ve been hacked, and have a simple restore process in place. Also have a plan already in place to address why the hack occurred and how to prevent such incidents.
