Website Security Services

Website Security Demystified: Shielding your Online Existence

Digital world seems so hazardous. At Ellenom, we have been to witness it grind with the impact that website security issues bring to businesses- large and small. Your website is often the first point of contact between your business and potential customers. It's where you showcase your products, services, and brand identity. But what happens when your site gets hacked or compromised? The consequences can be devastating-from data breaches and financial losses to damaged reputation and lost customer trust.

Every website owner should know the basics of website security. It is not just a matter of installing a plugin or using a strong password (though these things help). True website security is a comprehensive approach that will ensure your site can withstand various threats while remaining functional and user-friendly.

Over the years, our team has assisted hundreds of businesses in mitigating the consequences of security breaches. However, we'd prefer to help prevent such disasters from occurring in the first place. That's why we've put together this guide: to share our expertise with you and help you develop a strategy for protecting your website from potential threats.

Website security is something that is common whether you have a small business website or a full-fledged e-commerce website. Let's get to know what website security is really about and how you can do effective things to protect your online presence. .

Common Threats to Website Security

In all these years that we have helped businesses in web development, security threats have been many. The first step towards protecting your website is knowing these threats.

Malware misery is definitely a typical threat. These are malicious programs which will get into your website and can produce all sorts of havoc. Some may want to steal sensitive information, others may just redirect your visitors to scam sites. Once we worked along with a local boutique, whose website was injected with malicious code, invisible to it, it was secretly collecting credit card details.

In fact, SQL Injection is the most widely used and exploited method. Hacking and injecting malicious codes into your database using unsafe forms or URLs allows hackers to find out sensitive information you contain in your database. It's very much like someone sneaking into the back door without your knowledge!

A Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack is an attack where an attacker injects malicious scripts into pages that are viewed by other users. These scripts can now steal information or perform actions on behalf of the user. Imagine someone putting up a fake sign in your store that tricks customers into giving away their credit card information. That's somewhat how XSS work.

Brute force is a simple but effective attack. In this case, tools are designed to automate the process of entering thousands of passwords until the correct one is determined; it's kind of like someone testing every key to find out which one opens the lock on your door.

One example, of course, is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Basically, it overwhelms your website with heavy traffic which causes it to slow down or completely crash. As if thousands of people were trying to stampede into a store at once, legitimate customers couldn't get in because of the crowd.

Essential Security Measures for the Website Every Business Needs

The website can be secured without considering it rocket science. At Ellenom, we strive to put in place tried-and-tested security countermeasures that put up an excellent line of defense but do not cost an arm and a leg.

Strong passwords are the first layer of protection. We advise you should always use unique and complex passwords for all your website accounts. A good password length is at least 12 characters and uses upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters. You might want to consider a password manager for these complex passwords.

Security updates are paramount. Software developers release a stream of updates known as patches to secure their software from vulnerabilities. Security holes can be closed if the content management system, themes, plugins, and scripts installed for the website are regularly updated. In our experience, we've seen cases where via outdated plugins, the hackers entered an entire website.

Whenever you create a WAF, you create another layer of security. A WAF filters harmful traffic right before it hits your website. Think of it as a guard who checks all the characters before entering the building.

Secure hosting is still an important foundation for your website security that you definitely shouldn't overlook. Your web hosting provider will go a long way in keeping your website secure. Ellenom offers secure hosts with built-in security solutions such as real-time monitoring and automatic backups.

File integrity monitoring assists in the detection of unauthorized changes to your website files. This early warning allows you to act promptly when something seems wrong. One of our e-commerce clients escaped a potential catastrophe of a data breach because our monitoring system detected unusual file changes around 2 a.m. on a Saturday, enabling us to shut down the attack before any data was compromised.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds another verification step to your login. Therefore, even if someone has your password, they will not be able to use it to access your account unless they also have the second factor – usually a code that was sent to your phone. Think about it like having a lock and a security code to your house – one is useless without the other.

