Business Website Security Tips

Whether it's a surfer who just unintentionally entered a prohibited part of a website or those who hack into a system deliberately, your goal is to prevent it before it happens. Once a hacker gains access to a they can cause a devastating amount of damage to a business website. There is however, an awful lot that you can do to foil any would be hacker by taking steps to prevent them gaining access.

Good Web Designer With Their Own Secure Hosting

The best preventative action that you could take is to have a great web designer/builder/developer who places your website straight on secure reliable hosting from the start. One who will have tightened up your site security as they built the site. Unfortunately, many web designers don't supply their own secure web hosting for clients and don't feel that it's their job to ensure that your website is secured. A good design company will be mindful of site security as they build as they won't want either your site or their hosting compromised.

Use Digital Certificates (SSL's)

If you've an ecommerce business website, you should use digital certificates. This helps to protect sensitive data when passed using a form. This could include anything from customer credit card information, to address and contact details. It's important for business website owners to be able to assure their clients that their website is secure. A digital certificate goes a long way towards countenancing clients to trust a business is legitimate and entrust sensitive information while making a purchase on your website.

Stay Up To Date

Keep all website scripts up to date and make sure your web host is keeping their software up to date e.g. with versions of PHP and MySql on the web hosting.

If you don't you're bound to have your site hacked! Good script and software makers release updates and patches as soon as a new exploit is identified - apply them as soon as you are notified about them.

Keep Regularly Updated

Some of the most important security procedures include methods to make sure a Web site's forbidden pages are inaccessible to anyone who lacks authority to view them. Never leave script config files as writable and avoid using scripts that must have 777 to function.

As criminals constantly devise new ways to elude modern security, security procedures are constantly being updated to ensure that the latest version includes protection against these new security threats and risks. It's the business website owner's duty to make certain that their security is up-to-date. This makes the correction of such problems, if they arise, simpler.

A business website owner should also regularly change all administrator passwords and not make passwords too easy to guess. It's often astounded me when asked to work on a website to then be told the password I need is 'test' 'or sitename'! Never use dictionary words as your passwords and never use names. Instead use a mix of upper and lower case letters plus numerals.

Don't store your site passwords on your PC. Print off a hard copy and delete them from your computer. Don't assume up the kind offer from your favorite browser to remember your passwords either, should your PC be compromised, then the hacker will have all you private passwords too.

It's absolutely vital for a business website owner to monitor all of their online activities and employ up to date anti-virus software. Many business website owners have unwittingly caught a computer virus by downloading something or clicking on a Web URL link while browsing the Internet. These kinds of mistakes are common and can be avoided by simply taking reasonable measures to provide security for their computers.

For the business website owner, every virus and unlawful access that's prevented from their personal computer represents a lot of time and money saved. Perhaps to a greater extent than most anyone else, business website owners get their money's worth when buying security products. A site owner can lose their website and all their earnings from a single breach by a single hacker, even if that breach is on their home PC, the information often stored on that computer has been used to access restricted areas of their business website.

You should also secure site back ups and external back-ups, in case of incident at the web servers location. Then at least if the worst should happen, you can get cracking again relatively easily.An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so take action to establish good habits and site security now.