Cyber Security Month October
The month of October is dedicated to cyber security or staying safe online. This month, as a hosting party, we are of course also involved in raising awareness and highlighting additional measures you can take to stay safe online. Let's start with the tips that relate to the services of MijnHostingPartner.nl!
Everyone who uses the internet has experienced scams and rip-offs. Just as you can be cheated on vacation or the aggressive salesman knocks on your door, this problem also exists on the Internet. The best measures you can take against this are awareness and common sense. But of course there are other measures you can take on the Internet. Read all the tips you can use to use your hosting package securely here.
Secure passwords and two-factor authentication
Passwords are and will remain an important part of many accounts, and within a hosting package you will soon have a whole range of passwords. For example, you will have passwords for the following components: FTP accounts, mail addresses, website administrator accounts, database users, login for the customer and control panel at MijnHostingPartner.co.uk. And so on and so forth. It is tempting to use only one password for all these logins, but this is strongly discouraged. Use the Generate option we've created for this purpose to generate a secure random password for each account.
And then store this data in a secure and trusted password manager that you can decrypt with a master password. You can also enable two-factor authentication for selected logins, e.g. for mail and the customer panel. So you always have to perform a second step to access these. And if your password is compromised, you will still not be able to gain access. We also have a nice incentive for anyone who activates two-factor authentication for the customer panel. So enable it for your customer panel as follows:
Additional measures in your mail addresses
MijnHostingPartner.nl also contains the following additional DNS records that make your mail traffic more secure: DKIM, DMARC and SPF. These ensure that your mail traffic is authenticated and can be marked as secure for outgoing traffic. If you want to protect yourself better against SPAM, you should also consider our new add-on, which additionally protects your mail traffic against SPAM emails. You can read how this works in the following article:
SSL certificate for your website
An SSL certificate for your website is no longer up for discussion, it is necessary to ensure the security of your website. With recent updates to internet browsers such as Google Chrome, the URL https:// has become the default loaded URL. A missing SSL certificate means that your website often cannot be loaded by users or is displayed as insecure.
A situation that is not desirable for every website owner. You can order an SSL certificate for a reasonable price via the customer panel and we will do the work for you. You can also activate a free Lets Encrypt certificate for your website via the customer panel, but this is more suitable for non-commercial projects. As soon as you run a business or sell products on your website, you should opt for the paid option. You can also find more information in the following blog post:
Keep your website secure for you and your visitors
It is also important that you update your website on time. Ideally, schedule a weekly check to keep your website fully up to date with approved updates. And if possible, use automatic updates that update for you immediately. This is already standard in many content management systems such as WordPress.
Always check the operation of your website when using automatic updates, as this can lead to error messages. In addition to updating your website, it is also a must to set up a backup strategy and workflow. Having a backup of your website and database stored in multiple locations can save you years of work, even in the most impossible situations. There are many automatic tools for this that you can install with a plugin of your choice. However, you also need to know how to restore the backup correctly. So always carry out a test run so that you know how to do it. And make a note of this if you are working with a team.
Even if something happens to you, the members of your team can continue to work with the website. So always work carefully and make sure that you don't click on links at random. By using common sense and knowing what to do, you can ensure that you stay safe online. If you still have a question about a specific article, you can always contact us via our online chat or ticket system.
Also take a look at our services at MijnSecurityPartner.nl, because we also have the ability to provide you with a complete inventory of your company's cybersecurity. With an action plan to improve it.
