As amazing as the internet is, it’s not without its fair share of risks and dangers. These days, you have to be careful with personal data and information, as data thieves may take your information without you knowing.
To this end, here are a few areas that you might want to look into. If you’ve ever wondered what is SSL or what the difference between http and https is, this little tips and tricks will help you out.
SSL certification
SSL stands for security sockets layer and details the encryption protocols used by your website. This translates any data into a secure language so anyone trying to interrupt this flow of data can’t translate what is being sent: it’s what keeps data transfers and emails secure.
Independent assessors can award a given website a certificate to highlight the level of its SSL security. The highest of these, those with extended validation, will even have a green padlock symbol appear in the address bar of web browsers. This assures viewers of the standard of the site’s security and is something customers hope to see and businesses aim to achieve.
Taking personal details
It’s one thing to have a certification for data you have, but it helps to have other means in place to allow people to securely enter information in the first place. This is something customers look for when buying online and an https URL, for instance, is more secure than a standard http due to the extra security protocols at work.
Data theft, particularly that relating to the taking of personal financial data, is no trivial matter.
When it comes to financial data, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a legal requirement. Combine this with your SSL security and this extra encryption will make your website harder to crack and a less obvious target as a result.
Testing
Finally, whether you’re running a personal website or a commercial business, it cannot be stressed highly enough how important it is for regular testing. Being complacent leaves you open to new risks.
As recent news has revealed, open SSL had a big flaw in it known as Heartbleed, which allowed people to obtain personal data from the server’s memory.
Patches are available, but if you’re not actively pursuing new improvements, you might miss this.
Penetration tests and other measures, for instance, go into testing these possible risks and letting you know how effective your defences are.