4 Steps To Improve Your Website Security
B.Duncan, 2022
Having a secure website essential to ensure both your company and customers data remains protected from any potential privacy breaches. Preventive steps are a great way to eliminate some of the time and resources put into damage control before a breach even occurs.
With a huge rise in the number of cyberattacks in recent years, it’s important to take action as soon as possible, before you not only lose traction but the trust of your loyal customers. So here’s our list of 4 steps you can use to improve your cybersecurity in 2022.
1. Make Regular Software Updates
Old software is one of the easiest ways to put your data at risk to hackers, viruses and any other kinds of data breaching. Enable auto-updates where possible on your devices, websites and different platforms - and don’t click the ‘maybe later button’ when an update suggestion pops up. Later might be too late and an hour or two of waiting for a software update is nothing, compared to the hassle of rebuilding security measures for your entire company and any devices or web pages. Many platforms commonly used in digital marketing like WordPress and Shopify provide options to turn on auto-updates so take advantage of it when you can. If you're not confident to action these CMS changes let us know, one of our Studio team will be more than happy to assist.
2. The Value Of A Strong Password
Most websites now require you to add an upper-case letter, symbol and number when signing up luckily. However one of the most common ways people get hacked is by sticking to the same password across multiple platforms and devices or by including personal information. Even if your password contains an assortment of numbers and symbols if you use it on everything it only takes a single cyberattack for hackers to access data from every account you have. When referencing personal account hacking, having any information that’s publicly accessible as your password is a surefire way to get hacked. Try to avoid family names, pets, friend names, etc…
3. Include 2FA Authentication In Your Website
2FA (two-factor authentication) acts as another layer of security to reinforce your website’s cybersecurity. 24A works by adding a security layer that connects your password to text code, backup email, or facial recognition. Two-factor authentication is not a guarantee that your data will be 100% safe but will definitely act as a big improvement to your website overall. With plenty of platforms providing accessible ways to implement 2FA, there’s no reason not to finish reading this article and get onto it straight away if you haven’t already.
4. Back Up Data For The Worst Scenario
This is one of the biggest time and money savers if you’ve unfortunately already been victim of a cyberattack or even technology issues that can cause a loss of data. You should have a routine schedule already in action to back up your data after a certain amount of time, just think back to when you’d write uni essays and forget to hit save, except this time it's ten times worse. The financial and manual labor you’ll have to put into rebuilding the content on your website is a lot more difficult than backing up your data. With plenty of services including Wordpress, Dropbox, GDrive and so forth, there’s no reason for you and any of your team members to not be doing this as a safety net.
Let's Finish Off With A Summary On Improving Your Website Security
- Update software regularly and activate any auto-update functions available
- Use strong passwords unique to each platform and avoid personal information
- Include 2FA authentication in any of your websites or accounts at all times
- Backup data using services like GDrive and Dropbox for a worst case scenario.
Most importantly and not mentioned in our 4 step guide, communicate any security requirements to all staff members or persons involved in your company and/or website.
It’ll only work if everyones putting in the work to keep your cybersecurity up to date! If you need any further advice on creating a security strategy for your website, feel free to reach out to our digital agency Melbourne team today and book a consultation!