SSL Certificates: Why Non-Negotiables nowadays

If you've ever spotted a padlock icon somewhere here in your browser's address bar, you've witnessed an SSL certificate at work. An SSL (secure socket layer) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates a website's identity and enables it to establish an encrypted connection with a visitor. At Ellenom, we consider SSL certificates absolutely essential for every single website that we create or maintain.

Data encryption is the most obvious benefit to SSL. It does have SSL, meaning that information is exchanged using a web browser and a website through encrypted means. Thus, any other sensitive detail - particularly login credentials - personal information, or payment information cannot be intercepted by hacking practices. This scenario is often explained to clients as: "Without SSL, transferring information through your website is like sending a postcard. Anyone who handles it can read it. With SSL, it's like sending a letter in a locked box that only the recipient can open."

SSL certificates also enhance visitor confidence in you. Web browsers have started issuing warnings to users and tagging sites with no SSL as "Not Secure." It turns visitors away even before they glance through your content. In fact, data suggest that a site would typically experience reduced bounce rates and consequently higher conversion rates after switching from HTTP to HTTPS (the secured version brought about by an SSL certificate).

From an SEO perspective, it's yet another feather in your cap. An SSL certificate is a factor it has confirmed to use in considering your ranking. It may not make a great difference overnight in improving your ranking, but as you know, every advantage counts in the cutthroat world of SEO.

There are different types of SSL certificates available, from basic Domain Validation (DV) certificates to more extensive Organization Validation (OV) and Extended Validation (EV) certificates. The right option mostly depends on what nature your website is and what needs it has. For example, an EV certificate is often recommended by us for ecommerce websites, which accept payments directly via them.

It was once tedious installing and maintaining SSL certificates. But these days, we've made things so easy for our clients; for example, all the websites under Ellenom are automatically installed and renewed with SSL certificates without you having to lift a finger to secure your website.

Website Backup and Disaster Recovery Planning

Quite honestly, nothing may go right despite fixing all security holes. At Ellenom, we do believe in big comprehensive backup systems, and this is because we have seen firsthand how actual backups save clients thousands of bucks as well as countless hours of mental torture.

A good backup strategy is not only about having copies of your website-it's about having the right copies at the right times. We recommend automated daily backups of both files for your website and database. These backups should also be stored in multiple locations, including off-site storage that's separate from your main hosting.

This is one aspect of important backups. When one having multiple versions of backups, covering a wide time span, is assured of recovering his site to several points in time. It takes on added importance if some malware has hung arround undetected for some while before discovery.

I recall a project with a client, whose site just became completely corrupted from an update that failed. They were in panic mode thinking that they had lost all their content and client data-that was the initial panic. Fortunately for them, we were having our full backup system in place so they could be restored back to their state just a few hours before the incident, with very little disruption to their business.

Disaster recovery does not only mean having a backup; it also means knowing how to use the backup in the right ways. Our disaster recovery comprises such documented procedures for the occasions of different scenarios, from minor little issues to major breaches. This means we can respond promptly when something goes wrong.

Regular backup testing is usually missed but absolutely important. We periodically take backups to a staging environment and restore them there for verification of their proper working. There is nothing worse thandiscovering your backup system has been failing silently when you are in dire need of restoring your site.

For e-commerce websites and those that collect user data, the level of security for backups should be similar to that of the live site itself. Even if at all backup files are compromised, they are safe from prying eyes.

Regular Security Audits and Monitoring: Staying One Step Ahead

Ellénom believes proactive security measures are just much more effective than reactive approaches. Accordingly, regular security audits and continuous monitoring are the backbone of our proactive approach.

Security audits are thorough checks of the security posture of the site. During an audit, the entire setup is investigated: everything from server configurations to application code is viewed through a searching eye, looking for existing vulnerabilities. It is like a very thorough health check-up of your website. Just as regular checkups can catch health issues before becoming a major problem, so also can the audits catch vulnerabilities before hackers find and exploit them.

The client was skeptical-if there was any point to regular security audits, his website had never been hacked. There couldn't be much reason to incur the extra costs. On their first audit, however, we found an old plugin containing a known vulnerability that hackers were exploiting actively elsewhere. By proactively addressing the problem, we avoided what probably would have become a serious breach.

