Important Website Security Pitfalls and Tips to Fix Them

Having a great business website, with regular and potential clients, expected revenues, great reputation in the industry, is in it great. What else one would need.

But, this all can collapse at once due to any hacking attack.

Having a good functional, user-friendly website is not enough, maintaining it for desired results is important and it involves undertaking activities that ensure the website is working and up-to-date. Website security is one of the most important exercises in the website maintenance process.

Many businesses understand the importance of website security only after an attack has occurred. To protect your website does not require big budgets; all needed is an efficient approach that will be both defensive and proactive.

With this post, we would like to glitter a security outlook, to save your website from any hacking attack beforehand. Specifically, focusing on the significant and most common web security pitfalls to be aware of, plus suggestion on how they can be allay.

Whether you have a business website or an entertainment website, all are required to be protected. It is important because -

• It affects your business reputation
• It may cause loss of revenues
• It can lead to the disclosure of your users’ personal information to harm them
• It can make your website blacklisted resulting in decreasing users.

The reason behind hacking any website is to send spam emails, collect personal information of users, affects clients’ devices. In such situations, search engines will refuse access to the platform and send a website owner a notice regarding the block.

Many people are unaware of the hacking attack. The malware can steal private data and information like logins and passwords that can be used for online payment. etc. This can hurt your loyalty and reputation among your clients and customers.

To protect your website from hacking attacks and to avoid vulnerabilities beforehand, there are certain tools and techniques can be used.

Here, are some effective ways discussed to manage your website security loopholes and a list of fixes you can use for stating on top competently.

Update, Update, Update

Regular update of your website and software is important to avoid security holes. Include both server operating system and any software you may be operating on your websites like forum or CMS. Also, using any sort of third-party software, you will get notifications about upgrades, results in security to your website, and peace of mind to you.

Look Out For The SQL Injections

SQL injection attacks happen when an attacker uses a URL parameter or web form field for gaining access to or control or influence your database. When a website owner is using standard Transact SQL, it becomes easier for the hackers to unknowingly insert rogue code into your query resulting help them access information, change tables, and delete data. It can be prevented easily by always using easy to implement parameterized queries, available in many web languages.

Cross-Site Scripting (Xss)

Cross-site scripting, alias XSS, are vulnerabilities focusing on scripts implemented on the user's side, letting an attacker run the scripts on the user's browser. It arises when an application sends untrusted data to the browser without any validation. As the browser does not know the validity of the script, it will execute it. This will make it easier for the attacker to hijack session cookies and collect data. For avoiding this, it’s essential to crop, encrypt, or delete any third-party HTML inclusions.

Do Not Take Error Messages Lightly

Beware of the error messages. Try to give as minimal errors as possible to your users, to ensure no leak of secrets present on your servers like database passwords or API keys. Avoid providing complete exception details either, as these are an invitation to complex attacks like SQL injection. Keep comprehensive errors in your server logs, and illustrate to users only the details they require.

Consider Validation On Both Sides

For better security, you should consider both sides of data validation that is, in the browser and on the server. This will help you detect bugs along with fields with mistakes. Overlooking the verification of information may direct to a breach in your website protection.

Craft Strong And Secure Passwords

We all know creating a complex password using letters, digits, and symbols is a good way. To secure your users’ info passwords should always be stored as encrypted values, if possible use a one-way hashing algorithm like SHA.

This method allows you to compare only authenticate users via encrypted values. For adding more security, use security plug-ins like –

• Watchlog Pro
• iThemes Security
• Amasty
• BulletSecurity
• Sucuri

Evade File Uploads

Letting users upload files to your website is an invitation to a huge website security risk, yet if it’s merely to modify their avatar. It can be scripts that can completely open your website to the attacker. Don’t rely on every file extension as this can be faked and risky for your website. To avoid this let uploads be saved in any folder of the webroot or the database as a splash.

Look For Your Service Security

For the owners of the website using their server, some important aspects of website security are to be considered –

• To protect the information, create the database on any other server.
• Block all the irrelevant ports and make sure the firewall is installed. Setting a DMZ offering access to 80th and 443rd ports can be a good idea.
• Make certain use of highly secured methods to upload files to the server.

Use HTTP Protocols

HTTPS is a protocol used for offering security over the Internet as it assurances that users are conversing to the server they suppose and that no one else can interrupt or alter the content they're considering in transit.

Currently, Google proclaimed that they will enhance your website rankings in the search engine if you apply HTTPS, offering this an SEO benefit too. Let’s get updated.

Integrate SSL Protocol

Hackers can collect personal information and data while the transfer of data is taking place among servers and websites. To avoid such situations you can use SSL protocol. With a security certificate, you can safeguard your website efficiently.

After all these efforts your website is protected and to check the protection level, you can use the available security tools to find vulnerabilities. You can detect and fix them beforehand and ensure your clients to have secured experience with your website.

So, consider security of your website and avoid the risks that can affect your revenues and reputation.