Online fraud, online theft, hacking sites, hackers’ attacks on government or military sites, malware, etc. are all part of the security challenges and security problems in the web space. The expansion of the use of the Internet and the digitization and onlineization of almost everything has made life easier and faster around the world. But unfortunately, it has brought with it new threats and dangers.
When payments go online, so does theft. When information is stored in central and online databases, online theft of information from individuals or companies or governments also occurs. Someone may even defraud users using the site or application or through social networks. Hackers are always lurking.
Therefore, an important part of website design is the work that must be done to keep the website and its users safe from hackers. It is impossible to design a site without thinking about its security and the costs to prevent it from being hacked. Of course, depending on the type of site and how the user interacts with it, the importance of security is different.
Shopping sites or government and bank sites that receive and store personal information and bank accounts of people are definitely more at risk than content sites. Of course, it should not be taken that the content or news site does not need security and is not at risk of being hacked.
Websites may be hacked for various reasons. How to prevent website hacking? Some websites are programmed from scratch. Some are built on WordPress or content management systems. There are some other webapps developed with frameworks like EmberJS, are there ways to prevent all three websites from being hacked?
This content answers the above questions.
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How to prevent website hacking?
In the last few decades, a very broad concept called “CyberCrime or Computer Crime” has emerged, which criminalizes a wide range of behaviors and actions that are done with computers. One of these acts and behavior is hacking. First of all, it is better to clarify what hacking means?
Hacking in its most general definition means using someone’s computer or mobile phone without permission to do something illegal and steal information stored on that device. If someone enters your email without your permission and sends an email from your email to someone else, your email has been hacked.
Hacking websites is the same. When a hacker enters your site, he uses its information, destroys the structure and format of the site, does illegal things using your site and your server (for example, mining bitcoins) or sends spam emails to users; Your site has been hacked. Your website may even be hacked with the aim of disrupting it and taking it down. Ransomware is another serious threat.
Of course, it should also be said that sometimes hacking a site is done with the aim of finding its security holes. That is, the hacker is asked to check the security of the site and see if the methods used to prevent hacking are sufficient or not.
5 ways to prevent any site from being hacked
Next, 5 methods that websites should use to prevent their site from being hacked will be introduced. Some of these methods are free and some are paid. And yes! Some sites need much, much more than these 5 methods, and for some, a few of these 5 are enough.
1. Security plugins
If your site is built on one of the content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress or Joomla or Drupal, your work is much easier. Each of these systems has many security plugins. The site designer can easily install one or more of these plugins and feel at ease about the security of the site.
One of the most important and useful WordPress plugins is iThemes Security. An almost comprehensive security plugin that scans the site and announces security problems and risks. BulletProof Security is another good option. Antivirus Website Protection and RSFirewall are two of Joomla’s famous security plugins.
2. HTTPS security protocol
Your site, no matter how it is built and what type it is (content or news or educational or a site like Amazon) must use this protocol. Yes, it is true that using this protocol costs money; but this is a necessary cost for your website. Even in the SEO of your site and from the point of view of Google, having HTTPS is necessary.
HTTPS or SSL certificate indicates that the data transfer between the server and the site is secure and encrypted. This means that a third party (hacker) cannot steal information in the middle of the road. When this protocol is not present, if the site is opened with Chrome, it will inform the user that the site is not secure.
3. Regular site update
This is common to all websites. If there is a problem or a security hole in your site’s software, hackers will take advantage of it very soon. Keeping WordPress sites updated is easier. Because the system itself warns you that the software needs to be updated. Also, if a plugin needs to be updated, WordPress will warn the site administrator.
There are also options for sites built with PHP. There are tools (such as Composer, npm, or RubyGems) that help website developers become aware of possible vulnerabilities in the software they have built. It is important that developers and programmers should pay attention to the warnings and notifications of these tools and not pass them easily.
4. Constantly changing passwords and access problems
Take server password and site management (admin) seriously. These passwords must be strong. In addition, be very careful about who you give what access to. If the site has several admins or for any reason different people have access to the site and can make changes to it, you should be careful.
The admin password is just not important. If on the site the user can become a member and register information and must have a password to enter his user account, the site administrator or developer must make sure that the user (even when he doesn’t like it or is lazy) chooses a strong password for himself. Some sites, to comply with this issue, do not allow the user to have a password of less than 8 characters.
5. SQLI & XSS Attack
Sites must be protected against two hacker attacks: SQL injection and Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. In the SQL attack, which is also a very common attack, the hacker uses malicious SQL codes to access information that is not for public display and access. This information may be the information of customers of the site or confidential data related to the company or business. This attack can be easily prevented with a feature that most server-side programming languages have: Parameterized Queries (that is, including parameters or variables in the query).
Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks inject malicious JavaScript into your pages, which then runs in the browsers of your users, and can change page content, or steal information to send back to the attacker.
This attack may also affect the html structure. This attack can be prevented with a trick like the one mentioned for the first attack (that is, by manipulating the codes). Of course, the better way is to use Content Security Policy (CSP). With this method, the developer or the site designer can ask the server to tell the browser which JavaScript code to execute for the user.