Freshers: How to keep your work safe
Back-to-school season starting to feel a bit too real? Whether you’re excited to begin your A-levels or you’re heading into your final year of university wishing you could turn back the clock, September is the perfect time to wipe the slate clean.
It’s also a great opportunity to clean up your digital presence. If you’ve already created a professional portfolio or you’re thinking about digitising your coursework, here’s how to keep your work safe from cyber attacks.
Protect sensitive data
Anyone with a strong portfolio will tell you that displaying your name and contact information is one of the key steps to getting enquiries. But that also puts your data at risk. So rather than uploading this info and simply crossing your fingers, you should take active steps to ensure sensitive data is secure.
Fasthosts says: Implement protective measures like a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Web Application Firewall (WAF), and security plugins that are usually easy to download from your web hosting provider.
Follow coding and design best practices
Didn’t think web design had an impact on your site’s security risks? Think again. Take extra precautions during the website development stage, for example by minimising the use of third-party code.
Fasthosts says: Include input validating to protect against SQL injection attacks, safely store user passwords, and secure user authentication and session management.
Limit control access
If you’re going to be sharing your website – either with a creative partner, a classmate, or a mentor – the risk of encountering a cyber threat multiplies. But in these cases, having shared access might be necessary. Thankfully, there are some precautions you can take.
Fasthosts says: Ensure whoever has the login to your website practices good digital hygiene and can spot a phishing email or other social engineering scam. You may also want to enforce role-based permissions to be doubly protected.
Regularly back up data
Don’t lose important information just because you forgot to press “save”. Regularly back it up through your website’s cPanel or user dashboard. Thankfully, you don’t have to remember to do this manually every time – just download a simple plugin and watch it do the hard work for you.
Fasthosts says: More than half a billion sites are powered by WordPress. If yours is one of them, it’s likely you’ll have access to a long list of highly functional plugins. For security, Updraft Plus is a popular option.
Prevent DDoS attacks
After seeing so many big-hitters hit by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks this year – like M&S, Co-op, and others – you probably think a cyber criminal wouldn’t bother targeting a small fish like you… right? Wrong.
Fasthosts says: Implement always-on DDoS mitigation software to actively monitor and combat DDoS threats.
Block bots and invalid traffic
We all love that feeling of seeing web traffic climb. But with so many bots and AI information scrapers active on the web today, it’s not guaranteed that this spike in traffic is even valid.
Fasthosts says: Install a bot management service that can accurately identify bots through behavioural analysis, machine learning, and fingerprinting. Be sure to let the good bots – for example, the ones belonging to search engines – hang around.
Let Fasthosts take the lead
If that sounds like a lot, just wait until you add coursework, exam deadlines, and job applications into the equation. So rather than try to juggle all that (or grow two more pairs of hands), why not let Fasthosts do the hard work for you?
Our cyber protection software is powered by Acronis and provides an all-in-one backup and cybersecurity solution. The best part? If you’re a university student based in Gloucestershire, it’s even cheaper to run when you choose Fasthosts to build your website. In fact, you’ll get one of our WordPress packages completely free for 1 year! So you’ll have everything you need to get set up online and seen by potential employers.