How to Make Your Website an Impenetrable Fortress

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In a recent poll, nearly 71 percent of the business owners surveyed claimed they knew the importance of creating an engaging and informative website. Often times, your website is the first chance you have to make an impression on a potential customer.

While most business owners start out with good intentions regarding their website, they usually end up neglecting this valuable marketing tool. One of the most common mistakes business owners make regarding their website is failing to keep it secure.

Regular updates and setting up PagerDuty error alerts are just some of the things you can do to stay “in the know” regarding the issues your website has. If there is a problem, it will invoke a PagerDuty alert. Once you receive this alert, you can pass it on to your IT departs so they can get to the bottom of the issues being experienced.

Are you trying to turn your website into an impenetrable fortress? Read the helpful tips below to find out how to increase the security your site has.

The Importance of Updating Your Website

There are a host of websites online right now that are compromised due to outdated and unsecured software. Some business owners think a website is something they can “set and forget”, but this is far from the truth. Failing to routinely update the software or plugins being used on your site will lead to hackers getting into your site and wreaking havoc.

The most common reason business owners give for not updating their website is a lack of time. The best way to solve this issue is by taking advantage of update automation. Using a third-party automation program will help to ensure your website gets the updates it needs to stay functional and reliable.

Your Root Passwords Need to be Secure

Having your website hacked can be a very stressful experience. Reaching out to IT professionals for help when this happens is a must. The first thing these professionals will need to do to remove the hackers from your site is to log in to your server.

Using an insecure root password makes it extremely easy for a hacker to gain entrance into the internal workings of your website. Often times, business owners will leave the default admin/admin username and passwords. Failing to put a priority on creating hard to crack passwords can be disastrous for your website.

When trying to create strong passwords consider things like:

• Never reuse a password that is already in use.

• Your passwords should be at least 12 characters long.

• Focus on making your password as random as possible.

While creating a strong password will take more time and effort, it is worth the energy due to the increased security it will provide your website.

Avoid Hosting Multiple Websites on a Single Server

For most business owners, finding a way to save money is a top priority. In some instances, this desire to save money may cloud a business owner’s judgment. While hosting multiple websites on a single server may seem like a great way to save a few dollars, it is extremely risky.

Hosting multiple websites on one server creates an extremely large attack area for hackers. The last thing you want is to experience cross-site contamination due to participating in this risky practice. In short, cross-site contamination occurs when other sites on a server are poorly isolated.

Not only can hosting all of your sites on one server lead to security issues, it can also cause the sites to perform poorly. If consumers have to wait more than a few seconds for your website to load, they will move on to a competitor. A shared hosting account is fine for small blogs and websites that don’t get a lot of traffic on a daily basis. For anything beyond that, you need something like a Cheap Windows VPS Hosting by AccuWeb Hosting.

Having Backups in Place is Important

Some business owners abide by the “it will never happen to me” philosophy when it comes to website hacks. In reality, these hacks are far more common than you may realize, which is why you need to adequately prepare. One of the best things you can do when attempting to protect your website from hackers is to create a backup of all of your important files.

Having this backup will allow you to completely abandon one site if it has been hacked and start a new one with the same information. If the files a website has are extremely damaged following a breach, they can be replaced with backups. Using a backup can help you get your site back up and running in no time at all.
Make sure the backup you are using is both cloud-based and automatic. Trying to remember to perform routine backups on your own will usually cause major issues, which is why automation is key.

With the help of an experienced IT professional, you can properly secure your website. These professionals will also be able to offer guidance when it comes to choosing backup and update automation programs.

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