Dedicated Server Security: The way to Secure Your Dedicated Server

While you run an internet business, it’s absolutely essential that you just keep your data and your clients’ data secure and available. It doesn’t matter in the event you sell Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or run an eCommerce shop. Data safety matters.

That said, the concept of “secure data” can tackle many forms, equivalent to:

• Is your data accessible and online? 
• Is it stored somewhere you’ll be able to back it up or retrieve it easily?
• Have you ever restricted access to your data for cover?

The business decisions you make can significantly impact the protection of your data from all these angles, especially when selecting your hosting environment. As a business owner, you’ve many hosting setup options, and you want to balance budget, performance, and safety. 

Nevertheless, one thing is for certain: dedicated servers offer essentially the most secure data protection.

Server security touches all parts of what you are promoting, from operations to customer experience and brand value. In other words, failing to guard your data can have serious repercussions. 

In line with the 2021 Ponemon Institute’s report on cloud compromise and shadow IT, the highest consequences of account compromise experienced by respondents were theft of sensitive data (59%), business disruption (56%), and reputational damage (48%). 

Keeping your data (and your customers’ data) secure is crucial. You possibly can’t run a business for long in the event you don’t have the trust of your customers. 

Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at how your server environment impacts data security.

Shared hosting is the most affordable style of cloud hosting. While you purchase shared hosting services, you might be effectively renting space on a shared hosting server. In other words, other web sites and data may be hosted on the identical server, which may mean you get lower performance, less security, and fewer customization options. 

Within the case of a dedicated server, the name explains itself. You’ve gotten a server entirely dedicated to you and your organization’s data. Specifically, you hold all control over the server’s hardware. This configuration is costlier than shared hosting but offers the best security, performance, and customization options. 

Briefly, shared hosting plans are more like operating what you are promoting in a shared office space, whereas dedicated hosting is like owning your office constructing. When you’ve your facility, you’ll be able to control the way it’s arrange and secured.

For the continuity of what you are promoting within the event of a catastrophe and even the legal requirements put in place by HIPAA or PCI compliance, dedicated server hosting features provide you with the protection you want to keep data secure and ensure what you are promoting runs easily. That is achieved through two primary methods: physical security and security on the server itself.

When you’ve a dedicated server, you don’t share your physical hardware with other clients. This implies you’ll be able to place additional security devices inline together with your connection to secure your server. Such devices include hardware firewalls or Intrusion Detection/Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) and will not be typically allowed for users on any style of shared hosting environment like true shared hosting or VPS hosting.

A dedicated server allows you to use these security devices without having to fret about impacting other users. So, you’ll be able to profit from improved scrutiny of traffic and more robust security on your server and the info you serve your clients.

Shared environments are often made up of web clusters, which restricts you from using a locked cabinet on your host, even with virtual private servers (VPS).

A dedicated server, however, allows you to block physical access to your hardware to avoid any likelihood of accidents with power and even other network cables. If what you are promoting needs to stick to rules equivalent to HIPAA Compliant Hosting or PCI-DSS Compliance, this will even be a requirement for you.

At Liquid Web, all our data centers restrict physical access to a subset of employees. Still, having the added protection of a locked cabinet on your dedicated server gives you peace of mind. It’s this layer that protects you from unplanned service interruptions that may prevent clients from accessing your website, negatively impacting what you are promoting.

Dedicated servers can keep your data secure while also improving performance and letting you configure the server environment for what you are promoting. 

Here’s a more in-depth take a look at the advantages of selecting dedicated hosting services:

In line with the ITIC twelfth Annual Global Reliability Poll, 99% of small- and medium-sized businesses and huge enterprises say that financial losses from server downtime are greater than $100,000. For small business owners, a $100,000 loss can easily develop into catastrophic.

The report also lists security breaches as the highest reason behind unplanned downtime, affecting 73% of respondents. ​Interruption or lack of your data can easily be prevented with dedicated servers by utilizing multiple servers in multiple physical locations. 

Often the same products are kept in the identical area inside an information center (so if you’ve multiple virtual private servers, they might all be on the identical parent or multiple parents very close to one another). This will create a difficulty if an outage occurs.

