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I can't exactly say that Hacking and Malware have been around for ever, but they have been around long enough to make our lives difficult. If your site has ever been hacked or taken over by someone (generally from another country and who knows nothing about you personally), you would know the sense of loss and frustration I am referring to. Because of this, you need to be assured that you will not lose data, which is a foregone conclusion of any hacking or malware attack. Following are some simple ways in which you can prevent attacks on the security of your website.

Use Strong Passwords: Often hackers can easily break into sites because of predictable or easy passwords. The simplest way to avoid such hacking is by using strong passwords. Ideally, a strong password is one that has at least seven or more characters using a good mixture of capitals, lowercase and numbers. In order to make the password even stronger, add punctuation marks, dash or even hit the space key at the end.

Change your FTP Username and Password: Most hackers employ key loggers to identify your username and password through the keys used to input them. It is advisable to regularly change your username as well as password to ensure that your website is safe from hacking.

CMS Website Precautions: If you are operating a Joomla (WordPress, Drupal or other CMS) website, remember that your default username is “admin”, which not a unique enough username and should be changed immediately. It is important to personalize your username by clicking on User Manager in your Joomla administrative area, then clicking on your administrative user and editing it. Once you have changed it, be sure to save your changes before you exit. Similarly, change your password regularly to avoid hacking.

Never use Shared Passwords: Most people believe in using the same password for all logins. While using the same password may be easy for you to remember, it is important to understand that it also simplifies the work for a hacker. Never use the same password for all your logins; instead, ensure that there are different passwords.

Identify and Remove Malware: Malware attacks are increasingly common today and often help the hacker to easily take control of your site. Preventing such attacks is possible in a threefold manner, namely identification, removal and prevention. Malicious scripts, .htaccess directs and hidden iframes are the three most important malware to look out for when identifying malware. There are various tools available on search engines and hosting websites, which allow you to easily spot malware. It is important to make use of such tools to avoid these attacks. Once identified, remove such malware by deleting the identified file.

Using Firewalls to Prevent Attacks: A firewall is the first level of protection, absolutely essential for any website to avoid malicious attacks and hacking. A firewall essentially blocks all bad connections from any IP address while sending alerts for failed login attempts to FTP or other email accounts. Additionally, firewalls are also helpful in restricting logins to particular servers, where required, in addition to blocking specific IPs or traffic from particular countries.