How to Check Safety of Website?
For online companies, securing a website and periodic testing is mandatory.
Data breaches today bring catastrophic consequences. An important part of every enterprise is websites and applications. This is where it becomes really important to guarantee your website is secure.
The estimated consolidated cumulative cost of a data breach rose from $3.8 million to $4 million, according to the 2016 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach Report.
But what are the organisation’s chances of actually being affected? CIO surveys also shown that over the course of 12 months, mobile security breaches have impacted over 68 percent of global organizations. According to a Neustar survey of 1,000 business firms, DDoS attacks alone hit 84 percent of firms every 12 months.
Staying on top of modern security threats goes beyond reading through cell phones, laptops, and compromised servers about the new malware entry. Other causes of data theft and loss are probably ignored by you.
Here are 7 Steps to Check Website Safety
Step 1. Website Reputation check
The first step is to check the reputation of your website and is it rated as safe already. If it is not it is catastrophic and you are already impacted.
Step 2. Automatic Safety Check
Scheduling daily scans is the next step towards maintaining a stable and reliable website. A company employee is simply unable to test the website for security loopholes and malware every day. Automatic scanning and reporting are assured by comprehensive web scanning, such as AppTrana.
It searches for vulnerabilities like OWASP top 10 and SANS 25 that are commonly exploited. Although we also provide you with other measures to ensure that the cycles of growth and production are clean, this is the step to make sure you remain mindful of the risks.
Step 3. Get Your Safety Tech Right
Obviously, if your organization and processes are not actually safe, you can’t create a culture of website security. Begin by taking inventory of can devices are used to access confidential information, both personal and technical. Note that in the workplace, as well as at the home of an employee, an airport, or a coffee shop, access will happen.
Employees do not have access to confidential files on the cloud using their personal smartphones for fun. Your team also should not link easily from their work computers to free WiFi where information can be easily compromised.
If you sell employee-use computers, pick models that are already encrypted. Around 10 percent of the world’s androids are encrypted, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, since refusing to establish a backdoor way for police to access an encrypted iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooter, Apple has a reputation for its encrypted devices and even created a few enemies in law enforcement.
Your organization should also use mobile device management (MDM) beyond encryption to give IT workers a way to revoke access or scrub a device into factory settings if lost or stolen. MDM may also keep track of how data is used by employees and provide insight into their security actions.
There is also a way to monitor the geography of where workers use geofencing software for work-sponsored devices. Geofencing sends real-time warnings to company owners when devices are taken beyond clear borders that may be miles away, and when a device has strayed too far, it often revokes access to data and information.
In your BYOD and website protection policies, these rules and implications should also be defined so that workers know when their computers can be accessed and for what reasons. Your workers need to understand the expectations and the consequences, but as a daily part of the work culture, this also helps keep the team focused on safety.
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Put Your House on Lockdown
Secure your in-house systems with web application scanning tools and application firewalls to help prevent attacks without obstructing legitimate online traffic.
SSL Certificates should also be used to secure customer communications and protect their transactions when using credit cards and supplying personal information.
Scrutinize your SDLC
Safety starts when the business commits itself to create its own website or digital resources. To adhere to the best security practices, the team should always focus on the Security Development Lifecycle (SDLC). The SDLC process lets developers create more stable applications and address security compliance requirements, according to Microsoft, all while reducing the cost of development.
Microsoft defines, beginning with Core Security Training and finishing with Threat Modeling, 17 steps to the SDLC phase. Each step focuses on how security can be incorporated into every phase of the process of development, implementation, and post-release. For example, SDLC practices include the use of approved tools during the implementation process and the depreciation of unsafe functions.
It should be noted that SDLC is not constrained until the deployment point is reached. A continuous security assessment is a must for SaaS products or web applications, even after deployment in production, through application security.
About why? As the program still operates and interacts with several moving components (the web server and application server on which it runs, the infrastructure on which it is hosted, the other resources with which it interacts, etc.), continuous evaluation and immediate security is crucial, even when the software is live and in use, during and after the SDLC.
Step 4. Identify Your Biggest Security Risks
Where in your company are the main website threats and vulnerabilities? It does not have anything to do with backups that are BYOD or unsecured. You might have an issue with your real employees instead.
Every new employee is expected to undergo a screening and background check. Build an onboarding scheme that emphasizes the security protocols and standards of your organization in its function. Some red flags, including an applicant with a history of excessive job-hopping or a criminal record, or an employee who is not committed to setting up their devices to inquire before connecting to free wireless signals, are easy enough to spot.
But even once you’ve substantiated that new hires are sound, you could still have a bigger problem on your hands: your employees’ online passwords may be inviting in hackers to infiltrate your servers and steal sensitive data.
Password security
47 percent of people use passwords that are at least 5 years old, and 21 percent use passwords that are over 10 years old, an infographic published on Entrepreneur showed.
Even if the business imposes a password policy requiring workers to periodically change account and system passwords, this does not guarantee that employees do not repeat their use: 73% of online accounts are covered by duplicate passwords. That causes a domino effect that makes it easy to access accounts and confidential data for hackers. Establish a policy to update passwords periodically and enable passwords created by the system to enhance their power.
