Astra Security: All-in-One Tool to Secure Your Website (Review)

It is a well-known fact that every website needs security. Personal blogs to ecommerce stores, everyone needs to keep their data and visitors secure. In this age of cyber warfare, data privacy and website security have become a greater concern. Massive attacks can render even large corporations helpless at once.

Securing a website is a tedious task and everyone cannot be good at security. If web admins focus mainly on maintenance tasks when to secure the website? How can average users secure their site? The answer to all these questions is the Astra security suite.

Astra makes security effortless for the average and the expert user. It is a plug and play solution and provides a nice, intuitive dashboard from where everything can be managed via a simple click.

Every Website Needs A Security Solution

Cybercrime syndicates mount large-scale attacks affecting multiple websites at once. Moreover, search engines are constantly scanning websites looking for potential vulnerability. According to an infographic compiled by Astra.

• 86% of websites contain least one serious vulnerability
• 33% of shoppers hesitate to shop because of a lack of trust in websites
• More than 40,000 websites are hacked every day
• 1 million new malware threats are released every day

The situation is alarming. These vulnerabilities are accessible to anyone on the Internet for a small fee or almost free. Using them, a single cyber attack can render the website to a halt and damage its reputation in the long term. The protection against this is using a website security plugin.

Importance of a Security Solution

Security solution like Astra is the first line of defense. Vulnerabilities within the site can arise due to multiple reasons. A security solution protects the server from getting compromised due to them. Security solutions help keep the site safe for visitors.

The lapses in website security occur due to the casual approach adopted by the web admins. Most of them say, “Mine is just a small website what can possibly go wrong?” Well to answer that, lots and lots! Some web admins consider their jobs done by installing an HTTPS certificate. While others tend to leave sensitive files open to the internet. Some like to use default or hard-coded passwords. These causal approaches are a threat to site security!

How Astra Website Security Can Help

Email & SEO Spam

Typically websites affected with Email spam experience a bulk of inbound or outbound emails. Moreover, email spam leads to blacklisting of the server’s IP. Astra security solution is specially designed to prevent the email spam. Astra blocks any attempts of hacking thus keeping the SMTP server safe.

Some common SEO Spams are the Japanese SEO spam or Viagra Cialis hack which gets sites blacklisted and affect their search engine ranking. Astra firewall prevents attackers to inject spam within the site. Astra also notifies the web admins if the server IP has been blacklisted and provides full cleanup.

OWASP Top 10

Some vulnerabilities are more frequently found within the websites than others. These include SQL injection, XSS, LFI etc. Astra prevents those vulnerabilities from being exploited.

Credit Card Hack

Attackers constantly try to breach the site’s security in order to steal credit card info by injecting PHP or Javascript code. This info is either sold on the dark web or used directly to generate revenue for the attacker. Astra gives a high priority to keep the user’s data safe and blocks injection of any PHP or javascript file in your website. Every login is notified to the user. While suspicious logins are blocked.

Phishing Attack

Often, hackers inject pages into the site directory to steal user info. This could be anything from a simple phone number, password to credit card info as described above. Google follows a very strict policy for phishing or any other social engineering content and blacklists websites which are flagged by its scanners. Visitors to such websites are shown a warning message by Google.

Astra protects websites in real-time against phishing and also provides a reputation monitoring system. Therefore, if the site is already infected, the site owner is notified regarding the site getting blacklisted.

Offer: To get started up with securing your website simply choose a plan here and signup. As a bonus, all Cloudways customers are eligible for a flat 15% lifetime discount on all Astra plans, use code – CLOUDWAYS15ASTRA to avail your discount.

Other Features of Astra

Blacklist Monitoring

Astra scans your site URL through some 66+ blacklist engines each day. The web admins are quickly notified when the site is blacklisted.

Community Security

Astra leverages the power of community and offers a fully managed responsible disclosure program. This makes you known as a security conscious company.

Blocking Bad Bots

Astra blocks malicious bots which can scrape website content, choke bandwidth & mine vulnerabilities.

Honeypots

Honeypots deployed by Astra automatically trick and trap hackers and other automation tools trying to find and exploit vulnerabilities within the site.

Human Assistance

Astra provides with real-time human assistance in case any problem is encountered. The users can use the chat and ticket support available on the website.

Multiple CMS Support

Astra can prevent attacks on every kind of CMS. WordPress, Joomla, OpenCart, PrestaShop etc you name it, Astra secures it.

Zero Day Attacks

Astra is great at preventing Zero-Day Vulnerability (ZDV) exploitations as our defense mechanisms are constantly updated to block suspicious behavior.

The important thing to note here is that Web Application Firewalls (WAF) can be bypassed in case a ZDV exploits an attack vector that is not handled by any of Firewall’s rules. However, more often than not, post the discovery of the vulnerability, we have seen that Astra was already blocking it.

Security Audit/Penetration Testing

In addition to the WAF, Astra security suite offers the following services: economically

• Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT)
• Static & Dynamic Code Analysis
• Business logic error testing
• Technical Assistance in Patching found Security Vulnerabilities
• Collaborative Cloud Dashboard for Vulnerability Reporting
• Access to our security tools/APIs
• Web Security Best Practices Consultancy

Astra Website Security Is Powerful

It is pretty simple to secure your site with Astra. After a quick installation, the dashboard starts displaying the details of attacks stopped by Astra. Our engineers perform automated and manual scans on your website to remove all malicious scripts and backdoor.

Astra Security Is Powerful!

Unlike other DNS-based website security solutions which require multiple installation procedures like changing nameservers, Astra Security is a compact alternative which does not require you to play around with DNS. You can install Astra as mentioned above or our engineers would be happy to help you configure it.

Pricing and Plans

The large client base of Astra can be attributed to its flexible pricing. Astra offers the three main security packages to its clients:

It is economically viable for smaller blogs too. You can start using Astra at just $12 per month. Security now costs less than a pizza!

Website Security Under One Roof

Astra is a one-stop solution to all cybersecurity issues. You also get the “Secured by Astra” seal which, in addition to validating the security, is known to increase customer trust and thus increase the conversions.

This is a typical picture of an Astra Dashboard.

Astra Dashboard provides info regarding:

• Successful and unsuccessful login attempts.
• IP addresses of every account logged in.
• A comprehensive log regarding the login activity.
• List of threats blocked by Astra.
• The threat tab also contains the files most targeted by attackers.
• Vulnerabilities detected.
• Other system settings.

With a perfect combination of automatic and human support, Astra is your best bet on website security.

So what are you waiting for, get a demo now!

Saud Razzak

Saud is the WordPress Community Manager at Cloudways - A Managed WooCommerce Hosting Platform. Saud is responsible for creating buzz, spread knowledge, and educate the people about WordPress in the Community around the globe. In his free time, he likes to play cricket and learn new things on the Internet. You can email him at [email protected]

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