With Cybercrime at an all time high, and continuing to increase in magnitude for years to come, it is imperative to maintain a secure website that lacks vulnerability to hackers. A hacked website is nothing short of embarrassing, but also poses a potentially catastrophic threat to your law firm’s website. Security breaches are an unfortunate inevitability in an age dominated by websites and applications, so it is best practice to stay up to date with website security measures. So how do you stop your law firm’s website from being hacked? Let’s review a list of a few fundamental, yet easy to use, practices that can potentially save your site.
- Backup your site frequently! Let’s face it, no matter how extensive your security measures are, websites are still subject to hacking. Prepare for the worst. There are numerous programs and plugins out there that will run scheduled backups of your site files and database, and most hosting companies offer scheduled backups which will allow you to restore your sites integrity in the event of a hack.
- Update your software. One of the simplest and quickest ways for a hacker to infiltrate your law firm website is to exploit vulnerabilities in your site and server software. Often, software updates are released to fix security bugs that will leave a site open to hackers. If your site is built in a CMS, such as WordPress, it is absolutely necessary to keep your versions, themes, and plugins up to date.
- Use unique usernames and passwords. Common usernames and passwords, such as admin and password123 are incredibly easy to exploit by hackers. It is best practice to use unique credentials to access your site dashboard. To generate a secure password, I recommend passwordsgenerator.net.
- Choose a secure host. Websites are often hacked at the host level, which makes it important to choose a secure host. The cheapest option is not always the best option!
- Get an SSL certificate. Securing your website with an SSL certificate might not necessarily prevent it from being hacked, but it will protect the information that is passed through your website. Since sensitive information is often passed through attorney websites, this can prove to be a valuable security measure. The search engines also favor SSL certificates, so why not increase your law firm website’s SEO value while keeping it secure at the same time?
- Use third party security measures. There are a number of security companies that will monitor, detect and clean hacked websites. This offers sound peace of mind knowing that your website is under the internet’s neighborhood watch and if it becomes vulnerable or subject to hacking, you will be the first to know. I recommend using Sucuri to maintain your law firm website security.
Protecting a website from hackers is never a guarantee, but you can deter them by covering all the angles. It all starts with the necessary preventative measures outlined above and you don’t have to be a developer or systems admin to execute them. These simple steps can decide whether or not you spend your night in a panic while trying to clean up your website.
Contact the ONE400 team for more info.
About the author
Allen Rodriguez Allen Rodriguez is a legal product development strategist who has been serving the legal industry for over 21 years. Over the course of his career, Allen has built a reputation for creating innovative legal services products as well as developing highly effective law firm business and marketing strategies. Allen is a valued speaker on the topics of law marketing, legal services product development, and future of law issues.