Unlike the audits offered from time to time, continuous monitoring entails keeping watch on your website 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have monitoring systems that look out for strange activities, some file alterations from the usual, or some known patterns of attacks. When something out of the ordinary occurs, it sends out alarms that trigger our team to investigate at once.

It involves log analysis. This would be through server logs, then detecting those where there are repetitive patterns that would indicate either that some attack is going on or someone is probing for some vulnerabilities. Our website maintenance services also happen to offer log analysis at regular intervals to ensure that not much goes unnoticed.

Vulnerability scanning tools automatically check for known security issues. The software uses databases of known vulnerabilities to make comparisons of your website and alert for potential problems. Although they cannot replace the human factor, these are quite valuable in recognizing already common issues as quickly as possible.

Penetration testing is that new step in a security assessment when it goes on to simulate real attacks into your website. Ethical hackers have for the task brought in almost all kinds of techniques used by malicious hackers, but with the aim of identifying and correcting vulnerabilities rather than possible exploitation.

Malware Prevention and Removal: Keeping Your Site Clean

Malware is among the most common threats websites are facing today. Ellenom has helped a myriad of clients recover from malware infections and more importantly, implement measures against future infections.

Avoiding malware is always better than curing it. Good access control will ensure that only authorized individuals can upload files or make changes to your website. We have implemented strict validation checks on file uploads to make certain that users cannot upload actual malware under the cover of an image or a document.

Code signing is one more preventive measure we employ for our clients. This makes the identification of unauthorized code or malicious code injected onto the website easier, simply by virtue of the digital signing of legitimate code. This holds special importance for websites with multiple contributors or third-party integrations.

Even with all these preventive measures in place, scanning for malware remains a necessity. Our automated scanners routinely look for known malware signatures and suspicious code patterns. For small business websites, scanning regularly seems to be mostly sufficient to cut common threats off before they really start doing harm.

Working with a local photography studio that had their website plagued by a rather insidious piece of malware comes to mind, where-the redirecting of visitors to bogus dating sites was done, yet only for mobile devices and on the first visit, making it quite hard to catch and replicate. Our advanced scanning tools caught the conditional redirect code hidden very deep somewhere within the theme files, thus giving us the chance to completely remove it.

When undetectable, remove malware from the website fast and thoroughly. Any removal step we take against malware involves the identification of all infected files, safe removal of the malicious code, and a verification that the infection has been entirely cleaned out. Meanwhile, we also research how it got in so we can work on preventing that method of attack occurring again.

We will then assist the client after malware removal to secure their site and educate them further in good practices. A lot of malware is sought due to some human error that can be greatly mitigated by providing training for staff on security best practices.

User Authentication and Access Control: The Human Element

Strong technical security is essential, but at Ellenom, we recognize that the human factor comprises the weakest link in the chain of website security. This is precisely why we pay special attention to systems for user authentication and access control.

Password policies are the cornerstone of good user authentication. We require strong, unique passwords and enforce regular password changes on all administrative accounts. At the same time, overcomplex password requirements can lead to users writing down their passwords or worse, reusing them across sites. Hence, in some aspects, we take a more usability-oriented view than an outright security view.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds another layer of security in requiring something the user knows (their password) and something they have (their phone). We highly recommend MFA for all administrative access to websites. In our experience, this one measure would avert the overwhelming majority of attempts at unauthorized access.

With role-based access regulation, access can be given only to those who require it for carrying on with their work. For example, content editors shouldn't need to install plugins, and marketing staff may not require access to user data. Role-based access design minimizes damage should a user account be compromised.

A medium-sized e-commerce client had, for convenience, given full administrative access to dozens of staff members. After implementing proper role-based access and reviewing actual needs, we were able to cut the full admin access down to just two key personnel. Three months later, when a staff member fell victim to a phishing attack and their account credentials were compromised, this minimized damage due to limited access rights.

Another critical aspect of access control is session management. Secure session management is enforced, with adequate timeouts for idle sessions to logout automatically. This secures against unauthorized access in the event the user forgets to log out on a shared machine or has their machine stolen while still logged in.

