A Comprehensive Guide to Web Hosting Security

Every website is at risk of security threats like spam, DDoS attacks, viruses, malware, etc. If you’re running a small, local business, you may think you’re in the clear because you’re not handling million-dollar transactions like large corporations. But the truth is that small and medium-sized businesses may be even more vulnerable than larger companies.

A Cisco study in 2018 found that 53% of midmarket companies have experienced a security breach at least once. Although there’s no way to predict when you might experience an attack, the best thing you can do is to maintain your site security as best as you can.

Here are some of the factors that will improve your web hosting security.

#1: Choose the Right Web Hosting Plan

Your hosting provider takes care of most security measures to ensure better web hosting security. That being said, your choice in a hosting plan will make a huge difference in taking your security levels up a notch. You should carefully assess all of the options you have and choose the one that offers the most security.

Shared hosting plans, for instance, may be at a higher risk of security threats because an attack on one website will leave your site vulnerable. You can check out some of the top WordPress hosting services and compare their plans to see which would be the best option for you.

#2: Use HTTPS Protocol

At the most basic level, your website should use HTTPS protocol to safeguard your visitors’ personal information. Seeing “https” next to a URL makes visitors feel much safer. But in addition, it’ll also boost the credibility of your site in the eyes of both users and search engines.

On the other hand, seeing a “not secure” sign next to a URL is going to chase away tons of visitors as you can see in the screenshot below from Google Developers.

Further, ecommerce websites can increase their site security by combining HTTPS with a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. This will encrypt the communication between a visitor’s browser and the server, so it’s crucial to protect their credit card and banking information.

#3: Restrict User Access

You may be shocked to learn that human error causes 95% of security breaches, according to an IBM study. This could include accidentally publishing confidential information on the public-facing site, sending it to the wrong party, etc. So it’s crucial that you limit the number of people who can commit such errors by restricting access to your website.

Not every employee should have control over your website or be able to change its settings. The same goes for independent contractors and consultants such as web designers. You can apply the principle of least authority here and give the necessary access only for the required period of time.

For instance, if someone needs a certain level of access to complete a project, you only give them access until they complete the project. After that, their access ability reverts to the same level as before.

#4: Restrict File Uploads

When you allow just any visitor to upload files to your site, you’re putting your site security at risk. Any of those files could contain a script that could potentially harm your site by exploiting its vulnerabilities. So restricting file uploads is another crucial step to maintaining your web hosting security.

If, however, the nature of your business requires people to upload files such as product photos with customer reviews, you can restrict the type of files that visitors can upload. That said, every upload should still be considered as a potential threat. Some companies also set up files to be uploaded to a separate location. They then use a script to fetch the files to be delivered to a browser.

#5: Do Frequent and Automatic Backups

While you never want your website to be compromised, a critical step in ensuring web hosting security is to prepare for the worst. This means you should always back up your web content so you don’t lose too much even in case of a breach. This is especially important for larger sites, as they have much more to lose.

Frequent and automatic backups help you maximize your site uptime even when there’s a server failure. To add an extra level of security and protect sensitive information, you could even encrypt your backup data.

You should definitely invest in a good WordPress backup plugin that will automatically backup your data in real time while ensuring your website and data security. VaultPress and BackupBuddy are some of the best options.

#6: Monitor Your Network

It goes without saying that you’ll need to regularly monitor your network for any suspicious or unauthorized activity. Your web hosting provider will typically conduct regular network monitoring, so you don’t have to do the hard work yourself. However, you should understand its importance so you know what to look for in a hosting provider.

You’d ideally want to vet them thoroughly about their monitoring process to decide whether they’re a good fit. How do they monitor the network? What do their engineers look for and consider a threat? Asking these questions should help you narrow down on a good hosting service provider.

Conclusion

These are some of the essential tips to improve your web hosting security and ensure that you choose the best hosting provider. There’s a lot more involved in the process, but it’s crucial that you nail the basics first and then move on to more advanced security measures. Do you have any other web hosting security tips to share with other readers? Let us know in the comments.

About The Author

Shane Barker is the Founder and CEO of Content Solutions and Gifographics. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

A Comprehensive Guide to Web Hosting Security was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.