Website Security: Why Prevention Can Make the Difference

Technology has brought many goodies especially to the world of business but that doesn’t mean that all is well. While it has eliminated many challenges associated with the old business models, it has come with its own new challenges that continue to cause the closure of many businesses.

Almost every serious business today has a form of online presence which means that they operate from individual websites. With the looming retail apocalypse, the only way to grow a successful business is to fight your way through the highly competitive and crowded online space.

For this to happen, you need to ensure that you sell the right products, choose the right tech, generate traffic, capture leads and retain customers. These are very important measures but don’t forget to prioritize your site security.

What is website security?

Your site and the network are the link between your business and the outside world and unfortunately, it is prone to security risks. Just like your physical business premises require lock and key, security wall and sometimes security guards, the integrity of your website depends on the security measures that you undertake.

You may be assuming that your website has nothing worth being hacked but you should also know that SMEs are becoming increasingly attractive to cyber-criminals not only for data but for resources as well. These criminals need your server to use as an email relay for spam or as a short-term web server to serve illegal files.

They could also use your server as part of a botnet or to mine crypto-currency. These are just but a few forms of security risks in addition to ransomware, phishing, DDoS attacks, bad bots and malware among others.

What happens if you neglect your website security?

Website hacking incidents continue to rise with web application vulnerabilities reaching 212% higher in 2017 compared to 2016. This simply shows that there is a higher chance that your website could be attacked at any time.

The consequences of such an attack are dire because hackers target your customers by redirecting traffic after which they will infect your visitors with malicious software. What will happen next is even worse because your site will be blacklisted by the search engines which means your business reputation will get damaged due to your customers’ lack of trust.

Why Prevention Can Make the Difference

Well, it is true that you get to learn from your mistakes and can do a website clean-up in case of an attack. Unfortunately, this will cost you much more than if you had protected it. Moreover, why would you want to waste all the hard work that you put into your website because of a hack or malware?

Prevention means monitoring your site in real-time for any suspicious activity so that you keep an eye on your site and implement the necessary immediate solutions. This is done using a number of good tech tools that you can get here as well as other places. They allow you to navigate a chain of events and follow any incident back to its source for troubleshooting. With your site secured, you will be able to focus on ways that you can grow your business using tech.

Web security is a serious issue that you need to prioritize because any failure will significantly jeopardize your efforts to build a successful business. You should, therefore, implement a variety of security prevention measures including security patches, firewalls, bot blockers, PCI compliances, HTTPS encryption, SSL certification and content delivery networks. There are also a number of other security tips that will help you protect your website from hackers.