Things I don’t like
There’s a lot of things in this life that I personally don’t like doing, and some of them I avoid. Blogging is one of them, obviously. If you don’t know why that’s obvious it’s because long-term readers know that I don’t blog very often. I did it regularly for a long time and I just don’t like it, it became a chore, a job, yuck.
You know what else I don’t like? Rebuilding websites. Not to be confused with building websites, I do like to build them, but I DON’T like rebuilding them. I’ve lost websites due to server crashes, updates when there wasn’t enough memory (oh sure, like YOU do everything perfectly the first time you try something), and a few other reasons, but I’ve never lost a site to a hacker. Not yet anyway.
Hacking happens
I’ve had attempts on several of my own sites and on several of my client’s sites and on my friend’s sites as well. Some of my friends have had their sites hacked successfully and know others as well who’s sites were hacked.
And these weren’t mega-corporation sites, these were small sites. Hey, hacking happens. Why do hackers target inconsequential sites? Who knows? But it does happen. It happens a lot.
WordPress is a popular target
I’ve heard that nearly 1/3 of all websites run WordPress. That doesn’t surprise me, WordPress is easy to use and versatile. It may not fit every situation, but it suits a lot of them. It’s currently my favorite platform. I can quickly build a site, hand it over to someone, show them a few basics and they are off and running.
All the more reason for hackers to target it.
Keep your site updated and backed up
One of the essentials is to keep current backups of your site. Another is to keep your WordPress updated. And by “WordPress” I don’t mean just the core files, but all your plugins and theme(s) too. I do offer a service where I will back up and update your WordPress site either monthly or weekly depending on your package choice.
Not only do I keep regularly scheduled backups, but I make an extra backup right before I update your site, so if something does go wrong, I’m covered.
I used to offer a WordPress Maintenance and Backup Package which morphed into a complete, comprehensive website care service, but I eventually stopped offering that.
Securing your site
Although there’s no way to completely stop hacking, you can stop the lazy and the inexperienced ones. It’s a simple concept, they want easy targets so make your site a difficult target. It’s that easy. One of the things I do (and my company used to do) is install a Security Lockdown Package on WordPress sites.
Of course, you can install a bunch of security plugins, firewalls, anti-spam plugins, etc, and configure them. You can rename your WordPress database on your own and change your login page to something else on your own.
Or you can hire someone to do it. I’ve done it a lot, and I see results.
– Jeffery