ARE YOU STRUGGLING WITH HACKERS?
Losing your blog content can destroy a business reputation or the online presence you have been trying to build; Ponder on This! You’ve got a blog which had hundreds of posts, comments and even affiliate links only to get to your notice that it has been destroyed a while later! Not a good vibe neither a nice feeling. The fact that your blog is small doesn’t mean you’re immune from being hacked. Trust me! Hackers can sometimes prefer to place their target on smaller websites because those tend to have less protection. Hello! Who Says You Can’t Be Protected? Here are a few informative tips to help in securing your blog or website content. I hope it helps you!
Back Up
This is the first and most paramount step. Before making any changes, ensure to backup your entire ‘Data Base’ (DB). This can be done manually or with the use of an available plugin. I strongly recommend backup buddy which enables the backing up of your entire WordPress blog and lets you easily restore it at a later point in time. Always have this in mind!
Use Brawny Passwords
Hackers are used to the default WordPress login which is “admin.” Changing this to something else that would be difficult to think of is the wise thing to do. You shouldn’t make yourself vulnerable to your attackers – a hacker tries to guess the password by going through lots of passwords user combinations.
In securing your password, you should give this following a shot:
Use brawny passwords which include upper/lower case characters
Use unique characters such as !#@…
Ensure not to use a password such as your birth date which has proven to be insecure since hackers can find personal information easily.
Do not forget to have lots of different passwords. If you have only one password, accessing everything through it will be easy by someone who gets to know this password. This is the more reason you need to use lots of different passwords.
Get Unwanted Plugins Out
Are you aware that themes and plugins are often used as entry points for hackers with harmful intentions?
It is wise to review what you have installed regularly and delete any you no longer use. This process reduces the rate of potential entry points into your blog.
NB – Excess plugins can make your job difficult and more complicated than it needs to be. It also can slow down your website’s loading speed by adding extra HTTP requests. If your website loads slowly, the tendency of being haunted is high which may lead to losing customer trust and also cause a decrease in sales.
No Directory Browsing
Prohibiting people from browsing your websites directory structure is very vital. I’ll give you an assignment just for you to know this is real. Enter “index of” into Google and Google will list all the websites that allow the browsing of directories. In order words, it is not a good idea to allow your visitors to browse through your entire directory. NB – This act is easy to find out about directory structures and this makes it easier for hackers to lookout for security holes.
In order to bring this behaviour to an end all you need do is add the line of code from below to your .htaccess file in the root directory of WordPress.
Options All -Indexes
This will stop the behaviour all at once.
Inactive Users Should Be Deleted
Inactive user accounts are not relevant and also can be a security risk to your site. Some persons are not informed when it comes to choosing strong passwords. They end up having weak passwords when they sign up for your blog. If the account is inactive but still on your blog, hackers could use this account to gain access to your blog.
That’s why it is of the essence to delete inactive user accounts in WordPress and also ensure this process doesn’t break anything. To actualize this aim, go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Users. This takes you to the page where you see the list of every user. Then go ahead and delete the ones you are sure are inactive.
I trust these tips to be of great help to you and by applying them, I am sure the chances of being hacked will be less.
How secure is your WordPress blog? Kindly share in the comments below if you have a tip.
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