3 Tips For Secure Website Hosting
Secure website hosting requires significant vigilance to prevent people from hacking into your website or using your website for nefarious purposes. To keep your website secure, you will need to implement security measures from the moment you pick your hosting plan.
Pick The Right Features
There are numerous features offered by your provider for secure website hosting, not all of which are a necessary expense. First, be sure to keep your registration information private. This is an extra yearly cost from your provider, but it will help keep sensitive information off the web.
Other security features you should consider paying for are regular scanning of your website. Some providers scan websites daily to identify anomalies that can indicate a website has been hacked. The problems that can occur include having malicious code inserted on your website, which can steal sensitive information from visitors or customers. Regular scanning also helps protect everyone using the same server in shared hosting plans.
There are good free and premium security software plug-ins available for major content management systems. In the most basic form, security software should perform additional scanning of your website, notify you of invalid log-in attempts, and warn you of problems with codes or other plug-ins you might use on your website.
Ideally, you should invest in security software that offers you more control over website security. For example, some software can lock people out after a specified number of log-in attempts or block certain IP addresses. Typically, this software will send you daily or weekly information about the IP addresses that try to log into your website or other information that can help you make better security decisions.
Based on this information, you may block specific IP addresses that are trying to hack your website or attempt other forms of cyber-attacks. If you are the only one who will manage the website, you may choose to automatically block the IP address of people who enter an invalid username, since the person has no reason to attempt a log-in.
Make Logging In Difficult
Trying to log into your website should be a challenge. The most obvious security measure is having complex passwords that you change regularly. You should use two-factor authentication, if available. If someone manages to determine your username and password, they will face an additional hurdle when the log-in cannot be authenticated.
Another excellent tactic to keeping your website secure is to take steps to hide your log-in page. Every content management system has a known website extension that leads to the log-in page. By hiding this page, you can prevent hackers from trying to enter your site because they will not be able to find out where to log in. If you are not comfortable with coding your website, major content management systems may have plug-ins that do the job for you.
You can create more log-in hurdles by not using the standard “Admin” username. Human or robot hackers will always try the username “Admin” or some variation of the word when trying to enter the website. If you are using WordPress or other content management systems that display the username when you create blog posts, be sure to change this setting, otherwise, you will have revealed the username for your administrator account.
Maintaining a secure website requires vigilance from purchasing your hosting plan to daily monitoring. Taking extra steps to keep your website secure can help you avoid common issues most websites will face at some point.
