website security – does it matter?

YES – very much! As the internet has expanded over the years for communication, research and shopping, the threat of being hacked has increased with it. Website security procedures and checks are critical to keeping malware and spam at bay. Whether your site is a personal blog, or an international ecommerce shop, you need to protect yourself, your visitors & customers, and all your site information.  You may think your website is so small, no one would bother targeting it. Don’t be fooled – many attacks are automated & performed by bots and out of date sites, software and plugins are all potential targets. So what could happen if your site is targeted?

1. Malicious code could be injected that causes visitors devices to be infected with malware
2. Your website’s pages could be defaced, deleted or replaced with illegal or misleading information.
3. Sensitive information such as login or credit card details may be stolen and sold online.
4. If Google and other search engines detect any malware on your site, it will block its access and remove it from search results – destroying your SEO.
5. Admin accounts could be changed, preventing you from accessing your own site and being able to fix the issue.

What steps can you take to ensure you’re secure?

1. If you think you’ve been attacked, use this tool to check https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/
2. Ensure your username isn’t default “user” or “admin”
3. Ensure your password is hard to guess. Generate a secure password on a site like: https://1password.com/password-generator/, and use a secure password manager to store all your different passwords.
4. Ensure you’re using a secure host, that has their own security procedures in place, and takes frequent backups.
   1. Silvertoad website hosting services includes strict security measures, daily backups, 2 Factor Authentication, Activity Monitoring, Web Application Firewall, SSL Certificates, PHP Updates, DDoS and Brute Force Protection.
5. Keep your website structure up to date. Silvertoad can help with this, get in touch for more info about our website design and development.
6. Keep an eye out for any changes you don’t recognise on your site, such as users, settings or themes you didn’t install
7. Check your SSL Certificate – if it’s out of date, Google will block access to your site with a warning about an expired certificate. To check, click the lock icon in the address bar on your browser. If it’s expired, it might be red or crossed out.

If you’d like some advice or support with your website or website hosting, get in touch with our highly experienced team. You can read more about our Hosting Packages and Website Design & Development here: https://silvertoad.co.uk/website-design/