What To Do?

When you own your own business, your website is your connection to your customer base is accomplished primarily through your website. A data breach or being the victim of any form of hacking can negatively impact your ability to do quality business and have your customers place their trust in your SMB. However, some websites seem to be more prone to hacking than others, and if you find your website is hacked frequently, there are certain things you need to do. Here are our best tips for securing your website against hackers. 

Invest in a High-Quality Firewall

With continual hacking becoming a problem, you might come to believe your website is simply a magnet for hackers and in a sense, you could be right. Hackers are not set behind their computers, visiting individual sites one by one, looking for vulnerabilities. They employ specialized tools to seek out vulnerability in sites, and one of the most significant ingredients in your business website vulnerability is based on your firewall system.

Firewalls are designed to deflect breaches in security and protect the site. They come with specific configuration settings, and if you have recently reconfigured these settings for any reason, your website could be at risk. It is best to stick with the original configuration in your firewall to alleviate the potential of creating an unwanted hole in the system. 

Utilize Strong Passwords

This seems like a no-brainer these days, but the primary reason websites are prone to hacking is due to weak passwords. Train staff to utilize intense password usage across the board. Strong passwords not only contain letters but numbers and symbols as well. Hackers use a list of passwords that are considered weak. This list is known as the Rainbow Table and gets larger and larger as time goes on. Hackers use what is known as a dictionary attack to essentially throw the rainbow table at the system and use the password found in the table. Using symbols and numbers ensures you have a more secure password and are less likely to be a part of the rainbow table. 

Keep Track of Admin Access

Most SMBs have certain people within the company they trust with admin privileges. That means they are given specific access to restricted portions of the website and passwords to access those areas. However, in some cases, admins can be targets for phishing scams, and their information can be at risk causing threats to the security of the entire website. This tends to be a practice of hackers looking for long-term access to websites, and once they have your admin information, they can access virtually all parts of your website and appear legitimate. 

To avoid the potential for this type of threat, work to limit admin access to certain areas of your website. They can access most of it but keep them out of sensitive information such as customers’ identifying information and sensitive info about the company. Utilize Word Press user roles to help you find what type of administration needs your site may have and how to appropriate access to keep everyone safe. 

Use of Activity Logs

Corporations utilize activity logs for all their users. This is done to ensure that no matter where a breach comes from, they can detect which computer and who may have been accessing that computer at that time to determine the potential source of the breach. The activity logs are not 100% accurate but have been proven to be about 85% correct when breaches occur because of user passwords or when the server was accessed. 

This notion is not just available for high-end corporations but SMBs as well. No matter the size or scope of your business, you can use activity logs to help determine a potential breach. Once the breach is determined, further investigation can occur. Activity logs are not meant to incriminate employees, as sometimes the breach is due to a simple error in judgement. Still, a way to hold people accountable regarding their password choices and any websites they choose to visit that might have malicious downloads tied to them while they are at their desks. 

Primarily, security features provided by WordPress hosting USA and Canada will alleviate much of your concern about hackers. There is still a lot your business and employees can do to make hacking your site not impossible but very difficult to accomplish. The best-shared hosting for WordPress companies offers comprehensive security measures that you can customize to the individual needs of your SMB. It all comes down to what you are willing to spend and the time you and your employees are willing to put into securing your site and, ultimately, securing your business.