What is Website Security?
Website security refers to the protection of personal and organizational public-facing websites from cyberattacks. In this sense, website security is an ongoing process and an essential part of managing a website.
Why is Website Security Important?
Cyberattacks against public-facing websites regardless of size are common and may result in:
- Website defacement; changing the visual appearance of a website,
- Loss of website availability or denial-of-service (DoS) condition,
- Compromise of sensitive customer or organizational data,
- An attacker taking control of the affected website, or
- Use of website as a staging point for watering hole attacks.
Website security protects your website from:
Malware. Short for “malicious software,” malware is a very common threat used to steal sensitive customer data, distribute spam, allow cybercriminals to access your site, and more.
Blacklisting. Your site may be removed from search engine results and flagged with a warning that turns visitors away if search engines find malware. Check if your website is blacklisted.
Vulnerability exploits. Cybercriminals can access a site and data stored on it by exploiting weak areas of the site, like an outdated plugin.
Defacement. This attack replaces your website’s content with a cybercriminal’s malicious content.
Website security protects your visitors from:
Phishing schemes. Phishing doesn’t just happen in email – some attacks take the form of web pages that look legitimate but are designed to trick the user into providing sensitive information.
Stealing data. From email addresses to payment information, cybercriminals frequently go after visitor or customer data stored on a site.
Malicious redirects. Certain attacks can redirect visitors from the site they intended to visit to a malicious website.
SEO Spam. Unusual links, pages, and comments can be put on a site to confuse your visitors and drive traffic to malicious websites.
How to secure your website?
SSL certificate. Securing your website domain by creating an SSL Certificate — which sometimes is coupled with our Web Application Firewall (WAF), allowing your site to provide HTTPS encryption, this feature can is available via your web-hosting provider. Having this lets visitors know that your site’s trustworthy and that any data exchanged with your site is encrypted, keeping it safe.
Website scanner. A website scanner looks for malware, vulnerabilities and other security issues so that you can mitigate them appropriately. Scanners also look for threats on a daily basis and let you know immediately should danger be found, reducing the amount of damage it can do to your site. Enable logging and regularly audit website logs to detect security events or improper access
Software updates, Secure web applications. Websites hosted on a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, Magento, Joomla or Drupal are at a higher risk of compromise due to vulnerabilities and security issues often found in third-party plugins and applications. Installing updates to plugins and core software in a timely manner, as these updates often contain security patches. Use application allow listing and disable modules or features that provide capabilities that are not necessary for business needs.
Developing a security framework can help reduce your overall risk.