How Safe Is Your Website? 6 Ways to Improve Drupal Security
4 minutes | Word Count: 738There are plenty of articles out there that are designed to tell you exactly what you can do to make your website more appealing, or quicker to load, but there aren’t quite as many blogs offering suggestions on how you can make your Drupal site more secure.
In a world where people are spending more of their hard-earned cash online than ever before, if you want your eCommerce solution to be a success, you need to make sure that your Drupal website makes visitors feel safe. The good news is that there are plenty of ways you can boost the performance of your Drupal security measures.
1. Always Upgrade
The first step in website security is making sure that whenever your module or installation has an upgrade available, you use it. Outdated scripts are brimming with holes that hackers can use to find their way into your system.
Before you upgrade, consider backing up your database and putting your website into offline mode. You can then go to your control panel and download the newest version of Drupal. This way, if anything goes wrong, you can rest assured that you’ll still have all of your important information stored in a safe location.
2. Remove Modules that Aren’t Actively Maintained
Too many modules on your Drupal website can quickly begin to slow down performance, sending customers away from your business in search of a more reliable online experience. However, another problem of old and un-maintained modules that webmasters overlook, is the ability they have to damage the security of your site.
Visit your modules page, and uncheck all the options next to a module to disable it, then click on the uninstall tab, and check the module to uninstall.
3. Protect Against Harmful Files or HTML
If your Drupal website accepts uploads and doesn’t limit extensions, then you could be vulnerable to malicious scripts. To change the allowed uploads, go into the Structure tab on your Drupal account, then into “Content types” and “Manage Fields”, click on “Edit” to remove certain file types.
Additionally, since you don’t want to give users the chance to use HTML code that could manipulate the performance of your site, you might want to go into the user permission section of your Drupal control panel and remove these permissions entirely.
4. Regularly Review Your Security
Even if you think that you’ve got the safety on your Drupal website under control, it might be a good idea to think about downloading and installing security modules that are available in the Drupal database or from your Drupal host. For instance, the “Security Review” module allows you to check for common vulnerabilities in your website on a frequent basis.
If the review finds any problems with your Drupal website, it will provide you with guidelines and tips that you can follow to fill in the gaps and remove issues as quickly as possible. This can make fighting back against vulnerabilities much easier for beginners.
5. Don’t Send Passwords to User Emails
The chances are that if you’re using your Drupal website to run an eCommerce store, you’ll have an option that allows customers to sign up for an account if they want to make repeat purchases with your brand. While this is a good way to make sure that you encourage ongoing sales in your community, it’s important to be careful with your security measures.
Many experts recommend disabling the option to simply send out a password in a user email if one of your clients loses their log-in information. Instead, you should send out a link that your customers can follow to change their password. To change these settings, go into the Administrator settings, then User Management, and User Settings.
6. Prepare for the Worst
Finally, while no business, big or small, ever wants to be victim to a cyber security attack or an information leak, the best thing you can do to protect your company is to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Typically, this will mean making frequent backups of your data that you can upload in the vent that someone else gets access to your Drupal site, or damages your files in some way.
Avoid having just a single type of backup available. Usually, it’s much more effective to back up your system using a collection of solutions, such as a cloud-based platform, and a hardware device like a memory card or external hard drive too.