10 Best Drupal 8 Security Practices to Keep Your Drupal Site Secure

Ensuing high-end security is a major concern for every business using software or tech for business operations. This is even more essential if your business stores customer data. One of the major causes of anxiety in your customers when they provide any piece of information to your business is how securely you handle their personal information and that it is only accessed by the right people at the right time. There are many business owners who are leveraging various open-source content management systems to store and manage data received through their website. Drupal 8, being one of the widely used open-source content management systems, is also subject to these security concerns. As an individual Drupal 8 site owner or Drupal 8 development company, you must take these security concerns seriously and follow the best Drupal 8 security practices to address security issues well in advance.

List of Best Drupal 8 Security Practices

1. Host Your Site on a Secure Server

Every Drupal 8 user or Drupal 8 development company must ensure that your server-side hosting ecosystem is secure and permits only authorized users to have access. This is one of the most crucial aspects of Drupal 8 development services which are needed to get the best out of Drupal’s security features. When it comes to server-side security, you should also consider hiding the server signature and enabling port-wise security.

2. Update the Kernel and Drupal Modules

You never know when a cyberattacker may attempt to recover data from your site. Therefore, it always wise to keep the installed modules and the core up-to-date because they come with security patches. It may have been due to significant security breach like Drupalgeddon 2 that affected over 115,000 websites that the update has arrived. Therefore, Drupal strongly advises Drupal users to update their site to the latest version to fix this vulnerability. Drupal 8 and its new modules come with new security features that are vital for your site.

3. Ensure Timely Backup

Our Drupal 8 security checklist would be incomplete without this important security practice. Your data is a valuable asset for your business and if data security matters to you, you can’t afford to be without the latest version of data backup and storage. As your data is vulnerable to unwanted intrusions and breakdowns, it is important to make sure you have all your data safely backed up and stored. Drupal 8 comes with various modules that allow you to create data backup regularly and securely. So, consider making this as a security norm for your website.

4. Ensure User-side Security

As you’re ensuring security on the server-side, you should also do the same for the user-side as well. Use highly strong and secure passwords at both the user and admin level. While creating passwords, you should try creating something that is difficult to guess by using combinations of UPPERCASES, lowercases, numbers, and special symbols. You can also use Drupal modules to boost user password strength.

5. Keep Permissions to a Minimum

As Drupal 8 development constantly comes with new features to ensure data security, it offers the users with the access privilege to each section. So, if permissions are assigned to a wrong person, it can be disastrous for your site. To prevent such situations, Drupal 8 offers three roles by default namely authenticated users, anonymous users, and administrators. You can create a specific permission set for these three roles. You should always keep in mind that the number of admin accounts should be kept to a minimum as the admin has the power to create new roles or characters.

6. Set Correct File Permissions

To ensure the file doesn’t go in the wrong hands, make sure you have set the right file permissions as even the smallest mistake in this aspect can make you vulnerable to cyberattacks.

7. Set Up Firewall

Setting up a firewall helps you block all unauthorized partners or hackers to access your data or system. It only allows entry from trusted partners and prevents you from getting connected to unauthorized parties unknowingly.

8. Protect Your Site with HTTP Secure

Using HTTPS provides additional security to your site. An SSL certificate protects the connection between the server and the user and blocks hackers from accessing your system. Google also prefers and rank sites higher in its search results that are protected with HTTPS. This also helps you boost your visibility and gain the trust of your visitors.

9. Use Reliable CDNs

The main reason why businesses are using a Content Distribution Network (CDN) is that it keeps sensitive information and financial information safe and secure. As the potential risks of denial of service attacks, or DoSs is persistently growing, you need to ensure that your business-critical information is secure. If you have specific requirements for your Drupal 8 site, you can approach a Drupal 8 development company to get a custom CDN that can meet all your business requirements.

10. Hire Drupal Developers

If you have less knowledge about Drupal or don’t have any clue on how to enhance the security of your website, it is always better to get a professional’s help in such cases. However, if you’re planning to hire Drupal developers, make sure you do rigorous research and select one that offers superior-quality Drupal development services at affordable rates. You can do this by browsing various online directories, and checking reviews and ratings from clients, their years of experience, and similar projects they’ve worked on. You can also communicate with them to see if they can understand your requirements and test their skills by assigning them a few tasks. If you find a company with the necessary skills and expertise, you are good to go with your Drupal 8 development journey.

Final Words

So, now when you know about the best Drupal 8 security practices, you should consider implementing it to protect yourself from any kind of security breach. If security matters to you, these practices should be treated as professional norms that need to be followed at any cost.

Of course, this security checklist will continue to grow as long as cybercrooks make devious attempts to steal data using new techniques. However, if you follow these core Drupal 8 security practices and keep your site and CMSs up-to-date, then it will always be good for your business security.