(Source article was taken from: https://vinaora.com/5-essential-checklist-prevent-cms-websites-hackers/)

Creating a professional-looking website has become rather easy because of the availability of several Content Management Systems (CMS) across the web. Developing a website is, of course, a serious business and requires a thorough research about the trending web development technologies and resources. However, the selection of the CMS platform would be dependent on your web business’s purpose and the kind of website that you need in order to accomplish your organizational goals.

There are various CMS options available widely on the web. However, most of the websites are powered by the four major platforms- WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and Drupal.

Most of the people often think that their sites running on a specific CMS are safe and not really worth being hacked for. But, you must remember that websites are compromised all the times. Most of the security breaches do not aim to steal your data but because they want to use your server such as an email relay for spam or to set up a web server temporarily in order to serve files of an illegal nature.

As the owner of your website, there can be absolutely nothing more terrifying than seeing all of your work altered. Therefore, you should take some time out and protect your website. Listed below are a few measures that you can undertake in order to protect your CMS Based Websites from Hackers.

1. Avoid Using Default Admin as Your Password or Name

Hackers generally try to gain access to websites by guessing the default username and password. This means that if you are still using ‘admin’ as your username along with a password that is rather easy to guess for your admin login page, your website has higher chances of getting hacked. The hackers can make use of Brute force attacks and then enter an unlimited combination of the username of passwords till they find the one that’s correct.

No matter what CMS platform you are using, it is important that you always replace the default username with something that is more secure. Also, ensure that your password is unique, long and difficult to guess. Your password should, in fact, be a combination of alphabets, numbers and special characters. You can even use upper and lower-case letters. This would make it harder for the hacker to hack into your site.

2. Choosing a Great Hosting Platform 

When it comes to strengthening the security of the Content Management Systems, selecting a good web hosting platform is rather important. With so many web hosting options available these days, it becomes pretty complex to choose the one that would be the best. Start-ups can use shared hosting as it provides the flexibility to enjoy unlimited resources at an economical price. However, it is best to choose a hosting platform which can offer impressive loading speed, robust security features, and other features.

Opt for a managed, VPS or a cloud server instead of shared hosting as these solutions have a far better security features and would also assist you in case your site ever gets hacked.

3. Keep the Platforms Updated

Ensuring that the platform and the scripts that you have installed are updated is probably one of the best things that you can do to protect your site from any security breaches. As most of the tools are developed as open-source programs, their codes are very easily available. This makes it easier for the hackers to pore over this code and look for security loopholes which would give them the chance to take control of your site by exploiting the platform.

For instance, if you have a site on WordPress, any of the third-party plugins which you have installed or the base WordPress installation are quite vulnerable to security breaches. Therefore, you should always make sure that you have the latest version of the platforms as well as the scripts installed. This would minimize the risk of getting attacked and takes very little time to do. The WordPress users can very easily get to know if there is an update available. Simply log onto your website and look for the update icon which would be on the top left corner very next to your site name. You would have to click on the number so as to access the WordPress updates.

4. Use a Two-Factor Authentication

Why use a two-factor authentication when you already have a secure username and password? Well, for the simple reason that having a secure username and password does not make your site completely safe from the malicious attacks. You can make use of a two-factor authentication in order to take the security of your website to another level. This would help in adding an extra layer of security. This means that at first you would have to enter your username and password and then would be required to enter a special security code which is created in every 30 seconds.

All you need to do is choose the extension or plugin that is relevant to your Content Management Systems platform and then tighten your admin login page’s security.

5. Using SSL/HTTPS Encrypted Connections

You can strengthen the security of your website by making use of SSL/HTTPS Encrypted Connections. A URL that is not encrypted would generally begin with https:// which actually makes your site prone to security attacks. However, connection to encryption regardless of whichever CMS Platform you are using can help you to prevent your site from the hackers. When you use encrypted connections, you can change the URL to https:// that adds an extra layer of security. The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) would secure all of the information between the server and the client.

For instance, if you are using Magento CMS, the steps to encrypt your site has been shown below.

Login to the Admin Page > Click on Systems > Configuration > General > Web > Secure.

There, you would change the base URL setting from https:// to https:// and then click on ‘Yes’ in order to save the changes you just made. This would add an extra layer of security to your site and then you can utilize secure and safe fronted URL’s as well as Admin URL’s.

Summing up

Other than all of the above steps, it is important to make sure that your website is always backed up. The regular backup would ensure that your data remains safe. You can adapt all of the above-listed methods so as to make sure that your CMS website is safe from hackers.