Dedicated servers enable multiple servers to be situated not only inside different sections of an information center but in addition inside completely different data centers, providing you with higher uptime. This provides the utmost protection on your data against unplanned outages and accidents. 

With Liquid Website hosting services, you furthermore may get our uptime guarantee, which suggests your dedicated server will at all times have power and network access.

While you select a dedicated server, you’ve access to more customization options, especially relating to your data. You possibly can go for the most straightforward RAID 1 hard disk configuration, which mustn’t be confused with a backup. Nevertheless, you’re not limited to that one option. Slightly, you’ll be able to elect to make use of RAID 5 or RAID 6 in the event you want more options for distributed data parity. Each of those customizations wouldn’t be available to you in a virtual server setup.

Physical hardware isn’t the one advantage of using dedicated hosting solutions; your isolation is one other one. Because you’re the one business using the server, you don’t should worry in regards to the “noisy neighbor” issue inherent in shared hosting plans, where another person uses up an excessive amount of of the shared resources. 

In other words, a dedicated server ensures that the server’s disk space, CPU, and memory serve only your website. While you’re the one tenant on a server, you’ll be able to tweak your website and apps to optimize your hardware usage without worrying that one other user could possibly be “stealing” your resources and lowering your performance.

Performance and peace of mind from not having to share resources will not be the one way your website is protected by having a dedicated server. The advantages of isolation also apply to security protection.

Each shared and virtual servers have a hypervisor layer that runs on top of the infrastructure, which increases your security risk as a result of its vulnerability to escalation attacks. With shared hosting, the danger is higher since you’ll be able to’t ensure that other users are following best practices for security.

While you share your server with one other business, it’s just another way that viruses and malware could have access to your data. In contrast, using dedicated hardware gives you the facility to lock down your server and forestall access to your data.

Lastly, since a dedicated server is totally yours, you’ll be able to have access to the machine at the foundation level. While some virtual servers also allow this, a dedicated server provides you with outright control over access protocols that allow you select what can access your machine through the network interface.

Selecting a dedicated secure server hosting plan is a wonderful first step in securing your website, apps, and data. Nevertheless, no server is totally proof against the threat of knowledge breaches or other malicious web attacks. Learning secure a dedicated hosting server can further reduce your risk of a costly outage and assist you improve overall performance.

Listed here are just a few steps to make sure the most effective dedicated server setup and safekeeping of your data.

In line with the 2021 Ponemon report, 68% of organizations say that cloud account takeovers are a major security risk. Your dedicated security measures can’t completely protect your data if hackers have the important thing to the door. In other words, you continue to must secure your login process. 

You possibly can do that by choosing complex passwords, leveraging two-factor authentication (2FA), and establishing robust access restriction policies. 

Install an intrusion detection system in your server to detect vulnerabilities and secure your server before you lose significant network uptime or helpful data. 

While you select Liquid Web as your hosting provider, you get multi-level DDoS protection with real-time monitoring to assist shield your website from sudden attacks.

You possibly can secure your website by utilizing the HTTPS protocol that keeps data (equivalent to passwords, messages, and bank card numbers) confidential when it’s in transit by utilizing SSL. An SSL certificate provides three layers of protection to maintain your data communications secure, including encryption, data integrity, and authentication.

Virtual private networks (more commonly referred to as VPNs) encrypt your data while using the web. VPNs protect your data by letting you determine secure connections, even in the event you’re accessing company data from a public connection. VPNs are especially useful if you’ve distant team members who could also be logging in from home offices.

Manually securing your dedicated server can seem overwhelming. If that is so on your team, you would possibly profit from selecting a managed dedicated server hosting provider with a team of experts able to secure your server. This feature may be especially useful if you’ve a small IT team. 

Choosing the right hosting setup for what you are promoting is a vital step in protecting your website, data, and customer information. 

Dedicated server hosting offers you the most effective security, performance, and configurability. And whenever you pair that with the suitable hosting company, you’ll be able to protect your data and maintain high-performance service on your customers.