Updated on
Cybersecurity has always been a top concern for IT experts from the beginning of information and communication technologies. But, with the aggressive acceptance of cloud computing and cloud services, it has become a huge concerned equally for enterprises, experts and for the common users.
These days security professionals have made cybersecurity much robust and comprehensive by introducing numerous cybersecurity tools and cybersecurity best practices and standards. Along with the standard cybersecurity tools, numerous custom approaches are also used extensively to safeguard the websites, apps, and cloud-based services. For building powerful cybersecurity for your online and offline digital assets in 2019, check this out for professional support.
This is very important to note that cybersecurity is going to cost over $5.2 trillion to the global industry in the coming 5 years, according to the Accenture predictions. The cybersecurity industry has already grown substantially. The future of the industry is much brighter in the coming years owing to the increased Cyber Security risks posed by the high-tech hackers that exploit the security issues prevailing in the global cyber arena.
Contents
What Is Website Security?
Cybersecurity can be divided into multiple domains such as website security, network security, server-security, data security, and others. The website security is a comprehensive security approach by the security professional for the website to protect its data and other digital resources from cyber attacks in the shape of viruses, malware, spyware, denial of service, and other attacks.
A website always remains up and online through internet, the hackers primarily target the websites to exploit any vulnerability in the website and then establish control over the websites to spread cyber attacks through the internet. You can secure your website from all those attacks by using the best internet security software tools and implementing the industry best practices.
5 Pro Tips on Robust Cyber Security
The cybercrime is expected to cost as much as $2 trillion in 2019, according to the Juniper Research Report. To reduce this huge loss, many industries follow the most useful tips on security. The top 5 security tips of them are mentioned below.
1. Always Use Firewalls
A firewall is the most fundamental shield against the cyber attacks. A firewall is one of the most critical components of network security to stop unwanted intrusion into the network. A web application firewall is extensively used on the websites to protect the communication over HTTP/S protocol. It is the first cybersecurity shield, which must be always enabled to protect your servers, websites, and network.
The firewall allows the traffic that passes the rules that are defined on the firewall. If the traffic does not qualify the criteria defined in the traffic rules, the traffic is either diverted to dumb terminals or blocked to enter into the network. The latest entrant into firewall security domain is firewall as a service, which is expected to reach $1.98 billion by 2023.
2. Implement a Higher Level of Encryption
In many cases, the hackers intercept the communication packets that travel from one node to the other one. The information in the intercepted packet is analyzed and vulnerabilities are found to attack the networks or servers. So, it is highly recommended to encrypt the communication over the internet or any other network so that the hackers are not able to decode the encrypted communication over the internet. Thus, you save your network from hackers easily. The SSL version 2.0 (256 bit or higher) is the recommended version for data encryption.
3. Make Updating Software a Habit
The most important tip for the cybersecurity professionals and managers is that either they make it their habit to regularly update all software that they use or use an automated program to update all software used in your network. The providers of the software continuously release patches to remove any vulnerability in the software programs. So, update the software immediately as the patch is released.
4. Use the Best Anti malware Software
The total revenue of the antivirus software industry is about $3.77 billion in 2019. There are many antivirus and anti malware provider companies in the market. You should choose the most powerful and professional grade anti malware software to protect your servers, computers, and storage from different types of malicious codes. All hosting companies offer the service of antivirus directly from their own platform. So, purchase the hosting services of the provider that offers professional malware security.
5. Make a Stronger Security Policy
The industry experts believe that cybersecurity is a habit rather than a technical domain. Thus, you should strive continuously to improve the cybersecurity of your digital resources by adopting a standard security policy with stronger rules. There should be no option to overrule the security policy in an organization. This will make your security more robust and reliable.
The stronger security policy should cover all aspects of digital, physical, access control and other domains of the organization. No exceptions should be allowed to become a routine practice. There should also be a standard procedure to overrule any security policy so that the reasons for bypassing the security rules should be transparent and traceable.
How to Secure Websites from Cyber Attacks?
The first month of 2019 started with the startling figures regarding the data leaks through the websites. More than 1.7 billion user records were stolen in the month of January 2019 only through multiple data breaches across the world. Numerous website service interruptions were also noticed in the first quarter of this year, which incurred millions of dollars losses to the industries.
