The WannaCry ransomware attack that wreaked havoc on digital systems thought to be protected by some of the most agile and advanced security systems in the world reinforced the notion that no matter, how good you think your digital security mechanisms are, hackers will almost always find a very to get in.
From the NHS in the UK to the Chinese public security bureau
and from the Russian Railways to FedEx, it’s been estimated that more than
200,000 computers got affected across the globe, spread over a whopping 150
countries with estimated damages running in billions of dollars.
It wasn’t until a kill switch was found and urgent security
patches were issued that the attack could be contained.
But this wasn’t an isolated incident and the threat of
damning ransomware, malware and virus attacks on websites and digital systems
across the world remains omnipresent and ever-increasing. Big organizations
have a lot of resources on hand to bring in the best security mechanisms in
place to mitigate against such attacks, but how exactly can small website
owners do the same for themselves, especially when they are often cash
strapped?
And if you think that your small business website is too
inconsequential to be targeted by hackers, then you seriously need a wakeup
call in addition to a plan of action. According to a Verizon Report in 2019, 43% of all data breaches targeted small business websites.
Even small business websites have a large amount of sensitive
personal and financial data from the owners as well as the users, which if
intercepted or hacked can be of substantial use to the hackers. So it’s natural
and only a question of “when” that your website will see a hacking attempt.
You need to be prepared against all such attacks and
contrary to popular belief, doing so is not hard at all. You just need to
follow a very clear cut website security hygiene regimen and ensure that you
sustainably run it.
Here’s the perfect website security hygiene regimen that if
followed, can make your website secure against most such hacking attacks:
Keep Complicated Passwords:
Sounds like old advice? Well that’s because it is. Using the
same passwords just for the sake of convenience on multiple digital avenues like
your website’s login, your social media accounts, etc. can have devastating
consequence on your website security.
If the hacker manages to secure your social media account
password, and it’s the same one that you use for your website login, then you
are in deep trouble.
To mitigate against this, store different passwords at
different places and make them complicated.
It might make things a tad more inconvenient for you this
way, but its highly recommended that you do this.
Multiple free password managers like LastPass
and LogMeOnce
can help you out in doing this very easily.
Keep A Tab On Any Unrecognized Activity On Your Website:
Hackers don’t always put up a warning message that they want
a certain amount of money in order to decrypt your files. Most hacks aren’t
that obvious. Small things like adding an innocuous appearing link to your
content that redirects to a place which the hackers want users to visit, are
also increasingly common types of hacking attempts.
For this, you need to stay vigilant about your whole
website. Any untoward link that you don’t recognize, a strange popup appearing
on your blog, a change in traffic numbers or the place from where they are
coming on Google Analytics are all telltale signs that your website has been a
victim of malware.
Once you recognize any such activity, move towards removing
their remnants yourself or hire a professional to do the job for you as soon as
possible.
Don’t Forego Updates:
WordPress based sites account 35% of all the websites on the
web today, and the number of total websites being run through other Content
Management Systems like SquareSpace and Wix is even greater.
These CMS offer regular updates for websites and the plugins
that are deployed on these sites. These updates include different changes like
theme changes but most importantly, they include security updates.
Not updating as soon as the update is available is almost
akin to criminal negligence on your part as hackers are looking for exactly
such websites to target, since knowledge on the underlying vulnerability is
already out there due to the update.
Update your website with them as soon as you can to keep
things secure always.
Keep Regular Backups Of Your Website:
Do you know that you can easily thwart the effectiveness of
most ransomware attacks if you keep regular backups of your site?
The modus operandi of most ransomware attacks revolve around
encrypting your site and all of its files and then demanding a certain sum to
unlock all files.
If you keep regular backups of your site, then you will not
be worried if such an attack does occur, since you can easily restore your site
in its original form through leveraging your backup.
However, this task cannot be done by you alone and its
highly recommended that you get professional Wordpress maintenance provider to
do the job for you since they not just store on backup of your site, but copy
it and store it in online and offline secure areas, which significantly reduces
any chance of you losing all of your data. They will even backup your site
automatically and as frequently as you want.
Use A DNSSEC:
DNSSEC or a DNS security extension is one tool that you
seriously need to add up to your website’s security hygiene right now, since it
can multiple different types of threats very effectively like phishing attacks,
unwarranted redirect attempts, malware attacks and much more.
During your domain lookup process, this tool will verify
your website multiple times, effectively preventing anyone trying to access or
visit your site to go to bad IPs.
OpenDNS and Quad9DNS are some free DNSSEC tools that can
be used in this regard, and adding them to your site will certainly beef up
your security.
Red Team Vs Blue Team Exercises:
Probably the best way to find out any security vulnerability
that your site may have is to conduct red team vs blue team exercises.
In this exercise, the blue team is your regular
cybersecurity team and the red team works as a specialized group of hackers
does, trying to force their way into your site through any endpoint they find
available.
If your blue team is able to thwart all such attempts by the
red team during an exercise, then this means your website is effectively safe
against major hacking attempts and if the red team does manage to pass-through
the blue team’s security parameters, you can then pinpoint the problems exactly
and then move on to fix them.
This exercise may be expensive to run but doing it once in a
while will ensure that your website’s security is top-notch and hackers find it
incredibly difficult to access your site through any avenue they try to sneak
in through.
Wrapping Things Up:
In case of a successful malware attack on your site, you can
suffer a significant amount of business damage in terms of lost revenue when
the website goes offline, Google blacklisting your site among others. For small
business, such damages can often signal the end for them.
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