How to secure my web site

Securing your website is something that you definitely don't
want to leave to chance. Your website is constantly bombarded
by hackers, all of whom are looking for the tiniest weakness that
they can exploit. Once a loophole is found, it can be used to
steal not only your personal and private data, but your customers'
personal and private data too. So if peace of mind and online
business credibility are important to you, you'll need to keep
reading. Secure your websites First of all, you need to know your
enemy. Who are these hackers, and how do they work? The
main thing you need to recognize is that hackers have all the time
in the world. They can afford to spend days, weeks and even
months, patiently working away at your website to find
weaknesses. They can do this because the processes they use
are automatic, and you simply don't notice they're happening.
A lot of it is guesswork. For example, they can take the
cookies that your site produces and run through an infinite number
of variations to see what effect that has. They can work away
at the source code of your site's pages, and set programs running
to try and crack the authorization process. Install CMS updates to
secure your web site The first thing you can do to defeat these
attacks is to ensure that your content management system (CMS) is
up to date. Out of date software is software that hackers
have already managed to breach, so you don't want it running on
your system. Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress and other major CMS
providers continually test their systems for weaknesses, and update
accordingly, so you should install these updates as soon as they
appear. This can usually be done automatically.Be sure to
change the default administrator user name and passwords on your
CMS once it's installed. Hackers know what these defaults are
too! It's an obvious thing to try if you're trying to break
into someone's site, because it's amazing how many people overlook
this simple security measure. It's a bit like leaving your
front door wide open for burglars.Another devious hacker
trick is to use PHP error reporting to get information about your
site. If your error reporting level is set too high, a hacker
can find out a lot about your site simply by studying the error
reports. If you turn off the error messages entirely, and set
your PHP configuration so that it doesn't display errors even if
one occurs, you will plug a major security leak. If you feel
unsure or nervous about doing this, ask your system administrator
to do it for you.You can also keep hackers out of your secure files
by correctly setting the htaccess file. A simple bit of code
will secure the htaccess file itself, as follows - files
.htaccessorder allow, denydeny from all/files Use the same coding
to secure any other files you don't want people to look at.
To do so, just replace .htaccess with the name of the file you're
securing.Finally, don't neglect the issue of passwords. If
you can guess it, a hacker will be able to guess it too, and
they're running programs that can go through millions of
combinations until they find the right one. Use an online
generator to help you create an uncrackable password.Always
remember that hackers, like burglars, are opportunists. If
you take the basic security measures to keep your website safe, a
hacker will swiftly move on to a site that is less well
protected. Securing your website takes minutes, but gives you
a lifetime of peace of mind.