Securing a website from cyber attacks is a comprehensive and consistent strategy to adopt. Comprehensive website security can be achieved when we implement not only website security measures but also internet security measures. There are four major domains of cybersecurity, which are interrelated and impact directly on the security of the website.
- Infrastructure security
- Network security
- Application/Website security
- Cloud security
Securing a website from the internal as well as external cyber threats you should implement the following security guidelines on your website.
1. Anti-malware security
The most basic measure for the protection of your website is the installation of anti-malware software tool so that your website can be kept safe from virus, Trojans, spyware and other such attacks. According to the latest estimation, the ransom-ware is expected to cost over $11.5 billion in 2018 and 2019.
There are many cybersecurity companies like Kaspersky, Norton, McAfee, and others that help protect your website professionally. If you are hosting your website with providers companies they take care of the security through online tools from those companies.
2. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
The second important measure to safeguard your website data is the implementation of the SSL certificate. By using SSL encryption, you encrypt the data and communication over the internet. The hackers in the middle of the network cannot interpret the communication as well as data carrying the communication messages. Thus, you get the best internet security by implementing SSL on your website. SSL is an important part of your website security but if you have multiple subdomains then what you will do to protect them? Do not worry because there is provision of Wildcard SSL Certificate that is able to secure primary domain plus associated subdomains with strong encryption.
3. Web App Firewall
By implementing web application firewall on your website, you stop malicious intrusion into your website by defining the better criteria of your web security. The web application firewall is able to monitor your website at HTTP level communication and stop from SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other attacks.
4. Latest versions of website platforms
The older versions of any software normally have much vulnerability and should be replaced with the latest versions. This is highly recommended to use the latest versions of the software platforms and tools on your website so that the possible vulnerabilities can be avoided from any kinds of exploitation.
Types of Cyber Attacks and Their Sources
Cyber hacker is one of the most technical and sophisticated types of criminals in today’s world. He/she uses the latest technologies, creativity, and innovation to carry out the cyber attacks on the websites and data storages. It is a common impression in the cybersecurity field that a hacker is always one step ahead of the security professionals.
A hacker uses numerous types of methods to carry out different kinds of cyber attacks. The major types of cyber attacks on the online security of a website include the following:
1. Malware Attacks
Malware attack is the most basic cyber attack. In this type of attack malicious code commonly known as a virus, spyware, Trojan horses, logic bombs, worms, ransom-ware, boot-record infector, and others are spread to the websites, servers, and computers by exploiting different vulnerabilities. The major sources of malware attacks include internet, infected emails, external storage devices, and others.
2. Distributed denial of service (DDoS)
The distributed denial of service is the most sophisticated denial of service attack. In this type of attack, the targeted website is bombarded with requests from multiple infected computers on the internet. Those requests overwhelm the processors of the website and ultimately the website goes offline. The source of such attack is a number of infected computers on the internet.
3. SQL Injection Attacks
SQL injection was the most common cyber attacks that the hackers carried out in 2018. The SQL injection accounted for about 19% of the cyber attacks in 2018. In this type of attacks, the hackers inject the SQL query through website input. The code then is sent to the database for authorization and authentication. This code starts altering the code on the database and compromises the entire database.
4. Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks
In this type of attack, the hackers exploit the vulnerabilities in the web applications to inject the client-side scripts that are viewable to the legitimate users on the website. The cross-site scripting was a big problem about one decade ago, but with the advancement in web technologies, it has decreased to a certain extent in recent years.
5. Man in the middle (MitM) attacks
This type of attack is also known as session hijacking. In this type of attack, the connection between the legitimate user and server is hijacked by the malicious user. The computer of a hacker normally replaces the IP address of his/her computer for the legitimate user’s IP address. The server continues responding to the hackers’ requests, which lead to damage to the server, website or data. Other than the above major types of cyber attacks, eavesdropping, phishing, and spamming are other types of cyber attacks. Using strong passwords generated by a password generator is a good idea for password security. You can also get better security tools and platforms with the best price on internet security as well as on website security.
Final Takeaway
Cybersecurity is becoming a bigger challenge as the new technologies and the sophistication in cyber crimes emerge in the marketplace.
