You’ve launched your website and done all you can to ensure its success, but you may have overlooked a critical component: website security. Cyberattacks cause costly clean-up, damage your reputation, and discourage visitors from coming back. Fortunately, you can prevent it all with effective website security. We’ll discuss the basics of website security and what solutions will help ensure your website isn’t taken down by a cyberattack.
Website security is any action or application taken to ensure website data is not exposed to cybercriminals or to prevent exploitation of websites in any way.
DDoS attacks. These attacks can slow or crash your site entirely, making it inaccessible to visitors.
Malware. Short for “malicious software,” malware is a very common threat used to steal sensitive customer data, distribute spam, allow cybercriminals to access your site, and more.
Blacklisting. Your site may be removed from search engine results and flagged with a warning that turns visitors away if search engines find malware.
Defacement. This attack replaces your website’s content with a cybercriminal’s malicious content.
Stolen data. From email addresses to payment information, cybercriminals frequently go after visitor or customer data stored on a site.
Phishing schemes. Phishing doesn’t just happen in email – some attacks take the form of web pages that look legitimate but are designed to trick the user into providing sensitive information.
Session hijacking. Some cyberattacks can take over a user’s session and force them to take unwanted actions on a site.
Malicious redirects. Certain attacks can redirect visitors from the site they intended to visit to a malicious website.
SEO Spam. Unusual links, pages, and comments can be put on a site to confuse your visitors and drive traffic to malicious websites.
There are four main reasons why every website needs security.
SSL certificates protect the data collected by your website, like emails and credit card numbers, as it is transferred from your site to a server. This is a basic website security measure, but it’s so important that popular browsers and search engines are now labeling sites without SSL as “insecure,” which could make visitors suspicious of your site. Depending on your site, you may be able to get an SSL certificate for free, but be sure to choose the SSL certificate that’s best for your site.
Remember that SSL only protects data in transit, so you’ll need to take further steps for a fully secure website.
A WAF stops automated attacks that commonly target small or lesser-known websites. These attacks are carried out by malicious bots that automatically look for vulnerabilities they can exploit, or cause DDoS attacks that slow or crash your website.
A cyberattack costs more the longer it takes to be found, so time is of the essence when a site experiences an attack. A website scanner looks for malware, vulnerabilities and other security issues so that you can mitigate them appropriately. SiteLock’s scanners not only remove known malware, they also look for threats on a daily basis and let you know the moment anything is found, reducing the amount of damage it can do to your site.
Websites hosted on a content management system (CMS) are at a higher risk of compromise due to vulnerabilities and security issues often found in third-party plugins and applications. These can be prevented by installing updates to plugins and core software in a timely manner, as these updates often contain security patches – you can even use an automatic patching solution to make it easier.
Fortunately, there’s a fast and simple way to get what you need to protect your website. SiteLock makes website security easy and affordable with automated solutions that are easy to install and plans that work for your budget. We offer website scanning with automatic malware removal, a WAF and automated patching, and we can help you choose an SSL certificate too. Chat with us or give us a call at 855.378.6200 – our U.S.-based customer support is here to help anytime 24/7/365.