The internet has been taken by storm by cyberattacks in recent years. No one, and we mean NO ONE, is wholly secured from cyberattacks, whether it be tech giants or small businesses. Ensuring your website has proper safeguards to protect from cyberattacks is imperative.

Website owners need to integrate contemporary methods to safeguard their databases. Incorporating strong security measures becomes especially important if you house third-party data. Strong affiliate website security will ensure your protection against cyberattacks and boost your credibility.

In this resource, we have developed a curated list of security measures to help protect your website from cyber criminals. 

6 Ways to Protect your Affiliate Website from Security Threats

1. Regular software update

Committing to regular software updates is an easy yet effective way to ensure the proper cybersecurity of your affiliate website. Software updates often contain robust security, stability, and performance upgrades that strengthen your safeguards.

Remember that an intruder has a constant eye on your website and is looking for that single flaw to hack your website. To keep yourself a step ahead of hackers, update your website's software. Software update fixes security issues and loosens the control of hacker on your data.

You can even see an enhancement of stability and performance on the website by updating your software due to bug fixes. 

2. Use a Firewall protection 

A well-known concept to protect and secure a website is the use of Firewall protection. A Firewall is a hardware or software device that filters incoming and outgoing data for any malicious activities and further blocks it from entering or leaving the device. 

Although they can be installed on your computer, router or server, large website holders prefer installing them on the server. This kind of installation gives protection to every device that is connected to that server. 

It would be best if you aimed to set up the Firewall protection on an instant basis to provide the utmost security to your affiliate website. To add to the security level, install antivirus and anti-malware protection along with Firewall, as they upgrade protection level to sites that deal in online transactions.

3. Install SSL certificates

Secure Socket Layers or SSL certificates issued by Certificate Authority (CA) demonstrate that your website is genuine. In addition, SSL certificates use a strong level of encryption algorithms to secure your data.

This means that the data within the website is encrypted through specific algorithms and cannot be deciphered easily. Even if a hacker manages to break into the website, they will only get scrambled letters and numbers. Scrambled data can only be decrypted if one has a private key.

These SSL certificates are readily available to purchase. A multi-domain SSL certificate helps secure multiple domains and is readily available at cheap rates if the website runs on multiple domains.

4. Replace HTTP with HTTPS 

The 'S' in HTTPS denotes security, changing the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to HTTPS. Once you switch to HTTPS, the data sent or received to and from this website will be secured and encrypted.

Hackers look for unencrypted affiliate websites to gain passwords, usernames or other confidential details. However, once you are secured with HTTPS, no hacker can decipher your communication, even if they are actively listening.

This generally happens during online transactions, when the hacker breaks into the website to enter the credit card details or passwords. An affiliate website with HTTPS protocol is saved from attack, while a website with HTTP protocol gets prone to attack.

5. Regular and substantial backup options 

A common and often neglected step is not having robust backup options. One must perform regular backups in both software and hardware forms. These backups can be saved in hardware devices other than your working premises. The most effective way is to have a software backup on a cloud platform accessible from any location.

These backup policies save you from a ransomware attack, where you can quickly restore the website without paying that hefty amount. Also, ensure that the restoration process is done with total concentration and every file is checked for dates and data before deleting any of them so that you are left with no shocking surprises. Even keep the file names the same to avoid any confusion.

6. Strong password policies 

With cybercriminals standing at every step, people still use simple passwords, believe it or not. Simple passwords are categorized as lacking special characters, capitalization, or length. Your website password policies should require a scramble of alphabets, numbers and symbols to be accepted. 

Further use of two-factor authentication can enhance password security fourfold. It means that along with the regular password, you will be required to enter a static OTP (one-time password) sent to another device to login into the website.

Final thoughts 

Remember that your website is still susceptible to cyberattacks even if you successfully implement all of the safeguards cataloged in this blog. Cybercriminals continue to manufacture ways to maneuver around these safeguards every day. Although, these safeguards, combined with a collective focus on ensuring data security, can go a long way in achieving total protection.

About the Author: Riya Sander is a freelance Saas content writer. She helps her clients to improve their website results organically. Besides this, she is a music lover, foody, traveler and game lover.