After pouring your heart and soul into your new blog, the last thing you want to discover is your blog. URL now points to a site with illegal content or an online pharmacy or is dropping malware onto your faithful readers’ computers. Like any other website, blogs can get hacked, and even though credit card information or other sensitive data is probably not at risk, you need to do what you can to protect your blog and readers. Unless website security is your day job, getting professional assistance from BBB-accredited companies like Sitelock is probably a good idea. Read some Sitelock reviews to see if they have a plan that fits your needs. In the meantime, there are some “best practices” that you should add to your daily routines to ensure that you aren’t making it easy for the bad guys to compromise your blog.
Change the default username.
A surprising number of people overlook that the default username for WordPress sites is “Admin.” Changing this should be your first order of business – otherwise, you have just made a hacker’s job 50% easier by giving them half of your credentials.
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Have a strong password
Have a password that no one with a dictionary can crack! Many people have passwords that contain words that can be broken in seconds. Adding numbers helps, but the best passwords will be at least 15 characters long, contain no words, and mix up numbers, letters, and symbols.
Keep current
One of the easiest ways to protect your blog is to make sure that you take every opportunity to update your WordPress software and plugins. Out-of-date plugins can provide easy access to hackers and should be deleted if unused. Most of the programs and plugins you use will tell you when they are ready to be updated – listen to them!
Disable pingbacks and trackbacks
Pingbacks or trackbacks let bloggers know when another site has linked to them. While this might be useful, it also invites spammers and hackers to use your location to launch attacks on other sites. Unless you have an excellent reason to know who is linking to you (beyond the pleasure of confirmation that you have interesting content!), you should consider turning off this feature.
Require a Captcha at the login.
Captchas are those admittedly irritating tasks that you may have to complete before you are allowed to login in. You have to perform simple math, identify pictures of cupcakes, or type in text from distorted images. These tasks make it more difficult for automated efforts to crack your password.
None of these strategies will guarantee that your blog stays secure, but combined with regular site surveillance, they will go a long way toward that goal.
