The only way to fully guarantee that a website won’t be targeted for ill-intended intrusion or data leaks is to take it offline and leave it down indefinitely. Think about it, you won’t have to deal with any more possibly-shady security suites, you won’t have to mull over line after line of programming, heck, you also won’t have to even worry about safeguarding data anymore. There’s a catch there, though: You will also have to miss out on the single most powerful driving force in the world today – Income.

Bodyguards are a bad choice for data breaches. Good for intrusion, though.

(If that sounds like an acceptable tradeoff to you, I suggest taking a vacation to rethink your approach.)

ALL the Reputations Are at Stake

In most versions of reality, shutting down a client’s or your website like that just sounds like a nonsensical idea forged in the imagination and tempered by fear. However, keeping the site up also means addressing security concerns and protecting every piece of your occupational network, including yourself, your client’s business and the site’s visitors. From those groups, you have three very important things at stake: Your reputation as a web developer, a company’s growing role as a trustworthy and competent organization, and customers’ private information. Yes, that means there’s a ton of pressure riding on your actions. But these days you don’t have to handle it all on your own.

The Tangled Web of Site Security

The most important thing you can do to defend a website from intruders and data thieves is to get your code up to par with today’s insanely complicated mess of security standards like those discussed at OWASP and SANS. Now, I might be making an assumption here, but I have a strong feeling you aren’t fully versed on how to build an integrated defense system that covers all of your properties and web app. Don’t worry, no one knows it all.

Where You’re Not Alone

However, some very bright people have created a code analysis tool that, when their various areas of expertise were combined, knows and can help with more than any one person has the capability to handle on his or her own. In fact, Checkmarx (the startup behind this tool) in this specific example – has some remarkable tools set up that will not only analyze your raw coding for breach points and exploitable holes, but they have on-demand implementation available as well.

Now Make Sure it All Works

So, after you’ve -presumably- configured your security settings properly and ensured your content is free from exploitable code, you get to take up the adrenaline-filled task of sitting in front of your computer for hours, if not days, testing every data parameter and server jump your web apps and site have access to. To get your testing done with minimal migraines as well as some actually fun testing methodologies Tamper Data is a killer Firefox plugin worth, at the very least, to jumpstart your security tests. Eventually, you’ll find yourself with the online security equivalent of Fort Knox.

For you, that means exactly what you’d want it to mean. Thorough, proven site and web app security that’ll make you look like an all-star amongst your clients (and whomever they tell your legendary tales to). Then again, if you’re not ready for the responsibility, there’re always park benches available to nap on.