Digital Security 101: Measures You Should Take

There are a lot of people that create websites in hopes of offering their clients a new way to reach out to them and to drum up business. However, not every website is the safe and secure venue that people need in their lives. That?s why it?s never been more important for you to take these basic measures of digital security into consideration while building your website or while being active online in general.

1. Keep All of Your Software up to Date

The first thing that you need to do if you are trying to keep a safe website is to maintain your software. Depending on your website, you might have quite a few pieces of software, add-ons, and third-party products that are working on your website all the time. You need to make sure that every security patch that comes down the pipeline is implemented immediately so you and your clients are not at risk. If you?re using a major site builder like WordPress, the chances are that they will keep you abreast of any potential updates on their end. Keep an eye on your inbox as well as any alerts that you get for your site.

2. Encrypt Your Login Pages

Site encryption is one of the most important things for a variety of websites, but it is most important for those sites that contain personal information like addresses and finances. Encrypting the login page is one of the first steps to preventing people from accessing you or your client?s information. This is very important on private dating websites like Naughtydate.com, where even a basic encryption can prevent people from stealing your information or invading the privacy of your messages. After all, dating websites often contain more than financial information, they have your most personal thoughts, messages to significant others, and even records of you in compromising positions. Encryption is a good start, but you need to stay up to date on other security areas, too.

3. Make Validation Occur on Both Sides

It?s important to set up your website so that it validates from both the server side and the browser side. That means both the browser searches for errors like empty mandatory fields and your site picks up on such information as well. This, along with basic code against SQL injection attacks, can protect your site from falling victim to harmful code being inserted into your site.

4. Rethink Your Password Requirements

While some of your clients might not like it, having requirements for strong passwords has proven to be an effective defense against password theft. It is more difficult to guess someone?s password using blunt and blind efforts on the part of hackers and strong passwords that are stored behind good sites will be all but impossible to crack. For example, when you store the passwords on your website that is encrypted and also implement at hash function, the password will be too jumbled for most hackers to make sense of. This is far better than storing all the passwords for your site in plain text, and can thwart most of the hackers out there. Of course, no system can ever really be called impregnable, but it is the duty of every website to make it as safe as possible for their members to use their site.

It may not be easy for you to start thinking critically about your online security, but you should. While not every company is going to have the ability to hire a security expert, there are still many steps that you can take that will keep you and your client?s information safe and secure. By following these measures, you stand a much better chance at facing down digital threats.