Security Must Be a Priority!
Website security is a critical aspect of any online presence as it helps protect your website and users from potential cyber attacks and threats. With the growing number of online threats and the increasing sophistication of hackers, it’s essential to follow best practices and avoid common security pitfalls to ensure the security of your website.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss why you should protect your visitors, the most important website security best practices you should follow to keep your website and your users safe, and depict common security pitfalls to equip you with the knowledge necessary to maintain a secure site.
Protect Your Visitors
In this day and age, with cyber attacks continually developing in intelligence, it is incredibly important to make sure your website is secure to ensure your visitors can always trust you with their personal details and information. A high level of website security is important for many reasons:
- Trust: Websites that take the necessary steps to secure their website, such as using SSL certificates and regularly updating their software, are more trustworthy to visitors.
- Brand reputation: A website that has been compromised by hackers or has a history of security breaches will have a damaged reputation and perception of poor credibility.
- Search engine ranking: Search engines like Google consider website security as a ranking factor, so websites with good security practices will have a higher ranking in search engine results. Websites that are not secure will be ranked lower, negatively impacting their conversion and volume of traffic.
- Compliance: Many industries and organisations are required by law to protect sensitive information and maintain a certain level of website security. Breaching compliance regulation can lead to a variety of negative reputational and financial outcomes.
- User experience: A website that is not secure will provide visitors with a poor user experience. Without a high level of security measures implemented, browser warnings and redirecting to error pages can occur, instilling anxiety in the visitor and causing high bounce rates.
Common Security Traps
Now that the importance of high security is evident, fix these common website security mistakes and improve your reputation, trust, and credibility with visitors:
Inadequate password policies
One of the most common security mistakes is using weak and easily guessable passwords for website accounts. Using weak or easily guessable passwords, or not requiring strong passwords, can make it easy for hackers to gain access to a website. To avoid this, make sure to use strong, unique passwords that are at least 12 characters long and contain a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Consider using a password manager to generate and store strong passwords for all your accounts.
Outdated software
Many website owners forget to update their website’s software, including the CMS, plugins, and themes, leaving them vulnerable to potential security threats. Updates often include security patches and bug fixes, so it’s important to update your software regularly to stay ahead of potential threats. Failing to update your software can leave your website open to attacks, putting both your website and its users at risk.
Unvalidated input
Not properly validating user input, such as form submissions, can allow hackers to inject malicious code into a website.
Lack of encryption
Not using encryption to protect sensitive information can make it easy for hackers to intercept and steal sensitive data. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates are important for encrypting data transmitted between a website and its users, but many website owners still neglect to install them. Failing to use SSL/TLS certificates can put sensitive information, such as passwords and personal information, at risk of being intercepted by cyber criminals. Additionally, not using SSL/TLS certificates can reduce trust with your website’s users, as they can see that your website is not secure.
Not using secure connections
Not using secure connections, such as HTTPS, can make it easy for hackers to intercept and read the data being transmitted between a website and a user’s browser.
Lack of monitoring
Monitoring website activity is an important aspect of website security, but many website owners still neglect to do so. Failing to monitor website activity can result in the undetected compromise of sensitive information, as well as prolonged downtime and reduced trust with your website’s users. Use tools like website logs and security plugins to monitor activity on your website and receive alerts in the event of a potential threat. Regularly review your website logs and security reports to stay informed about the latest threats and vulnerabilities and to ensure that your website is secure.
Lack of testing
Testing website security is an important aspect of ensuring the safety and stability of your website, but many website owners still neglect to do so. Not regularly testing for vulnerabilities, such as penetration testing, can make it difficult to identify and fix security weaknesses in a website. Failing to test website security can result in the undetected compromise of sensitive information and reduced website security. Consider using tools like vulnerability scans and penetration testing to identify potential security threats and vulnerabilities, and to ensure that your website is secure. Regularly test your website security to stay informed about the latest threats and vulnerabilities and to ensure that your website is secure.
Failing to educate employees
Website security is not just about technical measures; it’s also about the actions and behaviors of employees. Many website owners neglect to educate their employees on the importance of website security, which can result in careless actions that put both the website and its users at risk. Educate employees on safe online practices, such as using strong passwords and avoiding suspicious links, to help keep your website and its users safe.
Security Best Practices
Keeping up with website security can seem like a daunting task and time consuming task but input these best practices within your website security strategy and you will be able to protect both your website and your visitors.
Keep software updated
We often find that websites are sitting for months, maybe even years without being updated. This overlooks the importance of keeping your site up-to-date to ensure it is secure and will deter threats. Regularly updating software, such as your website’s CMS or plugins, can help to ensure that known vulnerabilities are fixed and the website is protected against malware. Software vulnerabilities will occur if the relevant updates are not regularly implemented, reducing the functionality of your website by causing malfunctions, as well as leaving it vulnerable to security threats.
Use a security plugin
Website security plugins can help protect your website from potential threats and vulnerabilities, but many website owners still neglect to use them. Not using security plugins can leave your website open to attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, which can result in the compromise of sensitive information and reduced website security.
Regularly scan your website
Websites should be scanned regularly, at least once a week, to detect and remove any malware that may have been added. Regular malware scanning and removal is an important aspect of website security, helping to protect your website from malicious software that can steal sensitive information, disrupt the website’s functionality, and harm the reputation of your business. There are several malware scanners available that can scan a website for known malware and vulnerabilities.
Have a backup plan
This is a major one! You can do everything possible to prevent data loss or a security breach but unfortunately, as threats become increasingly more intelligent, you must have a contingency plan in place in case you are unlucky enough to fall victim. Not having a backup plan for website data can lead to data loss in case of an attack or other disaster while having a backup plan in place is essential to recover your website quickly.
Backup your website
Are you fully prepared for things going wrong? Having a backup for your website will help the effectiveness of your backup plan, ensuring a quick recovery. In the event of a human-error issue, security breach, malware infection, or functional malfunction, having a recent backup of your website can mean the difference between a quick recovery and a long, costly downtime. in the long run. Be sure to store your backups in a secure, off-site location and test them regularly to ensure they can be quickly and easily restored in the event of a disaster.
Safety First
In summary, having a great website is ineffective if you don’t have the necessary security to support it as website security is crucial for the success and stability of any online presence. Anxiety regarding lack of security will prevent users from parting with personal information or spending any significant time on your site, and without these aspects, your website will fail to achieve conversion.
By avoiding the common security mistakes outlined in this blog post and implementing the security best practices as part of your website strategy, you can help ensure the safety and security of your website and its users. Remember, website security is a continuous process and requires ongoing attention and effort to maintain. You must regularly review and update your website security measures to stay informed about the latest threats and vulnerabilities and to ensure that your website is secure.
However, we understand that for many website security implementation and management can seem like a complex commitment as it requires continual attention.
This is one of the benefits of using a WaaS (websites-as-a-service) provider. WaaS provider Creatify takes the stress out of website security by including a backup service as part of their website development and maintenance package. For example, Creatify backup their clients’ websites daily to ensure they always have an up to date version to revert to in the very unlikely situation that an issue occurs, take care of all malware scanning and removal, and quickly rectify security issues.
