If you have a website that you’ve put time, effort and money into, it’s important to keep it Safe. There are several steps you can take in order to protect your site from hackers. These are all fairly simple and if done, can leave you with the peace of mind that your site is safe.

Keep your site up to date

If you don’t keep your site regularly updated in terms of scrips and software, it can allow malware to take advantage of your site and hack in. Install updates as soon as you can to Ensure maximum protection. If you’re looking for a bespoke website with comprehensive SEO services, look no further than boxChilli. We are a web design agency in Southampton who are dedicated to giving our clients tailored sites that get traffic. Get in touch for more information.

Use HTTPs

An SSL certificate secures the transfers of information between your website and the Server. This means personal and sensitive data, such as credit card information, is secured. An additional benefit is that search engines take websites more seriously if they have this because it promotes a safe browsing experience. Even if your site doesn’t use confidential information it may be worth it.

Don’t give too much away in an error message

Although they can be helpful to you, having an error message that’s too detailed for users can reveal private information. This may reveal to a hacker the vulnerabilities of your site which they could take advantage of. Keep them simple and informative without revealing too much.

Always use secure passwords

This is the most obvious one but is always vital. Use a password generator or really sit and think of a secure password. Use a mix of characters and keep it fairly long. This will prevent hackers from being about to log on. Avoid birthdays, names and anything related to the company that may be easy to guess. Ensure anyone involved with your site also uses strong passwords or they may let you down. It only takes one weak password to allow a hacker in.

Use more than one server

Hosting multiple sites on the same server seems like the easy option, but this can cause problems on your site. Having many sites in the same location makes a large attack surface for potential hackers. Cross-site contamination is very common in this situation, where neighbouring sites are negatively affected due to poor isolation on the server.

Use spam filter plugins

If your site is built on an open-source platform, you’re likely to receive spam comments. These can be from sources that are irrelevant to your website. Ensure you always enable CAPTCHA on forms to make sure real humans are filling out the forms. You can also install plug-in spam filters which can lessen the chance of you receiving these.

Always ensure you keep a backup of your current site to ensure recovering it will be a less stressful process.  This means in a worst-case scenario, sorting out the situation will be easier. If you struggle to remember, invest in automatic backups and you can enjoy the peace of mind that your backups are taking care of themselves.

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