Can Web Security Tools Prevent Data Breaches?

For most, 2020 will go down in history as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The year that everything shut down, jobs were lost and social distancing became the ‘new normal.’ Unfortunately, it was also the year that, as Forbes put it, “broke all records when it came to data lost in breaches and sheer numbers of cyberattacks on companies, government and individuals.”

Even in the first months of 2021, cybersecurity crimes are in the news weekly, it seems. And the scary thing is, cybercrime shows no signs of slowing down. To make matters worse, punishing these cybercriminals is nearly impossible. With many criminals working under the radar and overseas, finding them and bringing them to justice proves difficult. This is in large part due to the struggle that comes with convincing government officials in cybercriminals’ home countries to cooperate with investigations.

Where does this leave the average website owner trying to keep their digital doors locked and free from intrusion? To put it mildly, it often leaves them to fend for themselves. Without proper protection in place and no recourse in the event they are breached, the only hope for website owners is to batten down the hatches and defend themselves by any means necessary. But can the available website security tools prevent data breaches? The simple answer is yes. The more complex answer is no. Wait, what?

The unfortunate truth is there still isn’t a website security tool or set of tools developed – yet – that can guarantee you will never suffer a data breach. As technology evolves, hackers and nefarious individuals seem to keep evolving more sophisticated ways to attack and breach websites. Much as law enforcement officials recommend layered home security in the form of a lock on your door, a swing guard and a security alarm system, you should not rely only on a single layer of security to guard the digital doors of your website.

The Tools Necessary To Stave Off Data Breaches

There are both free and paid tools available to secure your website. These include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Malware scanning and removal software
  • Web application firewall (WAF)
  • Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates
  • Vulnerability patching software
  • Website scanning tools that scan for things like spam, cross-site scripting and SQL injection vulnerabilities, and core application vulnerabilities
  • Limited login plugins for WordPress sites
  • Antispam and antihacking plugins and/or software
  • Google Authenticator or similar multi factor authentication software
  • IP blacklisting and lockout tools
  • Timed logout software

When people are on a budget, they often try to only obtain free tools or, if they must pay, just one, two or just a handful of paid tools. The truth is, there are a lot of inexpensive ways to protect a website. However, it’s important not to focus on price alone when you are thinking seriously about website security.

The level of protection becomes even more important for individuals relying on their websites to make money and/or run small to medium enterprises (SMEs). The potential for regulatory fines due to lack of security from standards organizations alone is enough to have a CEO or IT manager cracking open their piggy bank and pulling out all the stops to prevent a data breach. Still, that is not to say that SMEs are the only ones that have something to lose if a breach were to occur.

As Forbes explained, “Every minute, $2,900,000 is lost to cybercrime and top companies pay $25 per minute” because of breaches in cybersecurity. As of 2020, the average cost related to data breaches to a company is $3.86 million. Numbers like this can put most small and even large enterprises out of business!

If you’re in the cybersecurity industry and advising your manager or clients about website security, you already know how real the threat of data breaches is. Odds are you are advising them to use multiple tools to stave off these threats. If, however, you are merely a wannabe cybersecurity aficionado, or even just someone who wants to protect their own website from a potential data breach, the same advice is true for you – the more tools you can afford to have, the better you will be protected.

At a bare minimum, you should be using malware scanning and removal tools, have an SSL certificate, update your plugins regularly and implement multifactor authentication. And, as your budget allows, using additional tools is just like adding more security locks to your digital home. Simply put, the harder you make the act of breaking into your website for a criminal, the more likely they are to move on to a less-protected victim.

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Ron Doss

Ron Doss is a Senior Web Security Analyst and content contributor at SiteLock, a global cybersecurity company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. With over 10 years’ experience in web design and hosting, as well as 5 years focused on web security, Ron specializes in finding and removing malware along with dispelling other website security issues that harm websites. When he's not ridding the world of malware and making the web a safer and better place, he's pwning n00bs while online gaming and yeeting his life savings on meme stocks.

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