How to Keep Your Website Secure by Practicing Good Online Hygiene

Internet security concern is at an all-time high. Hackers benefit from stealing your website in more ways than you realize. They might not even be after your bank account or your money directly. They have other motives. Hackers can use your compromised computer or website to do stuff they’ve never used them for before — like adding your computer into a botnet or mining bitcoins (do you even know what bitcoins are?). It appears perhaps we are under informed when it comes to internet security.

It’s rare that hacking is done these days manually. A series of automated scripts perform all the duties for a hacker to steal information and compromise your servers and machines. All you have to do is be ahead of the game when it comes to security, and you won’t be the one who loses control of their website flexispy reviews.

Securing your website — especially if you sell products — is important for a number of brand- concerning reasons. When building your website, it should be your number one priority. If your client’s information is stolen and you have to explain that to them, it really hurts your brand trust. Customers believe in sites like Paypal, that’s why so many people use them. Nobody is worried they are going to lose their money because they trust the brand will protect them.

Three Simple Steps to Keep Your Site Secure

There are a lot of really advanced ways to keep your identity, website, computer, and clients safe. When it comes down to it, you are probably safe as long as you follow proper website “hygiene”. Here are some simple steps to improving your online hygiene:

1. Keep Your Software Updated

It might sound like an overly simplified recommendation, but only if you don’t know how muchthis matters. Believe it or not, keeping your software updated is probably the best strategy to avoid successful hacking of your website. If you use Wordpress, hackers can take a look into their code looking for loopholes in the security and attempt to exploit it. However, if you are updating your software (including plugins) you minimize the amount of time hackers have to find a loophole because they will have to start from scratch every update.

2. Install antivirus and security plugins

Another simple recommendation that most users take for granted. Keeping your plugins and software updated is a sort of passive way of practicing good online hygiene, but installing antivirus software and plugins where possible is a more active counterattack against hackers. This way you will have antivirus experts on your side actively defending against the source of the attack.

3. Use HTTPS

When you surf the web, you already know to look for the little SSL certificate that appears to the right side of the URL of the website you’re currently visiting. It might even say something like “Secure” and have a little symbol of a lock. This not only makes you feel warm, fuzzy, and protected, it actually protects you from malicious attacks online. If you invest in an SSL certificate for your own website, you can do the same thing for your consumers. You can make them feel warm, fuzzy, and protected, as well as keep your information and website safe. Purchasing an SSL certificate may be a different process depending on what host you use, but it’s never too expensive when compared to the safety it provides.

In Conclusion

It’s always important to secure your website, no matter your motive. As you see, it’s very simple to do. All it should cost you is a little bit of time and maybe a little cash too. Now that you know what to do, if you aren’t already doing these things, it’s time to go to work!