Website Security

An online security breach can damage your company’s reputation.

The Internet has quickly become the go-to platform for banking, shopping, registering for discounts and promotions, logging into healthcare and insurance sites, making travel arrangements and even applying to jobs. With each site comes an additional risk to having our information exposed, stolen, or sold. So how can your website ensure the safety of information to your consumers, and how can your company avoid being hacked or deceived?

There are safety precautions that businesses can utilize on their end to help avoid the less of or exposure to sensitive information. If you aren’t sure where to start, Gainesville Marketing can assist you by performing a website security analysis. Through our analysis, we’ll identify weak spots in your security and provide you with the resources you need to keep your information secure.

User End Security

The easiest step in securing your website and customer information is to install malware detection and antivirus software on every computer used for company purposes. This includes laptops and mobile devices that your employees may take out of the office to meetings or to work from home. Firewall software is also available to help block certain attacks on computers that may infiltrate other defensive software.

Consumers should also be using antivirus, firewall and malware detection software, but you can’t count on your consumers protecting their information. Once that data is in your hands (or on your servers), it is your responsibility to keep it secure.

Secure Socket Layer

SSL is security technology that encrypts a link between a web server and a browser. Any data that travels via the link will be encrypted in order to remain private. This form of website security is used by millions of websites to secure transactions with consumers. Shoppers can trust a website that uses an SSL connection because those sites must obtain an SSL Certificate, and with the key indicator (usually found at the top of a browser next to the URL), consumers can know whether a website is secure.

Server Firewall

A server firewall is a must for every company, no matter the size or industry. This program is specific to protect data contained on a server, and there are few different ways a server firewall can be set up to offer protection. If you want to protect your information from outside sources, like the Internet, you can position the firewall between the Internet and your server. This forms a Gateway which inspects any information or requests coming in. It’s also possible to set up a firewall between departments of your company. For example, if you want the human resource department to have access to the advertising department’s files, but want to restrict access from the advertising department to human resources, then an internal firewall can provide that level of security. Internal firewalls can help minimize the damage that could be caused by a disgruntled worker.

Passwords

It isn’t unlikely to have a list of passwords these days. Security authorities tell consumers to have a unique, random password for each separate login identity and that can get really confusing. Some people will also turn to the easiest-to-remember password, so websites should encourage diverse, unique password creation. Each website can have its own password policy.

While everyone has their own personal preference for password creation, and you can’t force your consumers to use certain passwords, you can create better passwords for your company. The most successful method is to create a statement, and then use the first or last letter of each word to create the password. That will eliminate the ability for programs to guess the word, since the majority of code-cracking software looks for words that are real or pronounceable.

Gainesville Marketing’s Security Services

There are a lot of ways for less-than reputable people and programs to gain access to your company’s sensitive data and the valuable consumer information you have stored. Unfortunately, companies are held accountable for data leaks and hacking, so it’s extremely important to make sure all of your servers and files are safe. Let us help protect your company so that your business can grow without fear of invasion.