And if you think your small business is secure, keep in mind that almost 43% of attackers choose to hack small and medium enterprises. Thus, you can’t say it is not your concern. Because it is.

So what can be done to prevent your data from being stolen? At least acknowledge that you are not safe. And adjust your security measures. Five good tips on how to achieve this are described in the article below.

Regular Backups

The basis of cybersecurity is to always have a “plan B”. In case something goes wrong, in the worst-case scenario, you can restore your website in a click by using backups.

To cut a long story short – be prepared. You can become a target of attack at any moment. Sad but true. All you can do here is to survive that with minimum casualties. Regular backup is a measure that will aid you in securing all the information you possess.

A good backup includes all the site components, which are:

• critical data;
• essential files
• main themes;
• basic plugins;
• at least all the main databases

If something goes wrong your backup will help you to restore the “clean” version of your website. Do not neglect this measure, it is an easy and safe way to rebuild your business in the shortest terms.

Ongoing Surveillance

Being a website owner you probably won’t be able to see if someone is preparing for the attack. Viruses are elusive, while social engineering progresses daily, so you won’t get that you are communicating with the con artist.

Never-ending monitoring will help you to identify the activities that can be a premise to attack. Track at least the basic things. If the attack is being prepared, you might see one or several of them.

Repeated freezes and crashes of your website;

• Some of your website files were deleted without your approval by literally no one;
• You note random increases and decreases in your website’s traffic;
• One of your users did not perform a login, but somehow it was performed;
• Search engines start to indicate your website with warnings on harmful content;
• If you see something of the mentioned above, your website might be compromised and injected with malware.

Ongoing monitoring doesn’t mean you have to hire human specialists to work 24/7. Today there are plenty of automated security scanners that will help you to defend your website. Do not neglect them.

Use HTTPS

It doesn’t matter if you are running a bank or a commercial blog. You must use the HTTPS protocol for your website. It is one of the most secure ways of communication between a server and a client.

What HTTPS is good for? This kind of security does not allow hackers to gain access to your source code and to modify your website. It is one of the most popular ways of attack – to modify the code and to start gathering all the data available, including bank info, logins, and passwords.

Besides, popular browsers identify non-HTTPS based websites and inform the visitors that communication is not 100% safe. And this notification can drive people off your website, resulting in decreasing the number of people visiting your page.

So, in general, it is a great way to increase the overall security of your business. By the way, search engines prefer to show HTTPS websites higher in search results.

Password and Access Management

It is a wise matter of security to limit the access rights of your employees. Provide your people with access only to the data which is necessary to fulfill their job. It is not about trusting your people, but they may do damage even if they don’t want to.

The same thing with passwords – 25% of passwords people create can be cracked in less than five seconds. And it is actually easier than you might think. The Internet is full of different tools for breaking passwords.

To make sure your passwords are safe, change them on a regular basis. Also, the password should be complex, consisting of digits, letters, and characters. If your employees complain about how hard it is to keep all those passwords in mind, think of using a good password manager tool.

Finally, as a business owner, you should work only with the hosting services using at least two-factor authentication. It will provide you with an extra security layer. For example, use additional digital code before providing access for a user.

Personal Devices

You can think of almost anything on your website, but you’ll definitely forget about one weak point. Your own smartphone can betray you these days. Hacker can infiltrate your laptop you are preferring to work from and use it to steal whatever data possible. Including your personal login and password for your so-much-protected website.

What can you do with that? To begin with, stop using your personal devices for work. Install trustworthy antivirus software and antimalware tool. It will help you not to get random malware from a USB inserted into your device – sometimes even without being aware of it.

And try not to ignore firewalls. Make their rules as strict as possible.

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One 100% true way to provide impenetrable security to your website is to cut your Internet-cable, disable Wi-Fi and stop any kind of Internet access. The viruses are being upgraded every day. Cybercriminals invent new ways of attack every week. And all you can do today is to stay alert.

You can use all the wisest security measures, but in our world, you’ll never be 100% safe. However, it is not a reason for total paranoia. To know about the threat is to be prepared for it. That’s our main advice – be prepared and stay safe.

Got some ideas on how to make your website safe? Feel free to share them with everyone in the most convenient way. Good luck!

The post Best Cybersecurity Practices for Website Owners appeared first on Colocation America.

Having gained access to the enterprise server, an attacker can:

•       Find out information of a commercial nature;
•       Copy customer databases;
•       Intercept access to the client-bank system;
•       Install a crypto locker for further extortion of funds;
•       To infect an enterprise network with a cryptocurrency miner;
•       Set a keylogger for additional secret information removal.

