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To secure a website, reduce risk across its accounts, software, connections, data, and recovery process—not with a single security product. Start by inventorying what you operate and protecting administrator access; then secure every page with HTTPS, keep components patched, and make sure you can restore a clean site from protected backups. Add monitoring, testing, and formal certificate management in proportion to your site’s exposure, data, architecture, and team capacity.
What website security is meant to protect
Website security protects three things: confidentiality (keeping information from people who should not see it), integrity (preventing unauthorized changes), and availability (keeping the site and its services usable). Authentication establishes who or what is connecting; authorization determines what that identity may do; and auditing records activity so suspicious actions and mistakes can be investigated.
These controls work together. Strong login protection cannot compensate for vulnerable, unmaintained software, and a patched server does not help if an attacker can take over the domain registrar account. NIST’s small-business guidance treats cybersecurity as a continuing process because business needs, technology, laws, and threats change. A useful program therefore assigns responsibility, revisits risks, and tracks whether fixes actually worked.
How to establish a practical security baseline
1. Inventory the site and its access paths
Make a working list of the website’s hosting and infrastructure, domain registrar, DNS, CMS, plugins and themes, APIs, third-party services, administrator and service accounts, and the sensitive data the site handles. Record who owns each item and how it is maintained. Include the accounts that can change the site indirectly, such as source-code hosting, email, and hosting control panels.
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This inventory helps expose forgotten components and clarifies what needs protection and recovery. Tailor effort to the site’s public exposure, data sensitivity, architecture, rate of change, and available staff; a small brochure site and a service processing sensitive user data do not have identical risks.
2. Protect identities and limit permissions
Use strong, unique passwords and consider a password manager. Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever supported, especially for hosting, domain, source-code, email, and administrator accounts. Prefer phishing-resistant MFA when a service supports it. Remove default credentials, grant each account only the permissions it needs, and periodically review whether accounts and privileges remain necessary. Apply the same care to service accounts and recovery methods as to human users.
Compare MFA choices by resistance to phishing, service compatibility, and the work required to manage recovery:
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| Method | Security guidance | Practical considerations |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware FIDO or PKI token | CISA’s 2023 guidance identifies hardware-based FIDO or PKI tokens as the strongest MFA option among the methods compared here. | Use only where the service supports the chosen standard. Plan how authorized users will obtain access if a key is lost, and protect account recovery so it does not undermine MFA. |
| App-based token | CISA describes app tokens as a good alternative. | Check that the relevant service supports the method and establish a secure recovery path if a device is unavailable. |
| SMS code | CISA calls SMS a last resort. In a July 21, 2023 article, CISA Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Eric Goldstein wrote: “While better than having no additional security layer, Short Message Service (SMS) should be an organization’s last resort for implementing multifactor authentication.” | Use it when stronger supported options are unavailable rather than treating it as equivalent to a hardware key or app token. |
3. Maintain every component
Keep the operating system, server software, CMS, plugins, themes, dependencies, and managed services current. Remove components that are no longer needed. Monitor vendor vulnerability and patch announcements, and apply fixes in a timely way. Patching is an operational responsibility: define who evaluates updates, who deploys them, and how the site is checked afterward.
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4. Protect recovery before an incident
Back up the site and the data needed to rebuild it, restrict who can alter or delete those backups, and exercise restoration. Decide in advance who can restore a clean copy and how the restoration will be performed. A backup that cannot be reached during an incident, or has never been restored successfully, is not a demonstrated recovery capability.
How to secure the connection to every page
Use HTTPS across the entire site, not just login or payment pages. OWASP advises that pages delivered over TLS should not load JavaScript, stylesheets, or other resources over unencrypted HTTP: mixed content can create opportunities for interception or injection. Find and replace insecure resource references, then check that the resources and page features work over HTTPS.
For a public-facing website, configure HTTP to issue a permanent redirect to HTTPS rather than serving the site in clear text. An API-only endpoint should disable HTTP or fail unencrypted requests where possible. Test redirects and dependent services so that moving to HTTPS does not break legitimate site behavior.
Introduce HSTS deliberately
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) tells browsers to request a site using HTTPS and prevents users from bypassing certificate warnings. Add it only after HTTPS works reliably for the relevant hostnames and dependencies. Treat HSTS as a consequential configuration change: a hostname that browsers are told to reach only over HTTPS must have working HTTPS when users return.
