A lot of hard work went into building your website.
What could be more terrifying than thinking of all your work stolen, changed, or completely wiped out by a hacker?
We all see website breaches and hacks in the news every day. Don’t think that just because you are a small business, it won’t happen to you. According to a report by CNBC, 43% of the cyberattacks are now aimed at small businesses—and only 14% of those businesses are prepared to defend themselves.
What about your website?
Is it protected?
Here are some ways you can make it much tougher for those high-tech villains to break in and destroy your investment.
Use HTTPS
What is it?
An SSL certificate secures the transfer of information. When your customers transfer their personal information to your website and onto your server, the certificate encrypts the data. This means that their credit card information, personal data, and contact information are protected. If you run an online store, an SSL certificate is essential. As if that wasn’t reason enough, Google looks for SSL certificates for any sites selling things online and isn’t shy about blacklisting sites without one.
How do I get one?
An SSL certificate would be available through your hosting company.
Install Security Plugins
What are they?
Security plugins are created to provide your website protection from malware, brute-force attacks, and hacking attempts, as well as to provide complete security reports.
Which plugin should I get?
For WordPress sites, my favorite plugin is:
Wordfence – https://www.wordfence.com/
It provides login security, malware scans, firewalls, and two-factor authentication. They offer a free version that comes complete with a powerful malware scanner and threat assessment features.
Keep your website platform and software up to date
Why is this important?
Using a Content Management System or CMS provides the ability to use various plugins and extensions. Along with those benefits come a certain amount of risk. The leading cause of website infections is the vulnerabilities that are present in a content management system’s extensibility component.
How do I avoid that?
Always make sure that the plugins, apps, and scripts you’ve installed as part of your CMS are all up to date.
Make sure your passwords are secure
We all joke about using “password” as your password, but it truly is no joke.
Take the extra effort to figure out a truly secure password.
How do I do that?
Make it long and use a mix of special characters, numbers, and letters. It is best to steer clear of potentially easy-to-guess keywords like your birthday or child’s name. If a hacker somehow gains access to other information about you, they’ll know to guess those first.
Invest in automatic backups
Why is this important?
You put hours of blood, sweat, and tears into creating your site. You get hacked and just like that, everything is gone. If you have no backup, now you need to start—all—over.
What should I do?
Check with your hosting company and see how frequently they perform backups of your site, if at all.
The best way to protect yourself is to make sure you always have a recent backup.
Your website is the lifeblood of your business.
It is important to take the steps today to protect your investment, your customers, and your brand for tomorrow and beyond.
Reach out today for a complimentary consultation to talk about more simple ways to protect your website.
At Waterfront Graphic Design, we provide seamless web support while you grow your business. We handle everything from start to finish and all the maintenance in between. We outperform in the background as your website partner while you enjoy the spotlight.
