Website Hacking Could Be Costly, Be Extra Cautious

What happens when you suddenly realize that your website has been hacked and its data is on the verge of compromise. You may have spotted website hacking before as well and adopted measures to prevent it in future. It's always a weired experience to see an unknown admin controlling your site. If this is something constantly goes on, your website seems vulnerable to backdoor exploits.

How To Prevent Website Hacking Attacks And Backdoor Exploits?

In web hosting terminology, 'backdoor exploits' is a term used when a website has been hacked and controlled by hackers who gain access to the admin dashboard. Website hacking inject malware code in your website, and get its access without having front end access.Hackers manage to attack your website through bugs and vulnerabilities. The article rides you through the various way you can stop cons attacking and hacking your online presence.

Keep Software Up To Date:

Keeping all your software updates is important in having your website hacking proof. Whether it's system software or operating system software running on website, the idea should be applied on all. Frequent updates help you keep CMS or forums installed on the website hack proof. In case, you have subscribed a managed hosting, you shouldn't worry at all about the updates. The hosting company should take care of this. For CMS or forums, you should apply latest security patches.

SQL Injection:

This situation occurs when an attacker manages to manipulate your website database using a web form field or URL parameter. The moment you use standard Transact SQL, a rouge code is inserted unknowingly into your query. The hackers then use the queries to change tables, get information and delete data. To prevent this, you should always use parameterized queries.

XSS :

XSS or cross-scripting happens when a hacker successfully gains access to Javascript or other scripting codes into a web form to inject a malicious code into your website. This is why I recommend you to check the data thoroughly before submitting.

Error Messages:

While displaying error messages, don't disclose much. For instance, if a user 'usereone' enters wrong login credentials in login form, don't publish the error message like this - 'usereone' enters incorrect user id and password. You should think about the language while communicating the error message. The error message could lead to brute force attack, where hacker does know your user name ('usereone') and all that he needs to manipulate is your password.

Server Side Validations:

To make your website hacking proof, perform validation both on the browser and server side. Validations should be triggered if a user attempts to enter strings into a numeric-only field. You should implement these validation and deeper validation server side as well. Failing to do so could lead to malicious code or scripting code being inserted, that could cause undesirable results in your website.

File uploads:

Necessarily, you can't oversee every file upload with suspicion, you must not ignore the security risks involved in it to avoid website hacking. Allowing users uploading files cause serious security concerns. The risk could be that a file uploaded could have a script that when executed on your server, completely deface or hack your website. If your website has a form uploader, you need to be extra cautious. If users are allowed to upload images, you can't rely on the file extension or the mime type. There are cases when opening the file and reading the header, or using functions to check the image size are not full proof.

Tarun Gupta

Tarun Gupta, CEO of Brainpulse Technologies, is a prolific author and digital marketing specialist. His insightful writings span SEO, content marketing, social media strategy, and email campaigns, offering invaluable expertise to businesses worldwide. Tarun’s contributions continue to shape the digital marketing landscape, guiding success in multiple niches.