Security Best Practices

5 Quick Wins to Improve Your Website Security

Five fast, practical improvements you can make this week to harden your public-facing site.

Running a business means you rarely have a full day to "work on security." The good news is that a handful of small improvements can dramatically reduce your attack surface.

Here are five quick wins you can tackle this week:

1. Enforce HTTPS everywhere

Make sure every request to your site is redirected to HTTPS. Modern browsers expect it, and many security features (like HSTS and secure cookies) depend on it.

If you use a CDN or managed hosting, there is usually a single toggle for this. Once enabled, re-scan your site to confirm that HTTP is redirecting correctly.

2. Add basic security headers

Headers like Strict-Transport-Security, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options help browsers defend users from common attacks. They are simple to configure on Apache, Nginx, or most control panels.

ThreatSpot checks for these headers automatically and highlights which ones are missing, along with suggested values.

3. Lock down cookies

If your site uses login or session cookies, they should almost always be marked with:

  • Secure (only sent over HTTPS)
  • HttpOnly (not readable from JavaScript)
  • SameSite (helps prevent cross-site request forgery)

These changes are small but significantly reduce the risk of session theft.

4. Remove obvious information leaks

Default readme files, verbose error pages, and directory listings make an attacker's job easier. Review your site for:

  • /readme.html or /license.txt files
  • Open directory listings
  • Detailed stack traces on error pages

Hiding this information doesn't fix vulnerabilities by itself, but it makes automated attacks less effective.

5. Set up recurring scans

Security isn't a one-time project. Once you've fixed the basics, schedule regular scans to catch regressions when code, plugins, or infrastructure change.

ThreatSpot is designed to make these checks repeatable so you can see how your grade improves over time and prove progress to clients or stakeholders.

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