October is CyberSecurity Awareness Month in the United States. Given the nature of the Internet, keeping yourself protected is of utmost concern.
For the past 20 years, the goal of CyberSecurity Awareness Month has been to educate individuals, businesses, and other organizations to implement the best practices for securing their data and information across the internet.
Today, we’ll share what we do to help keep your data safe and secure.
What is GreenGeeks doing to help secure my sites and account?
GreenGeeks is always striving to improve the quality of our support and the service we provide. Cyber security is no exception.
As part of this effort, GreenGeeks has been working over the past year to improve our tools & procedures, This helps us ensure we’re following relevant best practices.
We’ve also created exciting new tools to help keep our customer’s sites secure and identify weak points before they cause a problem.
Our proactive approach stresses preventative action and following best security practices to keep your site safe. It’s far more effective to stop a compromise from occurring in the first place vs attempting to clean up after the site is infected.
Some of the new methods GreenGeeks has been working on to improve your experience include:
A New, Proactive Approach to email Error Monitoring
While GreenGeeks has always taken a proactive approach to SPAM monitoring, constantly scanning RBLs for our IP addresses, these new tools will allow us to spot additional issues such as DNS and other common configuration problems.
Full Email Reporting is Available in cPanel via Track Delivery
You’ll now be able to use the Track Delivery tool in cPanel to see all email activity under your whole cPanel or for a specific email address. Track Delivery allows tracking specific emails to confirm if they were delivered successfully.
New Tools for Investigating Compromised Accounts
This tool allows our team to identify the precise entry point and the date the website was compromised. This can help prevent another similar future compromise.
Complimentary Auditing of WordPress Sites
GreenGeeks is pleased to announce that as part of our initiative to help keep you secure, we are now offering a complimentary audit of all of the WordPress websites hosted within your GreenGeeks cPanel account.
Our audit tool performs an in-depth analysis of your WordPress websites. Then, it reports critical information necessary to secure your sites.
If you’d like GreenGeeks to perform a complimentary audit of your WordPress sites, open a new Support Ticket within your GreenGeeks Dashboard.
Our team will perform the audit of your site(s) and provide a full report on our findings. This includes containing a full list of vulnerabilities and suggested fixes.
GreenGeeks can assist you with applying these recommendations for a nominal fee.
What Can Your Do to Secure Your Account Right Now?
With hacking attempts being more prevalent than ever before, now is the perfect time to take action to secure your website.
Two-Factor Authentication
To get started, you can do a few simple tweaks that will increase the security of your account. For example, things like enabling Two-Factor Authentication(2FA) on the Privacy tab of your GreenGeeks Dashboard profile.
By enabling Two-Factor Authentication(2FA), you’ll prevent anyone from being able to access your GreenGeeks Dashboard, even if the username and password are compromised.
For more information on setting 2FA on your GreenGeeks Dashboard, refer to the following articles: Setting up Two-Factor Authentication and Resetting Your GreenGeeks Account Password.
Update Software and Apps
At the Website level, the best thing you can do for security is to keep your software up to date. This is because new security vulnerabilities are regularly discovered and patched.
It’s always best to use the newest version of any software.
Add Security Plugins and Tools
If you’re using WordPress or another CMS, there may be 3rd party security plugins or extensions that you can add to the site.
In WordPress, you have access to plugins like WP Cerber, Wordfence, or iThemes Security. Among other features, these tools will lock down parts of the site that are likely to be exploited and allow you to restrict access to the admin panel.
Some may even offer file scanning, which detects new files you didn’t create or modify.
Practice Proper Password Usage
Proper password management is also critically important to your site’s security. It’s vital to use site-unique passwords and cycle them regularly.
It’s also important to use secure passwords. Too many people will use something simple because it’s convenient. However, these simple passwords are usually the easiest to crack.
Reusing a password across multiple websites makes a compromise more likely.
Use Domain Privacy
Enabling privacy on your domain shields your contact information during a Whois search. That way, scammers and solicitors don’t know who to contact or have your personal information when looking up your website.
It’s a great way to prevent spam emails, calls, and other unsolicited contacts.
Using AlphaSSL Certificates
Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, is an encryption method that prevents hackers and bots from intercepting user data when visitors access your website. In fact, it’s such an effective method, Google prioritizes websites that have an SSL installed.
Currently, you can add the AlphaSSL to your site for greater protection for only $49.95 for the first year. While the free Let’s Encrypt SSL offers basic protection, upgrading to the premium AlphaSSL covers far more of your bases.
If you need an SSL certificate, you can find the ability to add one from your GreenGeeks dashboard.
Never Underestimate the Need for Cyber Security
These are just a handful of ways that we, and you, can help keep your data secure and safe. Even if you don’t collect user information, hackers can still use your website as a decoy. This is why it’s crucial to make sure you’re keeping them out of your files.
All it takes is the smallest of exploits before someone can gain control of your site and all of its data.