Hackers exploit security vulnerabilities in popular web software such as blogs, forums, CMS, image galleries and wikis to insert hidden illicit content into web pages of innocent third-party web sites. Thousands of website owners are unaware that their sites are hacked and infected with viruses and malicious codes.
Even worse situation would be to find the home page of your website replaced by a hacked web page. This would cause a major dent in customer confidence and visitors would not be able to trust your virtual presence any more.
This is also why a website security scan or a website security check is a must to ensure that your website is trust worthy and has taken sufficient measures to protect its integrity.
Website Security, Website Security Check, Website Security Testing, Web Application Security, website penetration test are all variants of initiatives that walk the same path of ensuring that a website is tested for any major vulnerabilities that exist in its technical design and can therefore be exploited by an hacker.
Here are few simple steps that you can take to ensure that you walk the right path for your websites security:
1. Perform a website security check: Google your way to a trusted website security testing firm or vendor. Look at their website and see if they look like a specialist firm who focus on security related topics or are like another all in one web shop offering website design, development and SEO services. If this is the case skip this vendor and move on. Short list a few website security testing vendors and call / email them. Ask them for their delivery model, track record or sample reports. If possible talk to one of their clients or look for a testimonial section that says something about the quality of their penetration testing skills.
2. Enroll for a Malware scanning service: Look for a service that scans your website for malware and virus on a daily basis and warns you before you get blacklisted on the web. If you have undergone a website security check then it is very unlikely that your website is infected with a virus as most virus infections take advantage of existing and known vulnerabilities. In case you performed a worthy website security checks and plugged the gaps you can be assured of a safety net. However it’s worth the effort to enroll your website for such a service. Make sure the service provider also has the capability to help you clean the infected website, just in case it happens.
3. Perform daily vulnerability scanning on your website: Vulnerability Scanning can act as a very strong proactive control against possible hacks that can be executed on your website at a given time. Look for a vendor who can scan your website using multiple commercial scanners. Open source scanners like open vas and nikito can also be used , However they cannot be as effective when compared to Nessus , SAINT , Found stone etc as these companies put in a lot of effort and research to keep the plug-in updated. As a result you know it first if your website is impacted by an evolving threat.
4. Buy a Website Security Certificate: If you are putting in effort and money to secure your customers trust, why not tell your customers about it. This is where a website security certificate can help you. In fact most ecommerce websites use multiple trust seals to showcase that their website is safe for shopping. The best part of having a website security certificate on your website is that they mostly come with a daily vulnerability scanning service with it. This way the certificate is updated with the daily security status of your secured website. This helps in customers gaining confidence on the website and also enhances sales and conversion rate.