Your blog security is important and my friend Jesse found out the hard way when his blog got hacked. Fortunately, he didn’t lose any data.
Did you know there is more money in cybercrime than the illegal drug trade? And many cybercriminals would love to hack any established blog or Website?
3 Blog Security Tips
1) Choose a good password and CHANGE it regularly.
What’s a good password? No dictionary words, certainly no words or phrases remotely connected to who you like as your favorite sports team, your daughter’s name, or your blog’s name either!
Ideally, I suggest a combination of letters, numbers, and at least one non alpha-numeric character. Preferably something you can remember easily but that no one can guess easily.
Be creative! For example, Ba!dIPe was something I used once that I could remember easily (note it contains not just letters and numbers and non-alpha numerics, but capitals and lowercase too — a good thing).
Despite what most “security gurus” tell you, you CAN write down your password if needed as long as you keep it safe and treat it like a credit card. For example, keep it in your wallet or purse, and if it gets lost change it immediately.
2) Back up your content regularly.
Just in case! Backing up your ’stuff’ is critical for blog security, because you never know what may happen. One entire blog network disappeared because they didn’t have good backups.
Check out your blog platform’s help for backing up your contentost have pretty simple steps documented.
3) Update your Blogging Software regularly.
If you have your own Web server with blog software installed on it, for example WordPress, MoveableType or ExpressionEngine, update it regularly. Updates typically fix bugs and known blog security flaws the bad guys know about.
Note that If you are using a hosted solution like TypePad, Blogger, or WordPress, they update the software themselves.
Will this actually hack proof your blog? No, but it will make it much less likely that you’ll get hacked, just like if you’re a safe driver it’s much less likely you’ll have an accident.
I could go on almost forever since I’m a security guy, but these three blog security tips will make you MUCH less likely to get hacked and extremely inconvenienced or worse!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Some good basic security tips, but I would also suggest to use htaccess to password or even ip-protect wp-admin.
Great recommendation. If I get some time I will add that in. Thanks a lot Wesley.
Nice basic tips. @Wesley, I use that htaccess tip that you suggested. Prior to that, I had a lot of people attempt to access my admin area.
In addition, I hide my version and add indexes to my plugins and uploads folder… And last, I also deleted the ‘admin’ account and replaced it with one with a different username.
Your Blog is looking pretty safe. Don’t mess with Velvet Blues.
Haha. Please don’t sic the hackers on me!
That is great advice. I did try password that had nothing to do with me…such as car parts! I forgot them all the time…. lol
Great tips. A friend of mine built a blog recently and started receiving a ridiculous amount of traffic. On Christmas eve, someone hacked into his blog and erased everything. Fortunately, he’d been backing up, but it was a stressful ordeal for him. Since then I’ve been backing up like crazy. And with Wordpress, you can have backups of your database sent to you daily. It’s a beautiful thing
Wow. What a Christmas present! Yes, I back up regularly, so if I am ever hacked, I can restore within half an hour.
I’m admittedly naughty with the password thing, but i’m also trying to learn some of the other tips mentioned here. I too get the daily back-up also.
All three of these steps that you outlines here are pretty crucial. I was going to say especially backups but then I’d have to add especially a strong password and especially updating to the latest version of your blogging platform that doesn’t have known security exploits.
-Gerald Weber
Just out of curiosity, do people get their blogs hacked frequently? For all the talk about business, money making, etc. I never hear about blog hacking..?
What would be the point?
Security is something people often put on the back burner thinking “I’ll get to it later” but they never do. It’s really important to protect your assets or you could lose everything.