Website Security Monitoring: How to Choose the Best Service
Whether it's an alarm for a car, a home security system or antivirus software for a computer, most people take steps to protect the things that are important to them. With websites becoming more and more important for both individuals and businesses, it is just as critical to provide the same type of protection for them as owners would for their car, home or personal computer. In order to ensure their website is safe and secure, many consumers are using the help of website security monitoring services.
What is a Website Security Monitoring Service?
Website security monitoring services are designed to constantly be scanning the site for harmful activity, such as signs of hackers of or malicious malware programs. If something suspicious is found, the website's owner is immediately alerted.
“Think of website security monitoring as antivirus software for your website, you look for a seal of protection on your computer – but are you doing the same for your website," said Mickey Dimons, founder of SealedUp Security, in a recent interview with Techie Insider.
Many website security monitoring services now operate through the cloud, freeing website owners for the need to download and install special software. Using a cloud-based service provides several advantages, including not slowing down the website every time a scan is performed and the option to remotely access it.
Grant Geyer, vice president of Symantec's Global Managed Services told Redmond magazine in an interview that website security monitoring services give website owners the opportunity to see the very first steps of an infection.
"It moves the ability to protect against attacks from reactive to proactive," Geyer said in the interview.
Choosing Website Security Monitoring Services
There are several things website owners must look for when choosing among the numerous website security monitoring services. The most important are the types of security tools they provide. In addition to malware and malicious bot blocking, the services should also provide protection from SQL injection and cross-site scripting. They should also be able to support SSL websites.
In order to prevent a site site from slowing down and frustrating visitors, website owners should make sure the service they choose provides caching or compression. In addition, the service should have a content delivery network.
Several other things to consider include whether the service offers real-time notifications when problems arise, as well as reports that help website owners see if dips or surges in traffic are due to any type of malicious activity.
The overall key is to try and find a service that enhances both the security and performance of a website.
Top Website Security Monitoring Service
One of the highest-rated website security monitoring services is Incapsula Business. The service is cloud-based and offers protection and SQL injection, which is a method hackers use to enter their own malicious code in a website's programming so they can make changes to site, as well as steal users' passwords and credit card numbers. It also offers cross-site scripting security, comment spam protection, malicious bot blocking and support for SSL websites. The services improvise website performance by utilizing a global content distribution network, which incorporates a variety of servers to spread out the work, thereby decreasing a website's loadtime. The service also includes content minification, which removes all unnecessary characters from the source code to speed up the loadtime. In addition the service provides instant notifications should suspicious activity be found.
Cloud Fare is another popular website security monitoring service, which is also run through the cloud. It provides protection against SQL injection, cross-site scripting and email harvesting. The service relies on the global content delivery network in order to increase the bandwidth to speed up load times. It also uses automatic static content caching to help sites load faster. Should hackers infect a site, the service immediately notifies customers that there is a chance that they could have been affected.
Another well-regarded website security monitoring service is the Stingray Traffic Manager. Unlike the other services, Stingray Traffic Manger offers more of a firewall. They utilize a gateway that relies on what owners specify as what they want filtered out. The service then uses those scrubbing policies as it routes the traffic to the site. For sites with SSL encryption, the Stingray Traffic Manager increases the memory capacity, which helps keep your website moving smoothly and at a quick rate. It also uses content caching to increase speed. In addition Stingray Traffic Manager helps route a website's traffic around degraded servers, as well as monitors traffic spikes so the servers aren't overloaded and forced to shut down the entire site.
Several other popular website security monitoring services include, Barracuda, which offers a number of security options against viruses and malware, nsProtect Safe, which provides notifications to keep owner's informed of their site's security and performance, and dotDefnder, which offers protection from SQL injection as well as cross-site scripting.
Best Website Security Monitoring Services: Our sister site, TopTenREVIEWS, conducted extensive in-depth reviews of numerous website security monitoring services. Their full reviews are available here.