This limits login attempts, thus stopping brute-force attacks by blocking access momentarily after several failed login attempts. Where apt, we complement this with IP-based restrictions in administrative areas, thereby putting another lock on sensitive functions.

Security of E-commerce Websites: Safeguarding Customers' Data and Transactions

Online platforms take care of customer-sensitive data and conduct financial transactions which require their own sets of security challenges. At Ellenom, we have formulated tailor-made security methods for e-commerce sites, ensuring high protection along with a pleasing shopping experience.

For e-commerce sites, compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) is a must. These are the security standards meant to ascertain that companies which are handling credit card information maintain a secure environment. We help our clients in that journey of compliance, which may vary according to how payment processing is handled.

To process payments, we usually recommend using trusted payment gateways instead of direct payment processing. This helps transfer a lot of security responsibility to specialized service providers which focus on secure payment processing. Nevertheless, strong security has to be ensured for your website to protect customer information prior to their reach to the payment gateway, even when using a third-party payment processor.

One of our online retail clients had a situation where his site was secure, but he was unknowingly collecting more customer data than was warranted and retaining it longer than was necessary. This created unnecessary risk. We helped them introduce practices of data minimization, collecting only what is strictly necessary, while establishing a rigid automatic data purging procedure after the expiry of predetermined retention times.

Databases in e-commerce, more than in any other industry, should be designed to be secure. We protect sensitive information and maintain reasonable performance by means of data encryption, parameterized queries, and suitable indexing. For especially sensitive data, sometimes we perform field-level encryption so that even database administrators cannot access certain information without designated rights.

Other areas in which we assist our clients include the identification of e-commerce fraud. From implementing fraud detection tools to suspicious order reviews, we help genuine businesses avert losses from fraudulent transactions. They usually anticipate red flags, including mismatched billing and shipping addresses and suspicious ordering patterns, including orders coming from high-risk regions.

Customer education also plays an important part in e-commerce security. We assist our clients in establishing user-friendly privacy policies and security information pages that create reliability in their customers." Occasionally, something that seems so simple, like a security badge or concise explanation of what security measures are being taken, can have a tremendous impact on converting unsure shoppers.

How Ellenom Secures Your Website: Our All-Inclusive Approach

At Ellenom, security is part and parcel of what we do with websites. It's not an afterthought or add-on service. On the contrary, Ellenom has a broad-based approach towards the website security of a business-from those that are small to large and across varied industries.

To begin with, security comes into play throughout the entire cycle of every assignment within the organization. Once a line of code has been submitted for use, security implications from the website's overall structure and functional activities would be given consideration. This means that security has been designed for by-default building into your site rather than bolting it afterward.

We keep very high standards of coding according to security best practices. Our developers take frequent security trainings to be in the know of the emerging threats and countermeasures every time. Each code is reviewed thoroughly from many hands before deployment to catch all expected security issues at the beginning stage.

The web hosting infrastructure we have possesses a multi-level security layer, from network-level firewalls to application layer protection. Conducting hardening on servers such as turning off unnecessary services and hardening essential services that run on our servers. The server is well updated to resolve the known vulnerabilities of the server.

But, it doesn't end there; after launching the solution, we continue with it through continuous monitoring and maintenance of the server. We also have a variety of different package types on our website maintenance that includes package against security updates, malware scans, and optimization of performance. For clients with really sensitive data or huge regulatory requirements, we offer enhanced security measures providing more frequent audits with other protective measures.

Differentiated security needs and budgets mean that we differ from business to business. What typically suffices for securing a small, local business's website does not suffice for a big ecommerce site taking thousands of transactions each day. That being the case, we can provide scalable security solutions that grow with you.

To top it all, we have very effective incident response capabilities, and in the case something goes wrong, we act quickly. Our team has security specialists who can easily identify and respond to breach incidents, keeping it a clear protocol for containment, eradication, and recovery. We maintain an average response time of under 30 minutes for critical security incidents, and we take pride in that.