How To Arm Your Website Against Cyber Attacks

It’s time to get security conscious.

Websites are the online equivalent of shop fronts, presenting a company’s public face to the world. Just like real shops, they can be attacked and temporarily forced out of business by malicious intruders, and while retailers use security screens and plate glass to protect their customer-facing profiles, online brands are increasingly adopting their own high-level security to repel unwanted attention and ensure websites perform to their full potential.

It can be comforting to view online attacks as a theoretical problem that only affects large firms, yet a broad array of cyberspace threats are endlessly seeking targets of any size. It’s estimated that five thousand websites are attacked on a daily basis, by everything from viruses and Trojans to DDoS attacks and hackers. While cyber-criminals and bot attacks commonly seek to harvest sensitive financial data or steal identities, many viruses are created purely to cause disruption. When they manage to penetrate firewalls or breach security filters, the damage they cause can be catastrophic, often forcing companies out of business entirely.

It’s crucial to stop these attacks at source which is why SiteLock has become a popular option among site administrators and business owners. It forms an effective barrier against complex assaults many people may not even have heard of, such as SQL injections and cross site scripting. By providing round-the-clock monitoring of websites, SiteLock is able to identify and repel attacks or vulnerabilities. A constantly evolving database of known threats identifies viruses that mutate and evolve much like their biological counterparts, scanning web pages and applications before automatically removing malware.

The use of a firewall is strongly recommended for any webmaster or site owner, and SiteLock’s firewall gives customers and visitors reassurance that they’re in safe hands. Anti-spam features like CAPTCHA security are built in alongside SSL and domain verification, while a number of techniques are used to boost the site’s performance, from caching and compressing static content through to optimising images.

For truly lightning-fast websites, the CloudFlare content delivery network is highly recommended. By integrating the company’s self-titled service into a third-party website, it’s possible to instantly improve the speed and safety of the site. Website data is stored in 35 global locations, ensuring visitors from any country access a locally-held version of that content. By halving download times in this way, search engines improve site rankings and customers get near-instant access, something which is known to boost transaction rates.

Over and above this, CloudFlare optimises every page for the fastest possible download times, irrespective of whether it contains third-party plugins or ad servers. Further peace of mind comes from traffic checking that identifies and resolves any malicious threats, while the CloudFlare Plus package offers optimisation for mobile devices and SSL support. Its popularity is reflected in the fact CloudFlare supports two million websites worldwide, which collectively handle more traffic than Amazon, Apple, Bing, eBay and Wikipedia combined.

With so many features incorporated as standard, it’s perhaps unsurprising that CloudFlare has been adopted by clients ranging from national Governments and Fortune 500 companies to bloggers and freelancers. Together with SiteLock, it’s a service UK2 customers can add to their packages with a few mouse-clicks; the standard CloudFlare package is completely free to our clients, while SiteLock subscriptions start from just £1.25 per month for a yearly contract.

Visit UK2.net to learn more about how SiteLock and CloudFlare can supercharge your website.