Shared Website Hosting services offer a range of benefits to websites and are a perfect fit for most websites, especially new, small and static websites. However, like any other hosting service, it has some disadvantages too. One such drawback is the presence of certain security risks that can be potentially dangerous for your site. Today, we will be talking about the top five security risks faced by your website on a Shared Hosting setup and ways to mitigate those risks.
When you plan to launch your website, you need to host it on a server. While there are various options to choose from, a Shared Hosting service is preferred by many new site owners for its cost-efficiency and ease of getting started. In Shared Hosting, your website shares a hosting server with multiple websites. Here is a quick look at the top five security risks in Shared Hosting and how you can tackle them:
1. The storage space is shared
When you host your website on a Shared Hosting server, it shares the storage space with multiple users. Although the web hosting plans offer you separate storage space, the server itself is shared and links you intrinsically to other users on the server. Therefore, if a hacker gains access to the server through any site, it can impact all sites on the server.
2. Slow-loading website
If you are using a Shared Hosting server and another website on your server gets hacked, then it could impact the performance of your site too. As the hacker gains control over the other site, it might end up using more than its quota of shared resources and cause your site to slow down or crash.
3. DDoS attacks
In a Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS attack, the hacker sends high volumes of traffic to the site through multiple sources. The website under attack starts using up more resources and impacts the performance of all other sites on the server. So even if your website is not under a DDoS attack, you can suffer the consequences.
4. Sharing of IP address
In Shared Hosting, all the websites hosted on the server share a single shared IP address. If one site on your server conducts illegal activities or spams its customers, then the IP address can get blacklisted or blocked. It can prevent you from carrying out various business activities without being at fault.
5. Hacker neighbour
In Shared Hosting plans, you never know the list of websites with whom you share the server. Hence, it is quite possible that a hacker might purchase a Shared Hosting plan and live next door to your site. It can be a potential security threat in many ways.
So, what can you do?
Upgrade? While that is always an option, there are some security measures that you can consider before upgrading your hosting service. These are:
- Installing the latest antivirus and antimalware tools to keep hackers away from your site
- Reviewing the security protocols of your Shared Hosting provider
- Ensuring that you have control over the file permissions on your site
- Block the execution of PHP in unknown folders
Summing Up
It is important to remember that different Shared Hosting providers manage the security of the shared server differently. Hence, instead of compromising on the security of your site because Shared Hosting has ‘supposed’ security vulnerabilities, research the market and compare web hosting plans to find the most secure one for your website. Good Luck!
