There are best cybersecurity practices needed from website owners. This is because as a site owner, you are responsible for the security of your website. Therefore, no matter the platform you manage your website on, there are certain actions you need to do to help maintain your site. We have listed the ultimate cybersecurity practices that every website’s owners should take seriously in managing their websites.
8 Best Cybersecurity Practices for Website Owners
1. Periodic Website Backups
Since you don’t know what to expect the next minutes or seconds, never neglect to backup your website. There is every possibility of having an attack or unexpected shutdown. Therefore, if you don’t have a backup of your website, all your works are gone and forever lost. So, backup all it’s components, which includes the database, important data, themes, plugins, and other fundamentals files.
Backing up a website is mostly regarded as the underlying security practice that should be done before anything else. Depending on how often you update your website, you can choose to back it up daily, weekly, or monthly.
2. Set up firewalls
To prevent malicious attacks from hackers and cybercriminals, set up a firewall. As an owner of a website, this practice is one paramount cybersecurity practices that you shouldn’t hesitate to input. What a firewall does is to act as a fence/wall between an untrusted network and traffic from attacking or engaging your website. These untrusted traffics sare mostly used by hackers to gain access to websites.
While you are using a firewall to secure your website, it also helps to save the load time of your site. Often, when malicious attacks are launched to a site, it attacks the bandwidth and reduces the web hosting load time. Using a firewall helps prevent this.
3. Use a reputable hosting
As a website owner, the web hosting company you choose or where you host your site matters a lot. This is one of the cybersecurity practices you shouldn’t take for granted. There are many web hosting platforms out there, but it is paramount you chose the right platform. Some of the reputable ones are NameCheap, iPage, or Hostinger.
These companies are not only regarded as hosting companies, but you can also purchase domains there at a considerable price. Another good reason to consider them is that they have been in the business for years. Therefore, be assured that your site is safe with them. They also offer dedicated hosting and shared hosting according to preference.
- READ ALSO: 6 Best Secure Web Hosting for Web Designers
4. Change Passwords
A cybersecurity practice you should also exercise as a website owner is to never use the same password for too long. Hackers are constantly using new technology and software to hack their prey. Therefore it takes seconds to hack a password. If you have several websites, never use the same password for them. This is because when one site gets hacked, others are entirely exposed.
While you are changing your passwords, don’t just use a word. Use a combination of letters, symbols, and numbers that are case sensitive; this makes your password durable and not easily hacked. Also, make use of a dedicated password manager for proper password management.
Also Read; Online Security Tips for Seniors
5. Educate your employee
As a site owner, you should educate your authors, editors, and other website employees on the importance of staying secured. It will help if you train them on actions that are important to remain protected. Tutoring should also be given to the significance of visiting away from phishing sites or clicking to any links sent to their work mail.
Also, limit the access you give to your employees to certain platforms on your website. The limitation should be on plugin installations, settings, and certain web database. They should also have dedicated passwords and should never share the same passwords.
6. Secure computers
Computers that are for accessing your website should be highly protected. Use a trusted malware checker to perform a periodic scan on your PC. It will help reveal any hidden malware or virus on your PC that could affect your site when logged in.
Ensure your employees perform these scans too. If possible, be strict about this policy to ensure that your website is protected. You can also make use of a reputable VPN for securing your computer.
Also Read; Importance of CAPTCHA in Web Security
7. Setup HTTPS
Even if you aren’t selling anything nor running an eCommerce website, visitors and Google mostly neglect a site without an HTTPS. A site running only on the ‘HTTP’ protocol will have users thinking that their data is unsafe when they access it. Also, Google ranks websites with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol as they feel it’s safe for users. So, don’t hesitate to make it your priority now.
Moreover, sites without SSL or HTTPS protocol are easily vulnerable to cybercriminals. Online hackers can easily alter websites to change or steal visitor’s information.
8. Staying up to date
When you get a notification to update your plugins or software related to your websites, don’t have a second thought on doing this. Developers have reasons for updating those plugins, so the last thing you want to do is not to follow through. Software, CMS, or Plugins update is a way of fixing bugs or glitches that could slow down your sites or make it exposed to hackers.
Also Read: 8 Best Antivirus with VPN
Conclusion
So, there you have it, the best Cybersecurity practices for securing your website the owners. Remember, whether you are running a large website or a small one, no site is too small to stay unsecured.
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