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Keep hackers away from your company website

Written By Vaughn Chua
Published • April 13th, 2018
GuidesInternet & Telecoms
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When you own a company, a good advertising move is to set up a website for everyone to see and interact with. This also adds a medium for you to have a connection with your clients or users. However, one of the risks that will always be present when you have a website is that it will be very vulnerable to attacks by hackers. So, in order to stay away from cyber trouble, here are some tips to keep hackers away from your company website.

It is common for company websites get targetted by hackers, however, their attempts usually fail if there is good website security that most companies should have. We will be listing good practices and tips for website owners in order for them to have an impenetrable security against hackers.

1.) One of the most recommended tools that every company website should have is a Web Application Firewall. This blocks HTTP traffic to and from a web application. This is basically dedicated to protecting your website from attacks such as SQL Injection, Cross-site scripting, and other security-related attacks. CloudFlare offers website security by implementing Web Application Firewall on your website. CloudFlare also has a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) protection which prevents websites from overflowing due to requests from users.

2.) Secure Socket Layers (SSL) certificate helps company owners secure their company website. SSL will cause any form of information to and from the server to be encrypted. This also prevents hackers from sniffing out visitor’s information when they access your website. You can check out this link on how to properly set-up SSL on your website. After setting up the SSL on your website, you now have access to “HTTPS”, which further secures the collection of sensitive information on a website.

3.) For databases on your company’s website, hackers may try to use the “SQL Injection” method where they will put SQL queries into website databases in order to collect data from it. One of the most common methods in order to prevent this from happening is to use SQL parameters. This allows filtering of queries being requested from the database and can prevent SQL injections.

4.) When your website is down or suffers from errors, make sure that accessing users do not have too much information on the error messages. Having too much information on error messages will give hackers enough idea on how to attack your website, so always make sure that you give vague or general information.

5.) Company owners should always hide Admin pages to prevent hackers from easily locating the “main control” of their website. As this could lead to a compromise and leakage of vital information.

6.) When creating sign-up or login forms, always perform validation on the server side. By doing this, it will not be easily bypassed by someone with malicious intents and even if javascript is turned off, the validation will still work. This means that when users or clients fill out forms, it will only be validated upon clicking “submit”. One example is Facebook’s sign up form in which users will be notified if there is an invalid information after clicking “create an account”.

7.) For employees who are accessing their company website regularly, always make sure that you have a secure device that only you can access. It is important when accessing the website, especially if you have an admin role, that employees have a secure device to prevent hackers from stealing or recording your account credentials by using keyloggers and such.

8.) For website administrators, always use complex and long passwords upon accessing your company website’s main system. This is, of course, self-explanatory.

9.) For companies who have a large number of employees that can access the website’s main system, it is highly recommended that company owners implement login timeouts. This is to control and handle users who are accessing the website’s main system and to prevent them leaking information when they accidentally leaving their monitors on while accessing it.

10.) Company websites should also implement two-factor authentication for its users especially with admin roles in order for the website to be really secured not just for its users but for the company itself. Two-factor authentication is a method where logins add another layer of security. An example would be when after logging in your username and password, the website will then be asking users to verify their identity by sending verification codes or asking them secret questions in order to proceed.

11.) Limit file sizes and types that users can upload to your website. Some websites have upload functions which allow users to upload various files on it. One risk is that if some of the files that are being uploaded are infected or are with encrypted codes that could simply crawl to your website’s backend and database. This can result in hackers easily accessing your website and/or mess up with your system easily.

12.) It is recommended that company websites should have a different server for their database in order for hackers to have a hard time finding out where the company’s vital information is stored and located.

13.) Lastly, keep everything up to date. For company website owners, always make sure that the system in which your website is running on is updated. This is to be secured from the latest methods that hackers use in order to penetrate your website.

And there you have it, these essential practices and tips will help you towards building a very secured website for your company. There will be always a way to counter hackers from penetrating your website and these listed here are not the only ways to stop them. Once hackers see that your website is tight and secured, they will be disinterested in trying to pry into your websites and it will be your win.