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Reports of cyberattacks have surged in the past few years that has affected many businesses and individuals.

Recently, the intensity of these attacks have grown by many folds, and nobody can predict the next attack. There are many website owners, who think that their site has nothing that could be worth hacking for, but even then many websites are hacked and compromised almost every day. You might be unaware of the fact that most of the websites hacked are not to steal their data.

Yes! You read it right. In fact, most of the websites are hacked to use your website and its server to send spams or set up a temporary server. Hackers can get into your network to reach your server and then access sensitive information that might be stored in your server. Also, you can be hit by ransomware, where you might need to pay a certain amount to the hackers to get access back to your website or server.

Due to this increased risk of cyberattacks, it is important for the website owners to ensure that their website is not hacked by the attackers. There are a plethora of ways in which your website can be hacked, like through automated scripts, SQL injection, malware infestations, XSS attacks, and various other ways. Owing to these various ways of hacking into a website, you might think, how to keep your website away from the attacks.

Well, here are some tips that can help you in keeping your website safe from cyberattacks:

Stay up to date

The first and the most basic thing you need to ensure is that your website and server operating system is up to date. You might think that it is a no brainer, but the fact is, most of the website owner tend to neglect that their website and its applications are needed to be updated. Today, the hackers are constantly evolving and adapting new methodologies that allow them to find loopholes in the website or the network. This is where updates plug the loopholes to ensure improved security.

If you are using off-the-shelf software, you need to make sure that the software is updated as soon as an update is released. However, if you are running your website on a custom built platform, you can ask the developer for updates with latest patches to fix loopholes. These timely updates ensure that your website stays protected from most of the attacks.

Be aware of any SQL injection

SQL injections are probably the easiest method that the hackers use to hack into any website. Here, the hacker uses a URL parameter or web form to access your database and even manipulate it. This is why you need to be aware of the risks that SQL injection could cause to your website. The best way of keeping your website away from SQL injection is by using parameterized queries, which can be found in most web languages and is easy to implement.

Use Web Application Firewalls (WAF)

Web Application firewalls or WAF is probably one of the best security tools for your website. Basically, these are plugins or extensions that are available very easily on the internet. The best part about these applications is, they are available at very reasonable prices and can get the job done efficiently.

A WAF’s job is to intercept and read all the data that is transmitted to and from your website. This allows the application to stop the attacks before they can reach your website. Also, the application stops spam and malware that might affect your website. Since most of the WAFs are on the cloud, you get improved security for your website with easy maintenance as well.

Protect your website from XSS attacks

Cross-site scripting attacks or XSS attacks inject malicious JavaScript in your webpages. These malicious JavaScripts then run on your browser and then steal your information and send it back to the hacker. They steal your cookies, cache, bookmarks, saved passwords, and even browsing history, which is frightening in itself.

This is why you need to protect your website from these attacks. This can be done by installing firewalls and other applications that can protect your website from injections of active JavaScript in the pages.

Validation on both fronts

Another way to keep your website safe from attack is to validate data both from the server and the browser. This provides your website with an extra layer of protection. The browser can effectively find simple mistakes, while the server can check and find malicious codes, scripts, and applications that might have been injected in your website. A double validation process will also help in blocking the injection of malicious scripts through form fields that accept data.

To stop the hackers be one

The best way of ensuring that your website is safe from the hackers is by becoming a hacker yourself or hiring one. Confused! Well, you read it right. Ethical hackers are the people who use the same techniques to hack a website as other hackers do, but only to ensure that you find the loopholes and fix them to avert any attack on it.

Ethical hackers are the good hackers who save your website and network from other attacks that are intended to harm you. The best way to learn ethical hacking is to choose a certification training course and attain certification in ethical hacking.

Today, you can find various online certification training organizations providing training on various ethical hacking courses, like the CEH. All you need to do is enroll yourself, learn how ethical hacking works and then execute everything that you learned to protect your website from attacks.