Top 5 Tips To Make A Website More Secure From Hacker Attacks

In modern realities, hacker attacks have become an integral part of Internet users’ lives. Attackers can hack into your site to obtain information about site users. One of the most notorious hacks was the Yahoo hack in 2014, which leaked the data of about three billion people. This situation caused a great public outcry, after which large companies began to pay more attention to cybersecurity (at least, that's what they’ve said they started to do.) This article will talk about methods you can utilize to protect your users, their and your data on your website.

In Which Way Hackers Can Attack Your Website?

As you may have noticed, even large-scale companies may be at risk of hacking. And this is not surprising, because the number and variety of ways to break your website are increasing every year. But you can prevent intrusion into your site if you know the common types of hacking attacks.

Types of cyberattacks	Description
Malware	This is the most common type of cyberattack. “Malware” here is any kind of malicious software that is written to do any sort of damage to a user’s computer. Malware can be viruses, worms, spyware, adware, ransomware, and malvertising.
Phishing	When hackers want to reveal and steal sensitive data, they use phishing techniques. They send fraudulent messages from reputable sources. Phishing is usually combined with malware: it’s common to install listeners into links within letters disguised as messages from banks and social media. When a user clicks on the link, they appear on a dummy web page masqueraded as Facebook or Paypal. They enter their credentials and the page returns an error. They refresh, nothing works, and they enter the address in the URL field again and get on the page they wanted without noticing anything is wrong. A hacker receives their credentials from the dummy page. Considering the fact people use the same password through all of their internet presence so often, that’s how the hacker gains access to most of their accounts.
Man-in-the-Middle Attacks	As the name implies, a man in the middle is a hacker who alters or intercepts the information from the communication between two parties.
Password Attacks	Password attack refers to any kind of interception of passwords from users’ accounts. It happens when hackers crack the passwords to get access to sensitive data. The most common way to do that is to download the leaked passwords from the commonly available databases and try to pick the right one for the account they want to hack into with a program.
Cross-Site-Scripting	It is storing malicious scripts that are usually inserted in the input fields of the website. With “injections” like these, hackers can get information about users’ cookies, session tokens, and so on.

Security Tips To Protect Your Site

Due to the growth in the number of hacker attacks, there was also the rise in the development of technologies to protect sites and users. Diversido has a practice of conducting security checks for most of the clients who asked them for website development — they search for vulnerabilities for SQL and HTML injections, XSS, CSRF, etc. If you are hearing about these terms for the first time, you would do well to turn to professionals.

Now, let’s get to the simple tips that will be efficient in protecting you from cybercriminals.

1. Make Sure Your Passwords Are Secure

This piece of advice is unfortunately neglected by most Internet users. If you are in the habit of — yes — assigning the same password to each website you’re using, and that password is your name and date of birth, stop doing this immediately.

For most modern hackers, it will not be difficult to break into such an account. To avoid this, it is enough to come up with a password that will not be easy to crack.

• It has more than 12 characters
• It is written with uppercase and lowercase letters
• It doesn’t contain names and addresses
• It has some letters changed to symbols like a to @, $ to s, and so on

2. Regularly Check Platform and Software Updates

Viruses that now exist on the Internet actively use gaps and security holes in outdated software.

Hackers deliberately use malware that will instantly take advantage of your vulnerability. Unfortunately, the longer you have not updated your computer and have not updated your antivirus software, the more likely you are to be hacked.

This is because outdated versions simply cannot cope with constant attacks from hackers, so make it a rule to install updates after each release.

3. Apply HTTPS Protocol

HTTPS or hypertext transfer protocol is an indispensable tool for protecting sensitive data. Although the protocol was created back in 1994, it remains indispensable in our time, and here are the reasons why you need to use it.

• HTTPS protects your users’ data
• Its use maintains your reputation
• Using HTTPS improves your search engine optimization
• Your website will be ranked higher in the search engine
• Data encryption negates the ability to retrieve data

4. Use Security Tools for the Website

Consider using these helpful instruments to keep your website secure.

Instrument	Description
Firewall	It is software or hardware that works as a security device monitoring your external and internal traffic.
Products for testing SQL injection	These are free or paid services that can prevent you from SQL injection attacks.
SSL	Secure Sockets Layers work to protect servers from any information that comes through a browser.
Security plugins for CMS	By launching a security plugin you can be sure that hackers will not guess your login and will not steal your files.

5. Monitor File Uploads

The threat can be expected not only from hackers but also from your users. And this applies to downloading files. If you allow users to upload their files, then you have to set measures of how to do it securely.

Before you let someone upload their file, check it. Use malware scans, see what extensions it has, checks the size, and verify its type.

Key Takeaways

It is never late to make your website secure if you didn’t think about it before. The success and safety of you and your customers may depend on this.

To fully protect your website from hackers, use more advanced services but even these tips will be useful to get started.