I read on the news that Google recently recalled by painting a bleak picture of cyber security trends, according to the search engine company, the number of websites hacked rose by 32 percent in 2016.
Frankly, hackers can spend hours scanning for sites with vulnerabilities so they can break in.
Here are few tips that you need to stay safe.
Stay Updated
As hacking threats become more dangerous than ever, it is imperative you stay updated with hacking threats.
You can only protect your website when you know or have the basic knowledge of what is possible then you can protect your site against it.
“We don’t expect this trend to slow down. As hackers get more aggressive and more sites become outdated, hackers will continue to capitalize by infecting more sites,” Google said in a post on its Webmaster blog.
Hacking behavior is constantly evolving, and research allows us to stay up to date on and combat the latest trends,” Google said.
There are top websites that I would recommend you follow, for instance, tech site like The Hacker News is a good area to start. The information from this site is usually valuable only if you try to apply them with caution.
Tighten Up Access Control
Obviously, the back-end or the admin panel of your website is an area where you do not need anyone to operate, not even hackers.
How do you tighten up your access control, you need to have a secure password. Some people generate a password when they sign-up with a site like Lastpass. Lastpass has been helpful over the years. However, the password to your web admin page must be secure enough.
More importantly, avoid sending your website login details by email, no matter who is involved. Someone can quickly gain unauthorized access to the account.
Also, try to limit the number of login attempts within a certain time frame. This also includes the password resets, because email accounts can be hacked as well.
Lastly, change the default database prefix from “wp6_” to something that would be difficult to guess.
Update Everything
It baffles me to see bloggers jettison software updates, and this is no brained at all. Even these updates usually cost software companies money. What you need to do is to install the updates immediately, there is a reason for the upgrade.
“As always, it’s best to take a preventative approach and secure your site rather than dealing with the aftermath,” the blog said. “Remember a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”
Most times the reason for these updates are to tighten up security vulnerabilities and delaying it could be dangerous.
Install a Web Application Firewall
Installing a web application firewall is imperative, it could either be software or hardware based. It is usually read every bit of data by setting it between your website server and the data connection.
Meanwhile, modern website applications firewall are cloud based and provided as a plug-and-play service (not free)
Once successfully installed, the WAF will provide complete peace of mind, by blocking all hacking attempts and also fishing out other types of unwanted traffic, like spammers and malicious malware.
Install Security Applications
Security applications may not be as robust as Website Application Firewalls, but it depends. I advise you to go for the paid ones, once you get it installed it becomes tough for hackers to get you straight away. That doesn’t mean that free plugins aren’t capable, for instance, plugins like Acunetix WP Security can provide protection in the way of hiding the identity of your website’s CMS. This tool makes you more resilient against automated hacking tools that scout the web.
Hide Admin Pages
If your admin page is indexed then, you stand the chances of getting hacked. Your admin pages don’t need to be indexed by search engines. What you need to do to make that happen is to use the robots_txt file to discourage search engines from listing them.
Use SSL
Using an encrypted SSL protocol to transfer information between the website and your database is a good way to go. This will disallow any information being read in transit and accessed without the proper authority.
Remove Form Auto-fill
I usually see this happen I some websites. Removing the auto fill from the site is a brainer.
In other words, when the auto-fill is enabled for forms on your site, it becomes very open to attacks from any user’s computer or phone that has been stolen.
Backup Frequently
Backing up frequently is a way of being proactive because that is what security measures need. Backup on-site, backup offsite, backup everything multiple times a day. Backing up once a day means that you lose that day’s data when your hard drive fails.
In conclusion, don’t wait until you are hacked before taking preventing steps, if you are hacked, you are gone.
