Securing Servers: Best Practices for Preventing Attacks

EM Admin
Jan 9, 2025
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The world is interconnected today, where servers emerge as a significant component of IT infrastructure. Servers are synonymous with virtual space where massive volumes of data can be stored without hassles. Additionally, these spaces host web applications and also enable communication between virtual professionals. Being this crucial, they are a prime target for cyberattacks. Its proof is the IBM report, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024. It clearly highlights the average global cost of a data breach, i.e., $4.45 million. Because of this reason, businesses require the best practices to avoid attacks on servers.

Proven Strategies & Practices to Avoid Attacks

Let’s have a look into some key practices of server management that barricade cyber spies from spying.

Keep Servers Updated

Software updates are introduced to proactively control vulnerability. Attackers eye a loop in servers so that they can gain access illegally. These malicious attempts must be prevented, which is possible via these practices:

Best Practices

Focus on patch management, which requires regular security patches and updates for the server OC and application.
Employ automated tools to track and update software and hence shrink the scope for human errors.
Establish and maintain a robust patch management policy that emphasises how to avoid critical cases of vulnerability.

Use Firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)

Firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can be aligned as the foremost defence system. It can easily monitor and even filter out unauthorised incoming and outgoing traffic. This is how unauthorised access can be prevented.

Best Practices

Align firewalls so that unnecessary ports can be blocked. Once done, unauthorised access via IP addresses can be restricted.
Because prevention outshines, deploy intrusion prevention systems, or IDS, so that suspicious activities can be cracked down.
The evolution of new technologies makes it necessary to regularly audit firewall guidelines because they may need upgrades to secure organisational security policies.

Cisco’s report on cybersecurity threat trends confirms that 94% of malware starts infecting through email. This fraudulent attempt can be foiled by installing an advanced IDS. It can easily detect and block these attempts in real time.

Enforce Strong Authentication and Access Controls

Microsoft discovered that MFA enabling can prevent 99.9% of accounts from being compromised by cyberattacks.
MFA expands to multi-factor authentication. It narrows down the risk of unauthorised access significantly.

Best Practices

Technical Support Engineer helps resolve technical issues. With his assistance, enable MFA to prevent unauthorised server access. Let every visitor pass through two or more verification methods.
Set up complex passwords, which must be unique. Continue to change them periodically.
Limit the access of users while following the principle of least privilege (PoLP).

Encrypt Data

Statista found that 20% of companies experienced encryption-related breaches because of poor key management. However, encryption protects sensitive data by converting plaintext into codes or signs. Some best practices can prevent this mishap:

Best Practices

Employ robust encryption protocols, such as AES-256 for data at rest and TLS/SSL for data in transit.
Continue to update and manage encryption keys with robust security.
Full-disc encryption is necessary to secure sensitive servers.

Regulate Security Audits & Penetration Testing

Frequent monitoring informs about the risk of vulnerabilities. A 2023 Verizon report suggests that organisations that are regular with penetration testing reduce this risk by 45%. So, the risk can be discovered before any cyberattack, provided you take precautionary steps.

Best Practices

Prevention is the best cure in this case also. Simply perform regular audits of your company’s networking and communication accounts to ensure they comply with security standards like ISO 27001 or PCI DSS.
Conduct penetration testing by replicating cyberattacks. It will help in assessing server defences.
Get ready with remedies for vulnerabilities to counter them. Also, document them for forecasting challenges and fix them accordingly.

Monitor Server Logs

Critical insights into potential malicious attempts and unauthorised access attempts can be tracked through server logs. SANS has studied and found that early detection of a breach can shrink the average lifecycle of an attack from 287 days to 120 days. It’s possible through log monitoring.

Best Practices

Comprehensive loggings should be enabled so that all server activities, including logins, changes, and network traffic, can be secured from vulnerability.
Enable real-time alerts to scan suspicious activities prior.
Integrate or deploy a centralised log management tool like Splunk so that suspicious scam patterns can be tracked or analysed.

Harden Server Configurations

Default settings often invite unnecessary services. It creates the scope for exploitable vulnerabilities.

Best Practices

Discard unused ports, disable unused services, and inactivate protocols.
Instead of default names, rename accounts and also restrict their access.
Proactively execute strong configurations for your web servers like Apache. For example, directory listing can be disabled.

Backup Regularly

Backups bring delight, especially where ransomware attacks and servers fail. It helps in assuring business continuity.

Best Practices

A 3-2-1 backup strategy represents 3 copies of data, 2 storage media (which will be diverse), and 1 offsite backup.
Ensure that backups are monitored and audited regularly so that the data remains integrated and the scope for disaster would be minimal.
Backups should be encoded to eliminate unauthorised access.

Educate and Train Employees

Security breaches mainly occur because of human errors. The attacks result from phishing or weak passwords.

Best Practices

Educate employees and stakeholders about how to recognise phishing attempts and also follow security protocols.
Clearly define authentication to secure server access and its usage in the company.
Encourage a security-first culture within the organisation.

Implement Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

Gartner’s cybersecurity survey reveals that organisations deploying ATP minimise the risk of vulnerability by 30% every year. This is an advanced tool that simply identifies and neutralises sophisticated attacks.

Best Practices

Deploy machine-learning-powered threat detection tools to identify abnormal behaviour of users.
Employ endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems for better & rigorous server protection.
Provide feeds regarding threat intelligence for emerging threats.

Conclusion

Securing servers requires a multifaceted approach. It can be successful if it’s a combination of technology, policies, and continuous monitoring. Since cyberattacks are all around, businesses must prioritise regular updates, strong authentication, encryption, and proactive monitoring. Additionally, some of the proven practices are shared to execute and see the difference in your server and network security management.