The security of your website should always be one of your top priorities. Sure, you may say that you’re safe because you run a niche website, or hackers won’t have any interest in your business. However, studies have shown that hacking attempts against website are a daily event. There are several types of security breaches. The two most common are those that steal your data and those that use your website and your server as relays for spam and other illegalities.

Long gone is are the days when hackers themselves would try to breach your server’s security. Today, the vast majority of hacking attempts are made through automated scripts. These scripts are designed to continuously scan websites for security exploits. We’ll show you 3 very important steps that you should take in order to secure your website and servers more efficiently.

Keep Your CMS Updated

This is one of the easiest steps towards better protection. If you’re not already using a CMS, you should definitely consider switching to one. Regardless of the vendor, CMSes do not only make your life easier through a friendly user interface, but they also offer built-in security measures. Of course, as with all available software, there are certain glitches and exploits that can surface once the software is published.

However, because companies such as Wix, WordPress, Joomla, or WebGUI, put a high value on security, these exploits are usually patched very quickly. It’s of utmost importance to keep your CMS updated to the latest version in order to avoid any potential security breaches. To make things even easier, CMS vendors usually send out e-mails, publish RSS feeds, or use other methods to inform their users of any software updates that might be available.

Use Secure Server Solutions

Whether you’re using your own server or paying for a third-party vendor, you want to make sure that the servers are always secure. There are three easy steps that you can take in order to make sure that the physically stored data is secured:

1. Use RAID - short for “Redundant Array of Independent Disks”, it’s a very effective data protection system. Although more expensive than regular counterparts, RAID servers offer much higher data security.

2. Invest in a Trustworthy Datacenter - being on the safe side of a disaster is always preferred. The majority of well-known server providers offer warranties in case of natural disasters. These third-party providers use backup generators, physically secure facilities, and various other protection measures. Moreover, you wouldn’t want your server to keep crashing every other day. Promised uptime is also an aspect you want to check before investing in a third-party server.

3. Create Regular Backups - you should always backup your data. Always. It’s exceptionally useful to be able to back up your data in both physical and virtual forms. However, one form is usually more than enough. Try to create backups of your data as often as possible. Daily backups are your best choice, but that’s not always possible.

Keep Your Data Encrypted

It may sound a bit like taken out of a sci-fi movie, but data encryption proves to be extremely useful. Data moves around rather freely over the Internet. Whether it’s through VPNs or not, unencrypted data is still unsecured. This means that hackers could easily tap into your data flux and steal valuable information. In order to prevent such an event from happening, you should invest in setting up a Secured Socket Layer (SSL).

Using encrypted data through an encrypted connection provides better security for both your website and your clients. Through the use of SSL you can protect your own data, your client’s identities, financial transactions, and many more.

Conclusion

Website security should not be taken for granted. There are many reported cases of hacked websites. Although these security measures won’t guarantee that your website will never become compromised, the added layers of security will reduce that risk to an absolute minimum.