Top Five Highly Useful yet Overlooked Modules of Drupal That You Need for Your Site
Drupal is the world’s third most widely used Content Management System. Like any other major platform such as WordPress and Joomla, Drupal security is also a big concern for business owners. With the increase in Drupal’s popularity, the chances of a Drupal site coming under cyber attack are higher than ever. Thus, you can never take your website’s security for granted. Security is a continuous process that needs your attention at all times. A security breach might affect your website resources and put your website reputation at stake.
We must take other actions for some Drupal-running sites rather than just keeping Drupal and its modules up-to-date with every security release. Security needs regularly re-evaluated.
With that said, let’s take a look at the five best security modules that you can have on your Drupal site to make it more secure and foolproof.
Let’s begin!
1. Session Limit
The Session Limit module allows site admins to limit the number of simultaneous sessions per user.
A session is created for each browser that a particular user employs to log in by default. This module will force a log out of any extra sessions opened after they exceed the maximum number defined within the module configuration.
By way of example, assuming the session limit is set to 1: Suppose a user is logged in to a Drupal site from their work computer. If they attempt to log in from their home computer, they would be forced to either log off the work computer session or accept not being able to log in from home.
2. Two Factor Authentication
Two Factor Authentication is a popular security measure that almost every social website, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Google, employs.
This method involves a user’s mobile phone in the login process. When a user logs in to a website, a code is sent via SMS directly to the user’s phone, which is required for logging into the site.
This Drupal security module is available for Drupal 9 as an alpha release and stable for versions below it.
3. Drupal Core Update
One of the best ways to ensure your Drupal site is always protected is to install updates to the Drupal core regularly. These updates can contain either security patches or incremental upgrades. It is a core module, and we cannot overstate its importance when it comes to making sure your Drupal site is well-maintained and in sync with Drupal’s codebase.
4. Username Enumeration Prevention
Although Drupal comes with a secure interface, it doesn’t mean it is free from exploits. Cybercriminals use the “username enumeration” technique to find usernames via forgot password forms. One only has to add a username that doesn’t exist. After that, the blackhat hacker receives a response from Drupal. The villain may try to use several different usernames on the forgotten password page until a valid username is found.
In such a scenario, it becomes essential to protect the usernames. The ‘Username Enumeration Prevention Module’ does the same. It makes it difficult for intruders to find the usernames.
The Username Enumeration Prevention module redirects the cracker to the login form, while the error message replaces the preview message. The module disables the status message informing the criminal about a username’s existence via the ‘Request New Password’ function. However, this works by replacing the text displayed to users when requesting a new password. Also, when you return the text, make sure it is more ambiguous so that it is difficult for the criminal mind to identify whether the user exists or not.
5. Mass Password Reset
This module allows site administrators to reset all user accounts and optionally notify all users by email using the Drupal password recovery email. It can be helpful when you have many users accounts pre-created and want to send password recovery emails to all users during a site launch or if you need to change all passwords on a site for security reasons quickly.
Final Say
These are a few security extensions for Drupal content management systems. Core Drupal is secure, but customizations by installing third-party themes and modules make it vulnerable. So, it is imperative to have proper penetration testing of websites to check what security vulnerabilities are in the application and patch those vulnerabilities.
Installing too many modules can make your website slow. So it’s up to you. Know the necessary modules for the security of your Drupal website. Identify which module is essential for your application and then install it on your Drupal website.
Never rely on just the installation of modules. Perform complete testing of your website to see if there is any other issue in your website. Need help with this? Contact us today.
