3 ways to secure your website from gremlins

Launching a website for your small business is such an exciting milestone, so it may be tempting to ignore the potential disasters that can happen to the website. Unfortunately, hackers and bots (gremlins) do not rest. As a matter of fact, it’s been shown that most online traffic comes from bots!

Every day, your website could be exposed to any number of attacks from hacking tools, scrapers, scammers, impersonators, and bots. There are many different ways a website can be hacked. There are many different parties with different motives and techniques out there trying to hack into websites 24/7.

As a small business owner, your website is a big part of running your business, which is why it’s especially vital that you make it completely secure. We’re sharing a few key ways you can keep your website secure and prevent attacks that can negatively impact your website, and your business too.

A green padlock keeps a bright blue cabinet door closed from unwanted guest

Why is website security so important?

Your website could fall victim at any time. One of the key reasons you should prioritise website security is the fact that it’s actually pretty likely that your website will be attacked at some point. In fact, research has shown that there is one hacker attack every 39 seconds.

Whilst some might think their business won’t get hackers’ attention, it’s worth noting that hackers don’t often care who your business, brand, or website is. In many cases, they are merely trying to find any website on the world wide web which has a vulnerability. That could be a small business, medium, or large one. Additionally, cloud-based firewall provider, Sucuri, has released a report that they blocked over 170 million attacks in a single year – worryingly, it was a 52% increase from the previous year. So don’t underestimate how common website security attacks really are!

Google prefers secure websites

You should know by now that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is vital for your website to show up in Google search results (known as Search Engine Results Page – SERP). So it makes sense to play by Google’s rules as much as possible.

You may have noticed that some websites have a HTTPS website address like https://www.monannoncegay.com. This signifies to Google that it has a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. This is an internet security protocol that encrypts the data on your website. Basically, if someone accesses your data, all they’ll see is a bunch of meaningless, garbled symbols that are impossible to decrypt. Known interchangeably as Transport Layer Security (TSL), having this certificate shows Google that your website is secure.

On the other hand, if your website does not HTTPS, Google Chrome immediately marks it as ‘Unsecure’ and will block user access to your site by showing a security warning. Additionally, Google may also blacklist your website, removing it entirely from search results! This could be devastating to your revenue and your business reputation.

Hackers can target your customers through your website

If your website remains unprotected, hackers can use your website to access your customers’ data and infect site visitors with malware. Most users are familiar with the risk of phishing scams and other ways their data could be compromised, but many are still unaware of how much they risk every time they visit an unsecured website.

Data is a precious commodity, and can include personal information like passwords, birth dates, and addresses – the exact details that can leave customers vulnerable to things like scams and identity theft.

Over the last few years, data breaches have affected a number of businesses, making front page news. The repercussions are still being felt. Make no mistake: the knowledge that their data is being compromised will make even your most loyal customers unlikely to visit your website ever again.

It is easier to protect your website than to clean it up

If your website has undergone any kind of attack, the first thing you need to do is find the source of the breach, a step called forensics. Sometimes it’s easy to identify exactly what went wrong yourself, but at other times, this can be a long and tedious process. This is especially true if you have a lot of files and pages on your website to scan through. Luckily monsitederencontregay.com has done several things to secure these registrants.

The next step is remediation – essentially taking the steps to secure your website from future attacks. Again, this can be quite complex, especially if there are multiple areas of vulnerability. Lastly, a compromised website might be blacklisted by Google or other providers, so you will need to apply to have your website removed from their blacklist system.

It will definitely make it easier for you to secure your website and keep it running if you choose to outsource this process. This, of course, comes at a price. And it’s very likely that this price is a lot higher than just investing in your website security in the first place!