Web Security
Web Security refers to the protocols and protective measures one would pick in the protection of online services and entities, like Emails, Websites and DNS services, these are something that are vital for an online company, let alone anyone just using the Web.
There are many ways that a company could improve the security of their websites from malicious hackers and crawling bots, from small updates to smart passwords.
Keep Website Plugins Updated
Keeping your software up to date helps with site security, as out of date software can leave your site vulnerable to attacks from hackers, who look for these kinds of exploits. These updates will usually include patches and fixes for vulnerabilities and improved security, so not getting these patches leaves you very vulnerable.
Strong Passwords
Having a strong password may seem like such an obvious thing nowadays, but it is still a vitally important step that everyone should still think about, not just website owners. Having a password that is memorable is a good thing, but if you make it too obvious, say it links to your email or username, hackers could guess the password and gain access to your information and website. It is recommended that your password should have at least:
A capital letter
A symbol
A number
8-15 characters long
It’s also recommended that you should change your passwords every 1 – 3 months, although it depends what that password is for. The more important passwords are recommended to be changed monthly, but the less important ones are recommended to be changed around 3 months.
You should also never give out your password to anyone, at any time. Unless the person is trusted, you shouldn’t give out any passwords to anyone who asked for it, especially if you don’t know them.
Website Backups
Creating backups of your website to store offline can be a great step in security, and is something useful in general. Having a backup means that if something happens to your site, whether a cyberattack or a huge mistake, you can restore the site back to how it was previously. Which is useful to recover from a cyberattack as well, but they should be stored offline, it is also recommended that these backups should be stored offsite, like on a home computer. Backups could also be stored in cloud storage and be accessed from anywhere as well, allowing you to make website repairs on the fly too.
HTTPS and SSL Certificates
You may notice that some websites’ URLs will start with either http:// or https://, and this shows you which is the more secure site and which isn’t. HTTPS is the safer one to use, the S stands for Secure. A secure site will stop interceptions from malicious sources whilst the content is being sent from the website to the user, although to secure your website, you’ll need a SSL certificate.
SSL is another way of securing the content whilst it is being sent from the user to the website and its database, and prevents hackers from reading it in transit, and prevents anyone without authority from accessing the information.
Keep Track of Who Does What
You might not like the idea of keeping track of what your colleagues or family do on your website or computer, but it’s more about whether they know how to keep safe doing what they are doing, rather than what they’re up to. Colleagues working on a website for example, should be told about ways to keep the website secure like keeping plugins up to date, about recommended password change times, inform them about the precautions they should take and to remind them to keep an eye out for potential mistakes.
Whilst the previous points included some instances of where this could be applied generally, most of it was applying to website security, for more personal web security, there are many ways as well.
Always check for https://
Like stated previously, you should always check if the website you are using is a secure one, which will be shown either by a padlock in the URL bar, or in the actual URL itself will have a https:// at the start of it.
Having a Secure Connection
Just like checking for a https://, in general having a safe and secure internet connection is something everyone should do. Unsecure connections could be something like public Wi-Fi, what everyone can access. In fact, public Wi-Fi can be a target for these hackers to gain access and information that they please. One thing that you should never do, is to log in to anything like online banking or the like, this information will be vulnerable on an unsecured connection.
Be cautious of Phishing
Phishing is a way for hackers to gain access to your data and information, it’s when a hacker will pretend to be a trustworthy source like a bank for example, they will send you an email or message, asking for your information, maybe a password needed updating or a card number needed checking, either way these are fakes, as a bank would not ask for your information. These emails would usually be accompanied by a link, which when clicked would take the user to either a copy of the intended page, or to the actual page, but being intercepted by a script that would give the hacker access.
Updating Antivirus
Keeping your antivirus updated, just like you would with a website and its plugins, helps keep your computer and information safe. If you were unlucky enough to get a virus on your computer, your antivirus usually would take care of it, but sometimes hackers will find a exploit for their virus software to be undetected, and that is why you should keep it updated, most of these exploits will be found and then repaired in updates, so staying behind a version would most definitely leave you vulnerable.
Whilst these are only a few points that can be made for web security, hopefully you have seen something that you haven’t thought of or forgotten about, and implemented that into your personal web safety.
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