Building and maintaining strong website development and security is a constant process that often needs to be addressed by website development owners due to its complexity, time consumption, and cost. As a hosting provider, we know better. Over 18 years of experience hosting, maintaining, and securing millions of websites have us thoroughly understand that website development and security is explained to us in critical for every online business. We have seen the reckless consequences a hack can have on website development and, finally, on any web business, and we have dedicated serious efforts to preventing and minimizing the effects of hack attempts. 

Over the years, we have optimized the security of our platform by developing security systems, introducing various security tools, plugins, and features, and constantly analyzing and monitoring traffic and patterns to recognize potential threats. While all of this has made us one of the world’s most secure and trusted web development hosting providers, we know that more than platform security is needed. The involvement of web development admins and website owners is just as essential for properly securing your website. That is why we have compiled a list of the essential security features you can enable to distinguish between a hacked website development and peace of mind.

Use SSL

Today an SSL is important for almost every website. An SSL certificate encrypts the connection you have developed between the visitors’ browsers and the website’s server you provided so that the data transmitted between the two, such as your personal information, login credentials, and credit card data, or else, cannot be hijacked by web hackers. 

SiteGround clients get absolutely free Standard and Wildcard SSL certificates, including all hosting plans, regardless of the number of sites. Ensure you have SSL installed and your traffic properly redirected via HTTPS from your Site Tools > Security > SSL to make sure the encryption of the connection. 

Suppose you have a business website development and you’re processing online payments. 

An SSL protects private data.

The basic function of an SSL certificate is to secure server-client communication, making it private. Once you install SSL on your website, all kinds of information moving between you and your customer gets encrypted. This includes all kinds of sensitive data, such as:

• Usernames
• Banking information
• Aadhaar numbers
• Passwords

SSL helps protect your private data from hackers and thieves who are always looking for it.

It increases trust

Establishing trust is mandatory for every business, regardless of its size. With an SSL certificate, customers will feel okay about sharing sensitive data with you.

In short, an SSL is no longer needed only for websites that sell products or services — now, an SSL certificate is essential for all websites.

Protect your login password

Your login passwords and other credentials are a gateway to have access to your account and personal data and information, especially when talking about the web, to your domain, site, and emails. There are many things you can do to make sure that your login credentials are safe and secure and that only you or the people you have given the authority can have access to your website:

Try To Harden Your Passwords

Despite all the awareness created nowadays about having a weak password and the importance and need of never sharing your login credentials with anyone, one of the most commonly practiced credentials hacking is through making a guess or brute-forcing easy-to-crack passwords. Having a long password for your website consisting of multiple characters and a combination of words, letters, numbers, and symbols, is the easiest and most effective way to keep your web accounts secure. Remember to use different passwords for various sites and web apps, and make sure you never share your web passwords with anyone or write them on accessible places like post-it notes on your computer! 

Use 2-factor Authentication

Regardless of your password’s hard, a hacker can still get to it through a brute-force attack, virus, malware, or other. You must enable 2-factor Authentication to add an extra layer of security to anyone trying to access your web data. You will need to complete an additional step that involves a temporary, dynamically generated code that is only accessible through your phone or email ID (depending on your login settings). This code cannot be easily guessed or hacked, which makes your login defense a foolproof security measure.

• For SiteGround Client Area, the gateway to your web domains and sites, you can easily enable 2FA from Client Area > Login & Profile. 
• You can also install and activate the SiteGround Security plugin for your WordPress application login and enable the 2FA feature. 

Monitor your website development

Scan for malware regularly.

Website development may get infected with malware in numerous ways – through a compromised login credential, infected or fake plugins and web themes, corrupted software during web development, and much more. Malware can have an extremely serious impact on your site and online business. The best prevention is a secure web development and hosting platform and monitoring constantly. If you are a customer, you can activate the website Scanner – a service that crawls your website daily and notifies you of potential malware and other threats. 

Malware can direct your web visitors to poor websites.

If your website sends visitors to another website, you need to buckle up because a malicious redirect has infected you. This malware deprives you of the website visitors you should be getting and can also affect your customers’ phones and computers.

It can make hackers gain control of your website.

Back doors are malicious malware that allows hackers and cybercriminals to access your website. Once they have accessed your website, they can do all kinds of damage, including shutting you out of your website development unless you pay a handsome amount as ransom.

It displays unwanted advertisements on your website.

Malvertising is also a form of attack that inserts harmful code into your website. This code shows random ads to your visitors without your permission. By clicking those ads, your visitor gets redirected to harmful websites.

Now if you wish to avoid being affected by all of these malware attacks, the best way is to scan your website for malware regularly.

Block suspicious traffic during your website development

In some cases, only the person managing a website can significantly notice specific kinds of patterns or suspicious activity. We have provided easy-to-use, powerful tools online for blocking specific web IP addresses or countries. This enables our valued customers to control who is accessing their website and prevent unwanted visitors.

Back up your site regularly as a part of your web development.

While backups do not protect you from web hackers directly. Mostly, they keep you extremely safe from other unexpected events. A website update that has possibly gone wrong, an infected website that has to be reverted to a better version. Any other situation where a copy of your website development is all you have to bring it back online. We will explain how often backups can save an otherwise much-needed situation, so we do automated daily backups of all websites hosted with us. Keep them for up to a month. You can easily restore your website, various files, or databases for free. they are just a few clicks from Site Tools > Security > Backups.

WordPress website development projects are actually hacking targets.

WordPress powers almost one-third of the entire web development. This makes WordPress one of the main targets for hackers and cybercriminals. Also, it’s an open-source platform, meaning anyone can access the source code.

If your website development runs on WordPress, you have to be extra cautious. And that is why you have to perform regular website backups.

An unexpected failure during web development

Sometimes, updating core files regularly or applications can also go wrong. And once it does, your website is no longer live and viewable on the web.

Such an incident can cause many problems, like having annoyed customers and loss of income. So, what can you do in these cases? Restore your current website immediately with the help of your most recent backup arrangement.