Does your Web Host affect your Website’s Security?

When choosing a web host for your small business website, there are a lot of considerations you should look at to get the best value. A quality hosting provider impacts the performance, reliability, scalability, and even the search rankings of your website. However, while it is easy to get caught up in the pricing and resources of a hosting plan, the available security features should be a top priority.

When it comes to website security, there are no one-size-fits-all options for small businesses to medium-sized websites. The best web hosting companies offer a wide range of features and functionality you will need, plus a reputation for excellent technical support tailored to meet your unique needs.

Here are the security factors you should look at when choosing a web host;

Backup and Restore. While there are multiple ways you can secure your website, performing regular comprehensive backups is the most important. Losing your website or email files can be devastating. There are many reasons why you should perform a backup on your website, including:

• When you run into unexpected errors.
• To restore a previous version of your website during updates.
• Prevent data loss during upgrades.
• Resolve a malware infection.
• Compatibility issues during new installations.
• Protect your website from hackers.

There are a lot of ways you can use to back up your website. We offer free remote backup for your entire cPanel account (including website files, databases, emails, crown jobs, SSL certs, and DNS zones), taken twice a week, and free additional remote backup for all your databases taken daily with seven days of retention. If you prefer to do it yourself, the tutorials below will enable you to create backups easily and retrieve them from your control panel with the easy self-service download and restore JetBackup tool via cPanel.

Related: How to create and download full Backups in cPanel

How to restore full account and file backups via JetBackup

How to download database and email files in JetBackup

SSL/TLS Certificates. Installing an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate on your website is the first step towards a secure online experience for both you and your customers. SSL switches your site to HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), a more secure version from HTTP.

SSL encrypts the details of your web users and displays the secure green padlock icon on browsers that shows your small business website is trustworthy. Protecting customer information and taking steps to guarantee their privacy enhances trust and gives your clients assurance. Typically, the best web hosts provide an SSL/TLS certificate as part of your hosting plan. We offer free Let’s Encrypt certificates with all of our hosting plans. Plus, we guide you through purchasing an SSL certificate, and we also help you implement HTTPS on your website.

Firewall Protection. Access to firewall protection will help monitor and block any threats, such as DDoS (Distributed-Denial-of-Service)attacks. DDoS attacks are a form of cyber-attack, where your business website receives multiple requests from untraceable IP addresses. Such attacks disrupt your traffic by overwhelming your site with a flood of internet traffic. When a server receives these requests, it causes your website to crash and leads to downtime on your website.

While such attacks are a security threat to your small business website, your web host plays a role in mitigating it by implementing a firewall to block malicious traffic. Your choice of web host should use firewalls to control, monitor, or safeguard data traffic andprevent such attacks is crucial. Look out for the availability of Content Delivery Networks (CDN) such as Cloudflare, with a global network of servers that helps serve data faster and absorb DDoS attacks.

Antivirus and Malware scanning. Part of your web host security includes offering automated antivirus and scanning for malware regularly. Plus, ensuring any files uploaded or downloaded on your site are safe is crucial to provide your web users a secure browsing experience. Understanding how your web host prevents malware will help reassure you that your website will not suddenly crash.When choosing a hosting provider, opt for one that offers top-notch security solutions and excellent technical support if any security threats emerge.

Related: 6 Tips to protect your website from hackers

Conclusion

If security is a huge concern for you or you are planning to migrate to a new web host, these security measures will help you decide which web host to choose. Opt for one that constantly improves their security framework and has updated tools or software to respond to the latest security threats and eliminate any security breaches.

Among our various security features, we have Imunify360, an automated solution to eliminate potential security breaches. Imunify360 offers advanced firewall protection to detect new threats and defend against brute force and DDoS attacks. Plus, it has an excellent Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) with a comprehensive collection of “deny” policy rules to block all known attacks. Imunify360 is included in most of our hosting plans at no extra cost.

We also offer reliable, 24/7 support to ensure that all your security-related issues are solved promptly.