Website Security Shopping: Not for the Impulsive!

Making a major purchase is rarely easy. If you’re in the market for a new television set, you’ll probably do a bit of research on the different brands, read reviews and compare prices. If you’re looking to buy a new car, you’re not likely to walk onto a lot, pick one and drive off. Instead, you’ll probably kick a few tires, take a test drive and have a look at the competition. Doing your homework before making a purchase may not only save you a few dollars, but will give you peace of mind that you received what you wanted at the best price.

So why should shopping for website security be any different? Well, it shouldn’t!

As a webmaster and/or IT manager, choosing the right website security solution will take some research. It’s not as simple as choosing the largest company and moving forward, it’s about finding a solution that fits your unique needs. We believe there are three key areas that need to be addressed when searching for the right security solution:

Security: How much security is the potential solution offering? Will it be enough to cover your security needs? If your company is an SMB, will you receive the same level of security as larger companies? With new threats arriving constantly, how protected will you be? How is the security provider able to prevent not only the more traditional threats, but emerging threats that have yet to arise?

Side Effects: What kind of effects will this solution have on my current website? Will it affect the speed of my site? Will it chew up my resources? How will it affect the current load on my server? How do I know I’m blocking threats without also locking out valuable business leads? How will I know if my website has been targeted by a threat?

Service: How user friendly is the solution? Is it easy to install? Will I need to install hardware or software? Is the solution easy to maintain? And perhaps most importantly: how affordable is the solution and how will it affect my company’s bottom line?

These questions need to be asked and the security provider you choose should be able to sufficiently answer them. Security shopping shouldn’t be an impulse buy and just like any other product, at the end of the day you should have peace of mind that you received what you wanted & needed at the best price.