Use and maintain appropriate TLS certificates
CISA’s infrastructure-hardening guidance recommends TLS 1.3 on TLS-capable protocols, strong cipher suites, PKI-based certificates instead of self-signed certificates, and renewal before expiry. Apply those recommendations in light of current platform support and the site’s operational requirements; compatibility and service architecture can affect which settings are appropriate.
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For a site with multiple hostnames, services, or teams, treat certificates as managed assets rather than isolated files. NIST’s SP 1800-16 practice guide, published in 2020, addresses formal certificate-management programs for medium and large enterprises, including prevention, detection, and recovery from certificate-related incidents. Inventory certificates, assign an owner, monitor their status and expiry, and establish how renewal and replacement are handled. Automation can reduce routine renewal work, but it still needs monitoring, clear ownership, and a recovery path if renewal fails.
How to secure application and infrastructure operations
Build security into the software lifecycle
OWASP frames software assurance around governance, design, implementation, verification, and operations. Put those stages to work as a continuing lifecycle:
- Governance: establish who owns security decisions and what requirements apply to the site and its data.
- Design: review how components communicate, where trust boundaries lie, and what happens when an input or dependency is untrusted.
- Implementation: use secure development practices and review changes that affect access, data handling, or exposed services.
- Verification: test relevant controls and confirm that reported defects are fixed.
- Operations: maintain the running site, watch for changes and issues, and feed operational findings into future design and fixes.
Scan exposed infrastructure, then act on findings
CISA recommends scanning internet-facing infrastructure and ports to identify services that should not be accessible. A scan can reveal exposure, but it does not secure a site on its own. Assign an owner to each finding, prioritize it according to exposure and potential impact, fix it, and verify that the issue is resolved. Retain useful logs so that activity can be investigated if an incident occurs.
Infrastructure scanning and application-focused verification answer different questions. The former looks for exposed systems and services; application-focused checks examine how the website’s code and behavior handle security requirements. Scope and timing should reflect the site’s exposure and how often it changes. Use results as work to triage and remediate, not as a guarantee that the site is secure.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to choose backup and testing approaches
Choose controls by the failure they are meant to withstand, the operational work they require, and whether the team can recover from them. The comparisons below describe trade-offs rather than a universal best configuration.
Backup options
| Approach | Useful property | Operational consideration |
|---|---|---|
| Online backup | Can support convenient access for routine restoration. | If it is reachable through credentials compromised in an attack, an intruder may also be able to alter or delete it. Protect backup access and test restoration. |
| Offline copy | Separating a copy from routine online access can make it harder for an attacker controlling the site to alter that copy. | Restoration requires a usable process for locating and reconnecting the copy; exercise that process. |
| Cloud-to-cloud copy | CISA’s ransomware guidance recommends cloud-to-cloud backups as an option for keeping another copy. | Consider whether the backup has independent access controls and whether a compromised account could affect both the live data and its copy. Test recovery. |
CISA recommends frequent backups and offline or cloud-to-cloud approaches in its ransomware guidance. The right arrangement depends on what must be restored and how quickly the organization needs to resume service; no backup method removes the need to protect recovery credentials and verify a clean restoration.
Infrastructure scans and application checks
| Activity | What it helps examine | What it does not establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| Internet-facing infrastructure and port scanning | Whether systems or network services are exposed that should not be accessible, as CISA recommends checking. | It does not prove that the application is free of defects or that scan findings have been fixed. |
| Application-focused verification | Whether application behavior and implemented controls meet relevant security requirements. | It does not replace infrastructure checks, operational monitoring, or remediation of identified issues. |
Set scope and cadence according to exposure and change rate, then track findings through ownership, prioritization, remediation, and verification. The available guidance establishes the need to scan exposed infrastructure and to verify controls; it does not prescribe one universal schedule for every site.
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A small site can begin with a concise inventory, protected accounts, current software, HTTPS, and tested backups. As the number of services, certificates, administrators, or teams grows, informal practices become harder to sustain. Assign named owners to systems, accounts, findings, logs, and certificates; document how access is reviewed and recovery is performed; and use monitoring to identify problems before an outage or expiry surprises the team.
At larger scale, certificate lifecycle management deserves a formal program. NIST SP 1800-16 describes ways to prevent, detect, and recover from certificate-related incidents. More broadly, treat security as a cycle: identify assets and risks, implement controls, verify them, respond to findings, and update the plan as the site changes. No scan, certificate tool, backup service, or MFA method substitutes for that ongoing ownership.
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