7 Great Tips to Protect Your Websites Against Hackers

More and more people use or create websites like blogs or forums to trade or communicate. But it’s not something new that websites catch infected with viruses. So as a webmaster, the important thing is not only to rank up your page but also to secure the data against hackers and viruses. Securing the website should be done without delay, like locking the door to strangers and keeping the house safe. This is rather critical especially for those who sell products or services on the website, building a safe and trusting shopping environment. If you have never thought of this, please take effective ways showed in the bellowing post.

1- Keep things up-to-date

Numerous websites are contaminated every day because of the outdated or insecure software that is used. Nearly every hour hackers scan tons of websites and exploit security weakness or loopholes to break in. So we kindly advise first you should upgrade your site timely when new third-party software, plug-in, theme or CMS (content management system) is available. Don’t forget to upgrade your website scripts once released. It’s a good habit to view updated tech news as well. By the way, remove/uninstall plugins or themes you are not using. Also, you should download plugins and themes from trusting or well-known resources.

2- Toughen access control

According to the research, admin level of the website is another easy way for evil criminals to infiltrate and see everything inside. It’s not advisable to use “Admin” as the login username, which is simple and easy to guess. Meanwhile, change the password to something hard to guess, and often. In addition, you’d better set a strong, unique, long and complex password for the database as well as your email account. It’s better to limit the number of login attempts to resources in a period of time. Keep login details in secret and never send them through emails. Or some an unauthorized user could gain access to your account, which is dangerous.

3- Change database table prefix

Like using another login user name for the website, it’s wise to alter the default database table prefix “wp_” (for example, running a WordPress site) to any random thing. This will reduce the risk of being attacked and damaged by hackers, though complicated and boring to some extent.

4- Modify file and folder permissions

Each file has 3 permissions available and each permission is represented by a number. 4 equals Read, allowing to view the file content. 2 equals Write, allowing anyone to change the file content. 1 equals execute, allowing to run the program file or script. And 0 equals no permissions for the user. If your file permission is 777 (or 4+2+1 / 4+2+1 / 4+2+1), that means “anyone” can read, change and run the file, including injecting malicious codes. Clearly, you should take 750, for example for your folders and directories, 645 for individual files. To reset your file permissions, you need to log into your cPanel’s File Manager or connect to the server through FTP.

5- Back up your site frequently

Just prepare for the worst. For instance, you can weekly back up everything such as your database, files and content, in both off-site and on-site ways. You should at least do it in manual ways, regardless of plugins. Actually there are many WordPress plugins, like paid BackupBuddy or free Ready!Backup. You can make automated backups, send resources off to FTP or Dropbox, and restore them in quick time.

6- Remove or rename your installation folder

It’s not necessary to keep the installer folder in the system as long as you finish the installation WordPress or any other software. But it could be another ease access for hackers to take control of your site and content. That is, a hacker can use some methods to invade your computer and run the installer again, being able to empty the database. If you would like to have it, it’s nice to give it another name.

7- Use security software

An extra action to protect your website is to install a plug-in or a web application firewall. Security plugins will add an additional layer of security via extending the key functionality of the script. A WAF is set between your site server and the data connection, reading every bit of data which passes through them. This will give a harder time for hackers to infiltrate into your website and database.

Conclusion

Most of us could be with the philosophy “It won’t happen to me”. But this is not true in the world of network security. Hackers can take advantage of every tiny bug to assault the poor website to compromise not only your own information but also users’ data. Worse still, your site would become a blacklisting of Google as well as other search engines as your affected website takes the risk of spreading vicious content throughout the web. The above seven tips will not guarantee that your website will never be hacked, but they can stop a vast of automated attacks, decreasing the overall risk posture.

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