All of us understand the concept of securing our property to deter intruders so that we can protect our families and belongings. It’s also easy to understand the steps we might need to take to do so.
But when it comes to website security, what’s needed along with the threats that exist isn’t always common knowledge.
At Imaginaire, we build and maintain websites for our clients across a variety of niches. Looking out for potential security vulnerabilities is all part of what we do.
In today’s post, we want to share some of the top things you should be looking out for as a website owner to keep your website safe and secure.
Website Security Threats To Be Aware Of
- Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
- Cross-site scripting
- Data breaches
- DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service)
- DNS spoofing
- Password-based attacks
- Phishing
- SQL injection attacks
Granted, the types of security threats that exist aren’t easy to understand just by looking at their name. However, this is also part of the problem for website owners since it’s difficult to protect your website against anything you don’t know about or fully understand.
In essence, any aspect of your website including any stored personal data could be accessed or manipulated by scammers or hackers.
The Consequences Of Compromised Website Security
Not only could security incidents cause a loss of productivity for your business, but they could also put customer data and ultimately the reputation of your business at risk.
For ecommerce websites especially, customers expect a website that will store their data securely. If a data breach were to occur on a website and customers’ details were exposed, this could have long-term negative impacts. If your website currently isn’t secure for any reason, why take the risk that a potential threat could become a reality?
“Businesses should review their website security systems and app security in runtime, all of the time, for every second of every day, and every single request made to them. Periodic reviews lead to a false sense of security and a bit like before the cleaner comes around, you tidy up, hide a few things and so forth, then they all come back out again over time once the cleaner has left. Of course, the only way to do this is in an automated fashion and built into existing operating procedures and workflows so as to not create a burden to the teams but rather integrate into their daily operating model. Therefore allowing the business to deliver enhanced functionality to their customers in a safe & secure manner.”
James Sherlow, Systems Engineering Director, EMEA, for Cequence Security
How To Identify If A Website Is Safe
The short answer here is to continually monitor your website for potential security threats.
In some cases, plugins can do some of the work in terms of auto-updating or ‘patching’. This is when the developer of a plugin releases fixes to combat known cyberattacks which often update automatically.
However, website owners still have a responsibility to ensure their website is safe, and this can require several manual actions that take place regularly.
Aspects to look out for:
- API endpoint security
- File upload restrictions
- Frequency of updates
- HTTPS
- Login attempt limits
- MFA (multi-factor authentication)
- Responsiveness (which can suggest the level of site maintenance)
- Role-based access control (RBAC)
- Secure server
- Secure session management
- SSL certificate
- Strong password requirements
These are far from exhaustive since websites not to mention the potential security threats that exist are continually changing and updating.
To get an idea of how secure your website is, we recommend conducting regular audits of your website to identify and mitigate risk. Beyond this, you should also have someone monitor your website activity to identify any unusual or suspicious activity.
Anyone who has access to your website should also receive regular training on website security and data protection.
Ultimately, all websites require regular reviewing and updating. Otherwise, they are vulnerable to any number of security issues.
Discover Our Website Maintenance Services
As a website owner, you might not have the knowledge or even time to keep on top of potential security threats to your website. Yet, as we’ve discussed above, if an attack were to occur it can have serious consequences for your business as a whole.
If you have an existing website or are planning to build one for your business, your website is in the right hands with the Imaginaire team.
Our experts not only design and build websites, but we also maintain websites on behalf of our clients.
Drop us a message today for a free website review or to find out about our website design and development services.
