Drupal Security Guide: How to Secure and Protect Your Website

Drupal provides a customizable CMS framework to develop the user's website. You can create a simple website with a minimalist design for the highly complex web applications on Drupal. However, sometimes you take the security features for granted here, don't you? After all, Drupal has a flourishing track record in cyber security and data privacy.

Drupal unquestionably offers a paramount security framework in its digital landscape; nevertheless, the potential risk of cybercrimes and security breaches prevails. Hence, while doing Drupal website development, it is vital to understand the security vulnerabilities and preventive measures clearly.

Use this detailed guide to mitigate your concerns and protect your Drupal website from unwarranted threats and malicious activities.

Drupal Security and its Importance

Data protection against misuse and unethical access is an excellent concern while developing a website. Drupal, fortunately, offers round-the-clock security patches under the supervision of security experts. The scrutinizing process and regular updates ensure robust protection against uncalled cyber risks and intentional malfunctioning.

Drupal security is vital because a secure website assures clients' data and information protection, and as a result, it inbuilt unbreakable trust. Prioritizing website security also attracts organic traffic, enabling higher ranking on SERPs. Likewise, there are several digital and analog reasons to support Drupal security.

Vulnerabilities of Drupal Security

Despite being one of the most secure digital landscapes, vulnerabilities exist in Drupal security code. The Drupal CMS security may disintegrate when a hacker exploits the victim’s system by attacking it through a remote code execution attack. The host servers of Drupal 7 and 8 versions were majorly influenced by the remote code execution named Drupalgeddon2 and Drupalgeddon3, which were rectified in 2018.

As per the CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure) details, the Drupal CMS reported 324 vulnerabilities. This report was enough to raise the eyebrows of many. Suppose you see the complete vulnerability chart; 45.6% of total accounts to XSS currently prevail in Drupal. Likewise, other vulnerabilities keep popping up, though the experts keep working on thickening the security features.

Top Security Measures of Drupal

Drupal is an advanced CMS platform that provides integrated benefits to users. Hence, keep reading this article to understand the recommended methods to secure your Drupal website.

1. Keep up with Latest Updates

To mitigate the risk of malicious activities on your Drupal website, keep updating it with the current modules. A non-updated website has a high exposure risk to hackers' attacks. Following the prescribed instructions, you can easily update your Drupal website to the latest version.

You must install the updates, modules, and themes from authenticated sources such as Drupal repository or acclaimed entities.

2. Block Access Permissions

You can protect your Drupal website by securing access permission to preserve essential files. With Drupal, you enjoy various benefits like multiple users and roles. Once you start operating on Drupal and installing the modules, you can manually grant access and permissions for the roles such as admin, editor, anonymous users, authenticated users, etc.

The user must block access to sensitive files such as install.php file, upgrade.php file, cron.php file, and authorize.php files to bar intruders from exercising unwelcome activities. On Drupal, you must also allow minor permission, like the read-only for anonymous users.

3. Transfer Website to HTTPS

Drupal exercises various security measures to prevent security breaches; however, you must also do your best to protect your website from multiple threats. You can transfer your website to HTTPS by following some easy steps to do so. You can get the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate from Drupal or from any web hosting provider and start with the transfer process of converting your URL to HTTPS.

With this transfer of your URL from HTTP to HTTPS, your website will be much safer from hackers who can impede the functioning and intrude between the communication of your website and browser.

4. Refrain from Weak Login ID and Password

A weak login ID or password can easily lose your Drupal website security against hacking threats and malicious activities. Although Drupal has always stood firm against the breaches methods, a hacker may use the Brute Force method to assert the user details by trying various combinations until they succeed in getting the same.

A strong password that contains a combination of alphanumeric digits and special characters, with a minimum length of 12 to 14 characters, is considered the most suitable one. Complex and unique user details eliminate the risk of information prediction by hackers.

5. Limiting Login Attempts

The Brute Force attack is a significant threat in providing unlimited and unrestricted rights to login attempts. By limiting the attempts, you can step up towards securing your Drupal website. Drupal 7 and above versions cured this issue by restricting the wrong login attempts to 5 per user within the timeframe of 6 hours.

However, if you are still using the older versions of Drupal, you can still protect your website by adding the Drupal security module to restrict the number of login attempts.

6. Regular Drupal Website Backup

Performing the regular Drupal website backup can aid you during unfortunate security breaches. If you have the backup ready, you can easily roll back with the quick recovery of your website.

The Drupal core and modules are essential backup files; it is vital to include all the primary and elementary features of your website for backing up. To avoid unforeseen episodes, you must back up your essential data before Drupal updates or installing newer modules and themes.

7. Safeguard your Website against Malicious Files

It would help if you restricted the user's activities to safeguard your website against any malicious uploads. It is better to provide only read-only permissions to unauthenticated users as if they can upload files; your website may attract hackers to upload malicious files containing viruses.

Drupal offers an in-built security feature to curb this problem. Using the allowable "Content-Type" security feature, you can restrict many activities that could harm your Drupal website.

8. Employ the Drupal Security Modules

Drupal offers a series of robust security modules to curb the possibility of hacker attacks. To prevent continuous hackers attack on your website, you can adopt these segments and secure against malicious networks and activities.

You can also strengthen the password, impede the various security threats, check file modifications, check the rate limit, implement firewall security features to obstruct possible threats, monitor the DNS changes, adopt the CAPTCHA module, etc.

9. Secure Drupal Database

Along with all the above measures, it is equally important to secure the backend of your website. To secure the Drupal database, use the unique table prefix to create a stubborn layer against your backend files to prevent unwarranted intruder attacks. The table prefix will make it very difficult for hackers to make predictions and enter your website to do malicious activities.

10. Periodical Scanning through Drupal Malware Scanner

To expose the hidden malware on your Drupal website, you must scan your website periodically. Malware usually remains invisible until they start harming your website functioning on a large scale. You may check our Third-party Tools for malware scanners available to scan your Drupal website.

Defacement, Blacklisting, and Black Hat SEO are malware that continuously harms your website until they are found and crushed. The Malware scanner lets you discover the malware present in your website and decrease downtime.