What is the biggest threat to your website’s security?

Hackers.

Yup, we said it. And by hackers, we mean relentless, unsleeping, unyielding bots. They probe for sites and servers for a long list of known weaknesses and when they find one, they strike.

Your website is only as strong as your server.

So if a shared server is hacked, the websites on it are all going to fall victim. This is one reason we are extremely critical and decerning when it comes to hosting companies. All too often, a cut-rate hosting company will maintain poor security, then offer to sell you a service to remove malware or malicious files from your website when their server has a problem.

Passwords. Passwords. Passwords.

Please for the sake of your innocent website, take the time to take passwords seriously. It’s a key and if you were going to pick a key for your house, you wouldn’t choose the one everybody else uses for their house would you?

The hackers know the most common ones and the most common usernames with administrative access and they use brute force attacks to try every possible option until they find a key that works in your site’s lock

Keep it up to date.

Even though past versions of Content Management Systems, programming languages, server software may be secure, it gives attackers more time to find issues and this means an easier target. The latest published (non-beta) version of any platform is generally best for security.

And yes, sometimes there are exceptions, but that’s what updates are for. Responsible software companies will quickly release patches for any updates with known vulnerablities.

Happy websiting, let’s keep those hackers at bay!