How to Keep Your Sites Safe Through Secure Web Hosting

Hackers, spyware, botnets and other intrusive internet attacks are widespread.

When choosing to host a website or internet content, one of the first hurdles is finding a good web host. Yet choosing a web host shouldn’t be frivolous or ill-considered; a good web host can bolster your website against hackers and spyware, helping to protect your data online. Unfortunately, there are wide discrepancies in the quality and security of web hosts, with some host outright selling your data, and this is often reflected in the cost of the service. Luckily, good, secure web hosts are out there, and many of them incorporate the latest features to protect users and their data from hackers or malicious online attacks. It is therefore all about choosing your web provider carefully, paying attention to the services and features they have on offer. With this guide, you’ll learn how to choose web hosting based on their security, and how to secure a web server(s).

Secure website hosting can apply to a range of different website hosts, offering one of several means of protecting your site from attacks. The benefits of a secure web host include keeping you and your data safe, ensuring protection for visitors and improving your website's overall traffic (or sales) with this added assurance.

SSL Certificates

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates may be something you've heard about through browsing or online shopping but are not fully familiar with. They essentially enable the safe transfer of information between hosted servers. This is done by encrypting the information as it travels from a site and through its audience's browser. They are one of the bedrocks of internet security and are a necessary addition to secure web hosting, particularly if you are dealing with clients and purchases. This is because they allow for safe online payments. Most web hosts will offer SSL certificates, either in a basic form or a more advanced option. Choosing a web host with SSL is important, but read through their advanced offerings too.

Data Centre Security

Companies that host a website will keep data files in a dedicated data centre or facility. Secure data centres use a number of encryption and protection technologies to secure this stored data from anything ranging from computer hackers to natural disasters, ensuring your site and its data are kept safe every day. When choosing a web host, explore their website and look at their page dedicated to these data centres, paying particular attention to the hours of monitoring (you want 24/7) and the quality of their backup systems.

Firewall Protection

This is the network that monitors any and all incoming traffic, blocking malicious threats as they happen. It is a very basic security measure that many can implement very easily, and it should always be included in a good web hosting package. The benefits of a firewall are its protection from known risks, and its monitoring of suspicious activities and then reporting on them to prevent unknown risks as well.

Good Customer Service

Although not related to security per say, always choose a web host with accessible and widely available customer support, allowing you to get through emergencies and pass on information adequately to your customers/visitors.

Other Ways of Staying Secure

If you want to choose a good hosting provider, try to pick one in a good location. For example, Singapore is luck when it comes to web hosting. After you’ve chosen a web host with the above features, you can implement additional measures to keep your website secure. Among some of the measures you can take are updating your website's PHP regularly to fix security holes, backing up your online data to prevent loss, and installing additional security plugins like malware scanning to your website. Although these latter options are not necessary, the first four will help your website to run smoothly and are necessary when looking for a secure web host.