Hackers are a notoriously opportunistic lot, and the global COVID-19 pandemic fits their agenda perfectly. According to UK Web security firm Cloudflare, online threats rose by as much as six times their usual levels in the early weeks of the outbreak. Based on the 2020 Data Breaches Investigation Report by Verizon, 28% of the breach victims were small businesses. And from an Accenture report from last year, 68% of business leaders felt their cybersecurity risks are increasing. It’s no wonder that in the wake of recent trends, security has become a top priority for small and medium businesses.
Choose Targeted Security Solutions
“WP Toolkit security scanner goes beyond the basics and implements the latest security recommendations and best practices from WP Codex and WP security experts.”
At Plesk, our goal is to prioritize your privacy and safeguard your data and business from security threats. Our tools provide targeted solutions for common security issues with little to no manual work. For example, we asked Marcus Krämer, the founder and CEO of HostPress, about the value WP Toolkit brings to their Managed WordPress hosting business. Marcus told us that, “WP Toolkit security scanner goes beyond the basics and implements the latest security recommendations and best practices from WP Codex and WP security experts.”
Key Recommendations to Improve Security
Recently, we also talked to Plesk’s Security Engineer, Igor Antipkin, about recommendations that can help you improve your project’s security. Igor outlined the following steps for anyone considering to take proper security approaches:
1. Use threat modeling to identify potential security risks.
As a first step, consider your security risks in the project design phase. List down all kinds of threats you might have. One advantage of using this approach is minimizing the likelihood of security breaches. It also saves you rework in the later stages of your project.
2. Inform yourself and your users about security risks.
Outdated software is the most common problem in this scenario. Make sure that your users know to keep software up to date and all the latest updates and patches are installed. Inform yourself about software security as much as you can. Stay involved in the community to stay up to date about potential issues.
3. Use the principle of least privileges.
Limit user permissions based on individual roles to give access where it’s needed. This limits the amount of damage any single individual can do to a website or server.
Special Offers
To round up, our umbrella of tools with a focus on security include:
- Our self-hosted email and collaboration suite, Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab. It includes a secure, private file cloud using Seafile and a secure team messaging platform using Mattermost. You can also enhance email security with the Plesk Email Security extension.
- If you use Plesk with WordPress, you can use the WP Toolkit to optimize your site’s security. WP Toolkit hardens your site by default and is enhanced with the Toolkit’s security scanner, which provides up-to-date recommendations for managing site security.
- If you are a hosting reseller, with Plesk’s Web Host Edition you can easily manage teams. You have the ability to set permissions for individual users, developers, designers and content managers, who can seamlessly collaborate across multiple projects. You can also create customer accounts so that external administrators can manage their own services. The edition comes with security for protection from malicious users.
Currently, you can get 6 months free for Plesk Premium Email, 6 months free for WordPress Toolkit for 3 months free for Plesk Web Host Edition. Additional details about these offers can be found here.
We understand that these unprecedented times have brought unprecedented circumstances to us all. You can reach out to our team for support. And let us know in the comments if you’d like to share how your business is doing in the current situation.