My client Mary asked me to add a new blog to her website. No big deal, I’ve done it many times; imagine my surprise when I discovered the entire website had vanished. There was nothing, nada, zilch, zero …… it had been hacked! And we didn’t have a backup (I had been trying to install a backup tool; only during the recovery process did we find out that malware installed by the hackers prevented its installation.)
Boy, were we in trouble! It took 2 days to get the site up and running again. We learned that it’s not enough to just have a website. Here’s what you need to do to protect your site:
- Never, ever set your WordPress login ID to “Admin;”
- Use strong passwords, consisting of letters, numbers, symbols;
- Change your password regularly;
- Never use your WordPress password anywhere else;
- Explore and use plugins that monitor your site; alternatively sign up with a monitoring/clean-up service;
- Create regular, and complete backups of your site and download to your hard drive so that you have a copy.
Don’t wait until a hack-attack; avoid the trouble and follow these simple steps to protect your site.
What steps have you put in place to secure a trouble-free site?