Small, medium-sized, or large businesses must safeguard their websites from numerous cyber risks. They are also responsible for complying with regulations, maintaining customer trust, protecting sensitive information, preventing expensive security breaches, and improving user experiences.
In this situation, security tips or practices come in handy, as small, medium-sized, and large business owners can easily follow them, minimizing the risk of cyber-attacks, maintaining their reputation, and providing a secure environment to their current and prospective customers.
This blog post will discuss the ten best security tips or practices for improving website security to the next level.
10 Best Security Tips to Protect Your Websites from Hackers
Website developers and owners must follow the best security practices when protecting websites from cybercriminals, including hackers, identity thieves, phishers, etc.
These practices allow them to safeguard sites against potential security breaches and threats.
These security tips or practices are:
1. Implement an SSL Certificate for HTTPS Encryption
SSL, also called (Secure Sockets Layer) is a famous security protocol. It helps encrypt all communication between a web server and a web browser. The main responsibility of SSL is to secure all information or data from the prying eyes of cybercriminals like hackers, phishers, etc.
Fortunately, different web hosting providers come with SSL certificates by default. In short, website owners do not have to install the SSL certificate themselves.
Besides, they can utilize various free WordPress plugins, such as Really Simple SSL, Let’s Encrypt SSL, and more, when configuring the SSL certificates on their sites.
2. Keep Plugins, Themes, and Software Updated
Using WordPress, you should regularly update your plugins, themes, and core software. A recent study suggests that outdated plugins are behind 56% of attacks on WordPress sites.
Therefore, we should not overlook the importance of constantly updating software, themes, and plugins. Security updates are good because they comprise new features, fixes, and patches.
New features help improve site functionality and performance overall. Security patches allow website owners to tackle newly explored vulnerabilities proactively.
Otherwise, hackers and other cyber terrorists can exploit them and potentially harm WordPress websites. Bug fixing is handy when site developers and owners want to preserve the integrity of their websites by resolving various errors.
It must be your habit to search for updates and install them regularly. This is indisputable; a few minutes spent updating today will save you from headaches, frustration, and, most importantly, security breaches tomorrow.
3. Use Strong Passwords
Strong passwords prevent websites from unauthorized access. They primarily act as the first line of defense. When you create solid yet unrecognizable passwords, hackers’ jobs become much more complicated, as they cannot infiltrate your system in the first place.
Moreover, you can also use 2FA (two-factor authentication) to incorporate an additional security layer into your site.
4. Select Trustworthy Web Hosting Providers
Website owners must select reliable web hosting providers that help them secure their sites from various cybersecurity risks and issues in advance.
These web hosting providers regularly improve their services by introducing advanced security features like malware scanners and firewalls.
Besides, they allow website owners to protect their customers’ data by delivering automatic backup and recovery services. This allows site owners to recover their data if an unforeseen event occurs. You can contact them anytime, and they are available 24/7.
5. Install Security Plugins
Fortunately, WordPress website owners have many options for securing their sites. They can benefit from impactful security plugins, such as Sucuri and Wordfence, which enable them to utilize multiple results-driven features like malware scanners, web application firewalls, monitoring and alerts, and more.
6. Delete Unused Plugins and Themes
If you have not used some of the WordPress plugins and themes in a while, it is better to remove them. That’s because they can become easy targets for hackers, so you must decrease the risk as much as possible. Deactivating themes and plugins will not make much difference. Thus, you must remove the unused plugins and themes from your site.
7. Limit User Access and Permissions
You must restrict access to specific functions and areas depending on user roles. By doing so, you can proactively decrease the probability of unauthorized access to crucial and sensitive information. WordPress, in this regard, is one of the best content management systems, as it provides user roles with predefined access levels.
8. Backup Your Site Regularly
This is one of the most straightforward yet fruitful security solutions. It does not matter how secure your website is. You may have to pay for your negligence if you do not back up your website. Regular website backup allows you to recover your WordPress websites without fuss.
9. Utilize Website Security Tools
Use website security tools to protect your WordPress site from potential security risks. You can use multiple website protection tools like Norton, AppTrana, Qualys, Imperva, Acunetix, SecOps Security, and Astra Pentest. For instance, SecOPs Security, which mainly works as a website scanning tool, lets users discover potential vulnerabilities.
10. Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a perfect security guard for safeguarding your website. This impressive security solution filters out malicious traffic, meaning only legitimate users can pass through.
Apart from this, WAF can help site owners bypass common web application attacks, including code injection attempts, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), SQL injection, DDoS attacks, broken access control, security misconfiguration, and more.
The best thing about WAF is its real-time website traffic monitoring. It helps recognize and block malicious threats in real-time. Therefore, website owners must consider using reliable WAFs, such as Radware Cloud WAF, Amazon Web Services (WAF), Imperva Cloud WAF, Fastly Next-Gen WAF, NetScaler Web Application Firewall, and CloudFlare WAF.
Unsurprisingly, security plugins like Wordfence and Sucuri have included WAF (Web Application Firewall) features in their arsenals.
Do You Need Professional Help?
WPExperts is a leading web development and marketing agency enabling WordPress site owners to improve their online presence worldwide for over a decade.
We provide our customers with next-level WordPress website maintenance services, helping them maintain their sites’ integrity and reputation.
Wrapping Up
We expect you to appreciate our blog post explaining how to protect your website from hackers, phishers, identity thieves, and other cyber criminals. These above-described tips allow website owners to safeguard sites from various dangerous security risks and issues, enhancing site traffic, conversions, sales, revenues, and reputation.
