Finding the right secure and reliable web hosting provider comes down to the support level. If you have been following the past Cyber Security Fundamentals post series, then you will want to be asking the same questions you asked yourself to them. Understanding what support they truly provide is key when it comes to your business presence.

  • Do they perform backups on your behalf?
  • Do they enforce secure plugins to be installed?
  • Do they ban software or plugins that are known to be harmful or malicious?
  • Do they enforce strong passwords?
  • Do they apply patches on your software to ensure a secure platform? Do they notify you before they do it?
  • Do they monitor your site and their infrastructure for security and performance issues? Do they tell you about them?
  • Do they have a status blog and communicate issues in a responsible manner? Or do they try to hide their issues?
  • Are they a reseller to another service provider? Some resellers provide real added value, but you will want to dig deeper to determine who actually does what and ensure it happens. You don’t want to end up in a situation where the provider was pointing at someone else down the chain and throwing their responsibility out the window.

In the end, all of these questions is trying to determine how intentional are they on helping you. Are they there to partner with you and support your business? By their actions are they secure and reliable? Sure you can do many of these things yourself, but if you are paying for support and management of your website, shouldn’t they have some responsibility over it as well?