And if you’re not already doing this by any chance, make sure that you automatically block the access of former employees to your systems and records. The moment an employee leaves your company, expired credentials and access should be revoked. Otherwise, to continue accessing all the data of your company, they have free reign, or the passwords on their old accounts will remain untouched for so long that hackers will finally catch up and find easy access.
Web Application Security
Take a look at how personal and technical applications are used by your team and how they receive and update them to their computers. Require all apps to be downloaded from a qualified source such as Google Play or the Apple App Store and study the credibility of the developer.
Consider developing a pre-approval procedure for additional insurance before any applications can be used on company devices. Giving employees a lesson on setting up their smartphones and tablets before installing an app or enabling them to access some data to prompt their users for permission.
Remotely-accessed data
Remotely accessing data can unintentionally unlock back doors with open WiFi, but can also lead to dangerous behavioral malware attacks. Your team may think that it’s not a big deal to check email, but your staff should do much more than that, and on devices that are far from stable.
A Cisco research, for instance, showed that half of those surveyed said they were using their own private devices to access corporate resources. Yet about half of the computers were currently protected by security software or antivirus. The same study showed that workers used company computers to shop online and access third-party software.
Free WiFi can be a blessing for workers on the go and working in the sector, but for malicious data breaches, it can be a nightmare. Educate staff about the capacity of a hacker to intercept data transmission from unsecured WiFi. Using password-protected wireless signals and hold vulnerable smartphones that freely link to WiFi away from confidential data and communication.
Until participating in any operation involving remote access, workers need knowledge and information on when, how, and why to use WiFi, and what security tools are needed.
Step 5. Prepare Documentation
Handing over a thick manual with a security policy that is less than engaging will get a glimpse, but workers may not absorb it or inspire them to act. Policies are full of knowledge and lots of technological jargon, so the workers can miss no meaning. Focus instead on providing the team with segmented and personalized reports and training.
Skip One-Size-Fits-All Policies
There’s no need for a one-size-fits-all security strategy for your entire company. With videos, one employee may better process and preserve data, while another may want a roundtable discussion on security issues and how to handle them.
Get inspired by organizations that follow a more holistic security approach and learn how they build a community around it. Uber, for example, develops security systems for its workers that correspond to various territories, divisions, and positions to translate the idea that security is part of the culture of the organization.
Via catering paperwork and training tailored to the needs of that employee and daily job duties, small business owners may do the same. After all, the security policies would look different for the sales staff with access to customer data than for the marketing department using social media apps to schedule posts online.
Step 6. Conduct Training
Protection is not just for IT offices or administrative assistants with confidential data in their hands. Protection is for all to recognize and integrate into their everyday working life. Recruit top management to take protection on board, and set the precedent of taking continuous safety training as seriously as a performance review.
Think back to past security concerns, such as an employee who mistakenly downloaded malware to their computer at work.
Next, walk through the process and run phishing and spear-phishing simulations of how the security breach even occurred in the first place. Collect input and details to see how the simulation was handled by each department. For every suspicious email and employee report, you might also suggest offering prizes and a monthly drawing. The stimulation keeps minds hyper-focused on protection and actively monitors malicious behavior.
Skip the lecture and turn it into a game instead, to make training as enjoyable and engaging as possible. Divide staff from different departments into teams and run a quiz contest. Quiz teams on various security problems, technology, and ransomware-like malicious behavior. Your workers would have fun and are more likely to recall the data they will be skimming through a safety manual. The trivia dynamic can also help create morale and camaraderie among teammates and provide an interactive boost to your security culture.
Step 7. Reward Employee Involvement
During security preparation, relying on fear-mongering and shaming won’t get you very far. Security is likely to be seen by workers as a negative and unpleasant mechanism rather than a part of business life.
No matter how enthusiastic the workers are about safety, rewards and bonuses are far more likely to inspire them than manual and continuous safety training. Bonuses are one way to do so, but workers are likely to respond to incentives like a lunch meeting with bosses or a day off with a bonus.
With ongoing reminders in meetings and with break room talk, make the benefits for following security protocols public. Publicly recognize and thank staff for their devotion to security in order to encourage a productive and constructive attitude in your business.
That doesn’t say, though, that your team shouldn’t know the risks. Explain what is at stake when engaging in non-compliant behavior, from breaches of client security to loss of data, and the costs involved. Safety can be seen as adding value to the business, and as vital to the success of the business as encouraging sales and customer service leads.
Improving Security is an Ongoing Process
At the end of the day, personal responsibility and team momentum are all about the culture of security. If you’re not going through with the policy yourself, the workers won’t follow procedures. If there is no opportunity and momentum, they also won’t take the initiative to master security. To keep employees’ minds on safety, hold monthly or quarterly safety meetings and rewards. Make protection enhancement a continuous process that is as non-negotiable as the sales goals.
Do you have a culture of security in your organization? How did you create it, and how has it impacted the way you conduct business? Let us know by leaving a comment below.