Vaccinate your Website against Hacking Hazards

Just as vaccination enhances your immunity against invasion of microbes from outside, certain steps taken by you can protect your website from invasion of hackers that are bent upon destroying your prime marketing tool, lock, stock and barrel. This post will help you learn how to safeguard your valuable website from online bandits, also called hackers.

 

Know your enemy first

To wage a war against an enemy you must have firsthand knowledge about its aggressive policies. Go through a tech site such as The Hacker News to know the tactics hackers use to harass their victims. Utilize that knowledge to take preventive measures against them. This will protect your website from their sneaky assaults.

 

Be more rigid about access control 

The admin level of your website is one of the easiest ways into everything that you do not wish a hacker to reckon with. Think of user names and passwords that are difficult to deduct. Alter the default database prefix from “wp6_” to something more uncommon or scarce. Also, limit the number of login attempts within a given time even with password resets.

 

Take care of network security 

Put a check on computer users in your set up who may be accidentally providing easy access route to your website servers. However, you can prevent it by ensuring that:

• Logins automatically expire following short periods of inactivity
• Passwords are changed more frequently
• Passwords are difficult to remember and are never noted down in black and white
• Devices plugged into the network are always scanned for malware before being used

 

Go for a WAF 

A WAF or Web Application Firewall (software or hardware based) installed into your system will read every bit of data passing through it. However, most contemporary WAFs are cloud based and are provided as plug-and-play service. Usually, the cloud service is deployed in front of the server where it works as a gateman for scanning all incoming traffic. Once installed, the WAF will block all hacking activities, while filtering out other sundry undesirable traffic, such as spammers and malicious bots. However, you need to pay a nominal fee to avail of this service.

 

Install other security applications

Though not as effective as WAF that works like bouncers to prevent hackers from creating havoc to your website, there are quite a few security applications (both free and paid varieties) that may be installed to act as supplementary security applications to thwart hacking activities to a great extent. Why, some free plugins such as from  Acunetix WP Security will provide an additional echelon of protection by concealing the identity of your website’s CMS. In fact, this will make you more resilient in tackling automated hacking tools that relentlessly scout websites for easy attack.

 

Hide admin pages, too

Yet another method of preventing hackers from jumping on to your website involves using robots txt file to discourage search engines from indexing your admin pages. If these are not indexed then it will become harder for the hackers to deal with these. However, the tutorial from SEObook.com will provide all the help you may need in this matter.

 

Check file uploads

 File uploads matter a lot. Regardless of how meticulously the system checks them out, bugs can still get through and allow a hacker unrestricted access to your site’s data. The best solution is to prevent direct access to uploaded files. You may store these outside the root directory, while using a script to access these when necessary. Your web host may also help you to set this up.

 

Use encrypted SSL

 That’s right; use encrypted SSL protocol for transferring user’s personal info between the website and your database. This will put a stop to information being read during transit and access sans appropriate authority.

 

Postscript:

Computer hacking can occur in a many ways. Your computer system itself can be hacked and mined for personal information. Your blog or website can be compromised if a hacker gets to know your password. Your email can be hacked if you click on a susceptible link and you may not be able to retrieve your email and other information you’ve registered in your account. Take the above steps to safeguard your computer and prevent computer hacking.

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