Your favorite website is down.  Worse yet, YOUR own website is down.  Someone has hacked it, found a way in that you didn’t know about.  First thought is to blame your web developer for this lack of security when you should really be looking at your web hosting.  Secure websites are not created easily. It takes a team, a web developer is just part of that team.  They can only work within the confines of what you thought was secure web hosting provided by another company.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are the most common method in taking down a website.  These require very little skill to implement but can have lasting damaging effects on sites.  If your hosting provider cannot protect you against these attacks, then you don’t have secure web hosting.  Period.  Protection against DDoS attacks requires a team available around the clock monitoring the network.  To make sure your hosting provider can mitigate for at least 200+ Gb/second attack on the network. You can choose secure web hosting provider of our choice or find one online.

There are many other ways for hacker to breach your websites security.  One popular method for those with no good intention is to sniff your website traffic.  Protection against this is provided in higher bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protection. SSL creates an encrypted link between your hosting provider, where your site is, and the users accessing that site. This could be you in example.  This is a problem for most web site owners because when you are accessing the site, you are usually doing so “behind the scenes”, past the passwords, past the protection you think is keeping bad guys out.  This is where those bad guys want to be.  With 256 bit SSL it is extremely tough, if not impossible, for them to gain access to this area of your website, thus stopping them from breaching your security.

Okay, we have secured the hosting for your site and protected the visitors from possibly being used in an attack (particularly yourself or staff).  Next up in the quest for secure web hosting is to secure your credentials.  After all, you hold the keys to the whole site. Your account is the one that hackers will want access to.  With it, they can delete your site, change ANYTHING about it that you have access to change and in effect, appear to be you to your web host.  This is especially troubling if you handle any kind of personal data on your site (addresses of members, any kind of financial transactions are performed etc).

How do you protect your own access and keep it safe and secure? Look for secure web hosting providers that offer “two-factor authentication” for user and hosting login.  At first, two-factor authentication will seem like more of an annoyance than another piece of security that is helping you.  See, with two-factor authentication, your hosting provider won’t allow you access unless you have not only your user name and password but also a second form of proof of who you are.  This is two-factor authentication.  Even if a thief has been monitoring your access somehow, they won’t be able to access your site administration panel without the security code.  This code is sent to you via SMS messaging.  Without it, no one is gaining access to your site using your account.  It is highly unlikely that a thief has the ability to not only monitor your access to your account PLUS gain access to your cell phone to receive that security code.

In today’s world, secure web hosting is a must, no matter what field your site is in.  Remember, if your site is important enough to exist, it is important enough to be secure.