How to Maintain Website Security During Redesign website

Website designing, one can say decides whether your website will be at the top ranking of the search engine or not, it also known as one of the most essential component of a website. But once your website get the top ranking, we can say that the chances that your website ranking will drop would be very low because by now you know all the algorithms there is to know.

So what can be the reason that you want to redesign your website? There can be many reasons like the design is outdated , is not functioning properly, complaints received by the users and so much more. But no matter what the reason is, the main point is ‘maintaining website security during redesign website’ , how can one achieve it?

Practices for maintaining website security during redesign website

For maintaining website security during redesign we can do the following steps:

1. Backup Your Existing Website: before redesigning a website you must ensure that  you have a complete backup of the data . The backup data of your website must include databases, files, and configurations. This helps in the easy restoration of data if any problem occur during the redesigning. You can use version control systems for changing and reverting previous versions of the system. Also keep your backup data in two pen drives for better safety of the information. This will help in maintaining website security during redesign website.
2. Update Software and Plugins:  Make sure to check all the software that you are going to use for the redesigning of the website are updated to their latest versions. Because if the software are outdated then problems likes hacking , exploitation by attackers can take place.  For your monitor to be free from threats during the redesign, install security plugins or tools.
3. Secure Development Environment: Just like how we don’t share the secret of profit making in a business and keep it secret , similarly we also have to take precautions as to keeping the vulnerabilities of the business’s website a secret. We can do this by doing the redesigning work in a secured place which is away from where we live. This helps in doing the work secretly, securely and efficiently. Take great precautions while granting access , keep access as restricted as possible so that only authorized people can work on it.
4. Implement HTTPS: Make sure that your website uses HTTPS for data transferring between the servers and users. If the site you are working at already has HTTPS then, verify so that it can remain on the website throughout the whole process of redesigning. To enforce HTTPS across all pages and resources you can user server setting or plugins maintaining website security during redesign website.
5. Conduct Code Review and Testing: To prevent problems like, Cross- site scripting , you can use secure coding practices in which you learn some of the best practices and secure coding guidelines. Do penetration testing, in which address related issues can be identified and precautions can be taken according to it. Sometimes there may be some hidden flaws which cannot be seen , so as for identifying them , you can use automated scanning tools and manual codes for maintaining website security during redesign website.
6. Manage Access Controls: See hoe much access should be given to the users so as to ensure that only important team members have administrative privileges. Update user roles and access levels after reviewing the design thoroughly. For users who are of high level and need high security of their data , you can add Two- Factor Authentication for them to use , accordingly.
7. Data Protection Compliance: For redesigned website to remains compliant with data protection regulations use systems like CCPA . During the redesign , if some sensitive data needs to be transferred then for the sake of protecting it’s data you should encrypt it before transferring for maintaining website security during redesign website.
8. Secure Third-Party Integrations: Not every third – party is unsafe, some are made for the security purposes only , all we need is to ensure that they are from reputable sources and always updated. Keep your APIs keys very secure because they are very sensitive and should not be exposed to the public. They are only used for authorized members.
9. Implement Security Headers: For more security you can apply security headers like X-Content-Type-Options and X-Frame-options, these helps in protecting your site against frequent and common cyber problems. For preventing attacks like code injecting and improving the website’s overall performance , you can use browser hardening for maintaining website security during redesign website.
10. Post-Redesign Security Audit: Do a comprehensive security scan to make sure that there are no problems in the website that might have some during the redesigning process. This will give you the relief that everything has been done perfectly. There are many times , when a user behavior becomes suspicious because of the unusual activity they are doing. We can find such users by using monitoring tools to observe the traffic. To maintain the ongoing security make sure to do regular updated with patches , so that there should be no issue that will some later in the redesigned website.

Conclusion

Redesigning a website is easy but to maintain security with it can be a task. Still for the sake of your website you should do it, you can just think that you are doing checkups of the website and see if there are some problems. All you need is to take some precautions and then your redesigned website is ready to work with all the more advanced and new features!

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