If you manage a website, you are one busy person. Seriously, whether you’re running an online store, a blog, or a company site, it’s like having an entire alternate life. You’re working with programmers, developers, graphic designers, hosting sites, cloud storage, payment systems, and the list only goes on from there.
And while you’re juggling all of that on top of trying to increase profits and narrow your bottom line, security is probably the last thing on your mind. The thing is, though, as a website owner, you have a lot more at stake than most other people when it comes to the security of your connection. Most people have at least some form of security software on their devices, but few give thought to securing their actual connection, and sadly, that’s where it counts the most.
Now that we are well into the information age, your information is more at risk than ever, and as a website owner, you present an even more tempting target than the average user. Hackers are eager to gain access to sites for various reasons, but often to distribute spam or steal information. If you own a business along with your site, this poses a massive risk to your reputation with your customers.
Particularly for those sites that handle financial and personal information, customers put a lot of trust in the website management team to keep their information secure and confidential. When that information becomes compromised, it raises some serious concerns with customers and users, and can deter a significant portion of your traffic because users won’t believe they will be secure when they use your site.
VPN Can Help You Protect Your Website
It gets worse though. Really destructive hackers who don’t get what they need from gaining control of your site will often take it a step further, posting or distributing downloads to your visitors and customers that contain malware and phishing software. This software, often deceptively embedded in another file, will swipe massive amounts of data from their device, and then often corrupt their system. At that point, you can kiss those visitors goodbye. You’ve not only lost control of your website, but you’ve cost users their personal information and their devices. The inconvenience of it alone is enough to have people unsubscribing by the thousands.
I know, it all sounds a bit melodramatic and overplayed, but I promise you, this kind of thing is extremely common, particularly among websites that have a larger audience. The more business you do, the bigger a fish you are to these hackers, and the harder they’ll try to get access.
To protect yourself and the reputation of your website, you need to take some common-sense measures, and then go a bit above and beyond that with some special software. VPNs are a simple and highly effective solution for website owners, and a great way to secure your login credentials over public networks.
VPNs: How They Work
If the term VPN is news to you, let’s take a moment to break down what it means. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It’s a subscription service that’s designed to secure your connection, rather than your device, and give you access to geo-restricted content while simultaneously protecting your data. Picture a tank, full of sharks, with a tunnel running through it. That tank full of sharks is the internet, full of predators, and that tunnel is your VPN.
VPNs act as a secure and private gateway through the internet, giving you not only complete privacy, but anonymity, and access to any content you want, regardless of your location. Your tunnel is uniquely yours and routes you to a secure server in a location of your choosing. Throughout this process, your connection is encrypted, so even if your data is intercepted, it’s impossible to read or decipher.
As your connection is routed to your chosen server, your IP address is blocked, and you’re given a new one, protecting your location information. This removes blocks based on location, even those on public networks. Basically, you can access any content you want, from anywhere in the world, with a completely secure and anonymous connection.
Though VPNs are often associated with being used for bad things because of the anonymity they provide, the truth is it just offers a level of protection that really is that good. It keeps your connection invisible to government surveillance organizations, but more importantly, it keeps your connection truly secure.
The Ins and Outs of a VPN’s Security
Since you are a website owner, your primary reason for using a VPN is likely going to be security, so there are a few things you should know about these features. There are a lot of options to choose from, and if you’re going to keep your site secure and your expenses low, you have to shop smart.
For starters, ideally, you want to use a VPN that runs the OpenVPN protocols. This software offers the strongest, most secure connection, with 256-bit encryption to keep your information truly private. Another important thing to look for is a VPN that allows you choose between a few security protocol options.
Connection Optimization
While we definitely want the state of the art and impenetrable encryption, this can also slow down your connection quite a bit. Since the information carries the weight of the encryption in addition to your data stream beneath it, it often takes longer to get a response back from the server, making for a slower overall connection. If you have images to upload and content to edit, this can get really frustrating.
For this reason, many VPNs offer their users the option of “turning down” their security. The connection is still encrypted, and your information is still secure, but you end up using a protocol that has just slightly more lax security in return for a connection that is optimized for speed. If you’re handling sensitive information, it’s best to not use these protocols just to be safe. Yet if you’re just handling a lot of heavy bandwidth content, it’s a handy and efficient feature to have.
Keeping Login Information Private
VPNs not only keep your website’s content secure, but they protect the keys to the kingdom – your login credentials – from being swiped by prying eyes. No matter how secure your password, if this information gets stolen, and the hacker manages to change your password, it is game over. With military grade encryption and IP address blocking, it is extremely unlikely that any hacker will get ahold of your administrative login information.
While VPNs are a paid service, they’re also an incredibly affordable one, and one that doesn’t add more than $5 to $15 to your expenses each month. Think of it as an insurance policy. Paying $12.95 a month for a service such as ExpressVPN is a sign of good faith to your audience that protecting their information is important to you. You can check out ExpressVPN review to know more. You can maintain your face of professionalism and security, and even bypass pesky content blocks while you’re on the road. Managing your website on the go has never been more secure.
Yeah it true. Nice inforgraphic article. People also must use VPN on smartphone. ☺