The problem of gaining unauthorized access to services takes extremely diverse forms and is based mainly on errors or undocumented features of the software itself that provides such services.

But the problem of failure (disruption of normal functioning) of services is quite relevant in the modern computer world. The class of such attacks was called the denial of service (DoS) attack. The denial of service attack can be implemented on a whole range of levels: physical, channel, network, session.

What Is Server Security?

Protection and surveillance is the responsibility of the system administrator. This should protect the server from attacks in various ways. For this, the security service is periodically updated, which is responsible for searching for vulnerable areas.

Also, exclusively secure protocols are used for the operation. If you are interested in working as an administrator, you can view a list of the proposed vacancies by specialty: administrator remotely.

The process of organizing the full functioning of the server, and its security, the concept of security includes such components:

1. Information Security

Ensuring information security implies the protection of stored information on the server using software services. All material that is on the server is protected. This category includes information that is edited and then laid out or arrives at a specific server. This should include information that can be processed, received or issued to the server

2. Technical Security

This type of security is determined by the physical functioning of the VT and a set of additional equipment. Unfortunately, technical safety is currently in a more deplorable state than informational, but more attention should be paid to this component. It is essential to reflect on technical protection at the preparatory stage in the project development process. Choose equipment with optimal protection and reliability parameters, pay attention to compliance with thermal conditions, prepare a backup system in case the main complex fails.

3. Organizational security

This component is responsible for ensuring the operability of the server station and the system as a whole. Administrative and economical methods are used for this. In order to ensure the safety of information, it is necessary to develop lists of people who will have access to all data and technology, a regime for changing passwords and their purpose, and, of course, the parameters of confidentiality of information are observed.

Expert Tips on How to Increase Your Server’s Security

Hacks are performed continuously by automated scripts that were explicitly written to scour the Internet and try to hack into sites that have known software holes. If you don’t use expert assistance on this issue, then you have to learn the following tips:

1.     Improve Your Passwords

It is critically important to use complex passwords for your server and website administration unit, but it is equally important to require your users to use complex passwords for their accounts.

Despite the fact that users do not like this, compulsory password requirements, such as a minimum length of at least eight characters, including uppercase characters or numbers in the password will help them ultimately save their information.

Passwords should always be stored in encrypted form, best of all, using a one-way hashing algorithm, such as SHA. When using this method to authorize users, you compare the encrypted values.

2.     Data & Files Management

Allowing users to upload files to your website can be a security risk, even if it’s just a matter of changing your avatar. The danger is that any downloaded file, no matter how harmless it may look, may contain a script that, when executed on your server, allows access to your site.

If you have a file upload form on your site, then you need to be suspicious of all uploaded files. If you allow users to upload images, then when determining the type of data, you cannot rely on the extension or mime type, since they can easily be tampered with.

Even opening a file and reading its title or using image size checking functions are not a 100% guarantee of security. Most image formats allow you to store comments, which can also contain PHP code that can be executed on the server.

3.     Use SSL to Protect Your Server

SSL is a protocol used to ensure security when transferring data over the Internet. It is a good idea to use a security certificate every time you transfer personal information between a client and a web server or database.

Attackers can listen to the communication channel and, if it is not safe, intercept the transmitted information and use it to gain access to user accounts and personal information.

4.     Protect Your XSS

Cross-site scripting is when an attacker tries to submit JavaScript or some other code to a web form to execute malicious code on your website. When creating a form, always check the data that users come to you and encode or mask any special characters.

5.     VPN as an additional way to secure the server

A VPN, or virtual private network, provides support for secure connections between remote computers as if they were on a local network.

Between private and public networks, it is always recommended to choose the first. But keep in mind: since other users in the data center have access to the same network, additional measures must be taken to ensure secure communication between the servers.

A VPN is essentially a way to build a private network that only your servers can see. Server interactions will be completely confidential and secure. Other applications can be configured to transfer traffic through the virtual VPN interface. Thus, customers will be able to access only those services that are set to support connections from the Internet.

The security tips described in this article are just some of the primary enhancements you can implement to enhance the security of your server. It should be noted that the sooner you perform a particular security tool, the more productive it will be. Server security is a serious question, and you cannot ignore it if you want to avoid hacks.

The post Server Security Tips – How to Prevent Online Threats appeared first on Colocation America.