Introduction
In this blog post, we will provide a list of 10 tips that can help you secure your website. Whether you’re hosting your website on your server or in the cloud, there are many best practices you can follow to protect it from cyberattacks. Every day, roughly 30,000 websites get hacked (Forbes) and about 84% of observed vulnerabilities in web applications were security misconfigurations.
10 tips to secure your website
Here are 10 tips to secure your website from cyberattacks. These tips include best practices such as keeping your software updated, using two-factor authentication, or backing up your website regularly.
1. Keep your software up to date
One of the most important things you can do to keep your website secure is to ensure that all your software is continuously up to date. This includes your operating systems, web servers, and any applications or plugins you are using. Outdated software is one of the biggest security risks for websites, as it can allow hackers to exploit publicly-known known vulnerabilities.
2. Use SSL certificates and HTTPS
Using SSL certificates and encrypting your website traffic with HTTPS is another great way to improve your website security. This will help protect your website from many malicious attacks, including man-in-the-middle, denial-of-service, and application security vulnerabilities. You can get SSL certificates by purchasing them from a reputable certificate authority or by using a free service like Let’s Encrypt. You can activate HTTPS by configuring your web server or using a plugin like Cloudflare.
3. Implement two-factor authentication
Another good security measure is to enable two-factor authentication for your website. This means that users will need to provide two forms of identification when logging in, such as a password and a code sent to their mobile phone. This will make it much harder for hackers to gain access to your website. Two-factor authentication will also protect your password from being stolen in a data breach.
4. Avoid verbose error messages
When website owners make mistakes, they often provide verbose error messages that give hackers a lot of information about their website’s technologies. These types of messages allow hackers to execute successful attacks by focusing on specific technologies with publicly known vulnerabilities. For that reason, replace any of your verbose error messages with generic messages.
5. Install a web application firewall (WAF)
A web application firewall (WAF) is a piece of software that can help protect your website from attacks. A WAF can block malicious traffic before it reaches your website, and it can also help identify and stop attacks that are already in progress. Moreover, a WAF can also help mitigate the effects of an attack, using rate-limiting requests or blocking IP addresses.
6. Choose a secure web hosting platform
When choosing a web hosting platform, it is important to choose one that offers good security features, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and malware scanning. By using a secure web hosting platform, you can help protect your website from attacks. You can also prevent your WordPress site from getting hacked by following these other specific tips.
7. Restrict the file upload functionality
If your website has a file upload functionality, it is important to make it secure. Hackers can use this feature to upload malicious files to your website. If you must have this functionality, make sure it is configured to only allow trusted users to upload files or to only allow certain file types, or to have the files scanned for malware before being uploaded.
8. Implement a Content Security Policy (CSP)
One of the most common types of attacks is a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attack. This type of attack injects malicious code into your website, which can then be executed by visitors. To protect against XSS attacks, you can use a web application firewall or an input validation mechanism. You can also use the Content Security Policy (CSP) to help protect against XSS attacks. CSP is a browser security mechanism mitigating XSS attacks by restricting the resources (such as scripts and images) that a page can load.
9. Back up your website regularly
Backing up your website regularly is important for two reasons: First, it helps ensure that you can recover from an attack; Second, it can help you identify what was changed or deleted during an attack. By having a backup of your website, you can quickly restore it if it gets compromised. You should also keep your backups at a secure location, such as an offsite server or cloud storage service.
10. Avoid default configurations
Using default configurations on your web devices could be one of the biggest security threats to your website. This is because hackers know that some organizations still use default configurations, namely for their website CMS, hosting server, or router. To avoid this type of attack, it is important to not only change the default security settings on all of your web devices, but also any default password or username. By changing the defaults, you will make it much harder for hackers to gain access to your website.
Wrapping up
Websites have become an essential part of web application security, as millions of users now rely on them to manage their most sensitive information. From banking transactions to e-commerce, these service websites or applications are being deployed in interconnected cloud environments, generating new and significant security risks that organizations must now account for. Specialized website or application security services will help you better safeguard your most important assets from cyberattacks.
Contact us if you need help with your web application penetration testing project.
