Keeping your website secure

Website optimisation doesn’t stop with keeping your website content updated, ensuring that it’s secure from the multitude of threats such as hacking, failing functionality and data breaches is as important.

We understand that website maintenance may get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list and can often be an overwhelming task particularly when it comes to security. As a result, we have put together the following checklist and go-to guide when it comes to website security.

Update your plugins

Let’s start with the most important part, keeping plugins updated on your website should be your priority when it comes to website security. Without doing so, elements can become broken which will make it easier for hackers to identify vulnerabilities and take full advantage. But what is a plugin you may ask? It is a piece of code often created by members of the developer community containing a group of functions that can be added to a website to extend its functionality.

Backup your website

If you were ever in the unfortunate circumstance where there is a disastrous failure that wipes the entirety of your website, you will be hugely grateful (and thankful to us after reading this article!) that you have a backup of your website to rely on. As you can imagine backing up your data is immensely important and should be carried out on a regular basis, at mso we do this as standard every 24 hours but this can be increased to more regular intervals as and when required. When doing your website backups, ensure that you are confident that you are carrying out the process correctly, or seek professional help to avoid any mistakes.

SSL Certificate

An SSL certificate can be easily installed on your website to protect details such as credit card numbers, names and addresses from hackers (so make sure you have one). It is a type of digital certificate that provides authentication for a website and enables an encrypted connection. In the past, SSL certificates were quite costly to install on websites but nowadays with systems such as Lets Encrypt they are basically free! Without one, search engines will warn users that your site is not secure (see image below).

Passwords

Passwords should always be strong, unique and secure to protect yourself from hackers. Despite this being common knowledge it is surprising that people still use the same password for everything (this is a big no!). We would recommend using tools such as LastPass to generate and store your secure passwords.

Need a helping hand?

Feel free to get in touch with our team if you wish to seek further advice when it comes to website security or if you need a steer in the right direction.