Whether you own a website for personal or business purposes, security is of utmost important. You simply cannot take it for granted. It’s likely the aspect of web hosting that’s most important to users, and if it’s not, it should be.
The lack of security can be catastrophic to your business because the problems that could arise will result in loss of productivity, loss of income, and/or even identity theft. That’s why it’s important that you understand what aspects of security you should look for and how to determine if a web hosting company provides adequate security.
If you’re running your website(s) on WordPress, here’s what you can do to protect them from hackers, viruses, or any other malware.
Update Everything
A lot of hackers will intentionally target older versions of WordPress with known security issues, so make sure to update WordPress the moment those ‘Please Update Now’ messages pop up.
One thing to check if you’re up-to-date with the latest WordPress version is to go to https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/. In this page, you will see the requirements to run your WordPress website at top speed and at optimum environments.
If you’re still not sure, contact your web hosting service provider and ask whether they have the latest version.
Also, don’t forget to update your themes and plugins to the latest versions the moment they’re released. If you keep everything updated, your website will be safer and more secure from security threats.
Recommendations
If you’re not aware of the web hosting companies that WordPress recommends, simply go to https://wordpress.org/hosting/, where you’ll find a number of web hosting companies WordPress highly recommends. This includes Bluehost, DreamHost, and Laughing Squid.
If you’re using a different web hosting company, that’s fine, as long as they have an updated version of PHP and MySQL, as found in WordPress’ Requirements page.
If your website is hosted on a shared web server, what you need to know is that, in this type of web hosting, you are sharing a web server with a few other websites (it doesn’t have to be your websites). In this case, you are sharing one server with a few hundreds or thousands of people. If one of those sites gets infected, it may affect all websites in that particular server, including yours.
If you have multiple websites and you’re concerned about this issue, consider going for a Virtual Private Server (VPS). One of the best companies that offer VPS is ServInt.
VPS basically means that a web server is divided into virtual servers, where each website is similar to being hosting on a dedicated server, except that you’re actually sharing a server with other users. In this case, if a domain gets infected, other domains won’t necessarily be affected. This provides a better, more secure hosting environment than a shared web server.
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