We talk about it less and yet it is a very serious problem. It is so serious that it pushes thousands of Internet users to abandon their blog or at least what remains of it every year. I'm talking about hacking your blog by hackers. This is an idea that scares most bloggers because it can cause the loss of all your data (articles – files – pages – videos – plugin configuration)…
If this has happened to you (as it was the case for me) then you know how bad it is and especially how discouraging it is. If you have no idea, then imagine a person who has an active blog since 3 years ago, this blog has 2000 loyal readers and 500 new readers every day ... now imagine that this blog becomes unavailable overnight, worse again, imagine that the author of the blog is unable to connect to his blog or restore all lost data that represent:
- Years of hard work flying away
- Thousands of loyal and potential readers looking elsewhere
- A turnover reduced to NÉANT
What hurts the most is the idea of starting all over again when we review all the sacrifices made. Unfortunately, this is happening to thousands of bloggers every year.
Instead of waiting for this to happen to think about different ways to solve the problem, you should do prevention. Here are some helpful tips that will help you avoid the worst.
1. Always update your blog
As we know, most bloggers use WordPress, and certainly most of them use a solution self-hosted. His update is crucial. WordPress has become very popular, making it the ideal prey for many hackers. By updating your installation (automatically) you get some vulnerability fixes. Think about it, it will only cost you 2 clicks!
2. Choose secure credentials and passwords
This is an aspect regularly overlooked by bloggers. The choice of an identifier and a password at registration must not be random. Change your default "admin" identifier to one that is original and not very easy to imagine. As far as your password is concerned, it must be alphanumeric. It must contain at least 10 characters among which we will find uppercase letters, numbers, lowercase letters and symbols. For example, a password such as " julien32 Will be easier to crack than " MOT2passe? ^ $ ».
3. Strengthen security with WordPress plugins
There are a large number of WordPress plugins free of charge that can help you do this job.
Secure WordPress : it removes essential meta-information that a hacker could use against your blog. For example, it will be difficult to see which version of WordPress you are using at the moment.
Limit Login Attempts : it limits the number of connection attempts to your blog.
WP Security Scan : It offers a specific report on your WordPress configuration and suggests corrective actions.
4. Secure your system
For those who are not tech savvy like me, you should know that WordPress is software that also runs on an operating system. Malicious code can reach your blog if your system is infected. In fact, your software blogging will never be safer than your own operating system. So you understand that the safer your system is, the safer your blog is (in addition to other security tips). Alternatively, you can check with your ISP, more and more of them are offering internet security options to their subscribers.
Here is a list of antivirus solutions listed in my order of preference.
- Eset Nod32
- Symantec (Norton)
- AVG (large free solution)
- Kaspersky
- McAfee
5. Perform automatic backups
the plugin WP-DB Backup allows you to perform automated backups of your database.
6. Block Spammers
You can use Akismet (which analyzes comments through hundreds of tests) to block unwanted comments.
Even with prevention, the risk remains. Start by putting these tips into practice and your blog (which will not necessarily be the most secure) will be less vulnerable than millions of others who are at the mercy of hackers.
If you have ideas, solutions, I would be grateful to share them with other readers of this blog.
Thanks for these tips which I will be applying on my blog. You are right the first thing to do on a blog that is a security a very useful article for Internet users the kind of article that you rarely find on the web you have a very educational blog I will be a subscriber
it seems it is possible to make sure that we can connect to the administrator interface of our blog from a certain IP address, I would like to do that but I do not know how
Thank you Bertrand for this article, I just installed the "Secure WordPress" plugin.
You talk in your article about database backup. Which plugin do you use to restore a database in case of problem. I am using WordPress Importer but it apparently uses this kind of extensions: WXR (.xml)!
thanks again
Chafik
I use this one: WordPress Database Backup
Thank you Thierry for your advice, this article will help us not to be hacked.
Nothing, and thank you for your comment.
: )
Hello Thierry
Very good article!
Before launching their blog, new bloggers should not take lightly the indications that you have just listed in your article.
Indeed, finding yourself without blog overnight must be a very bad time to spend.
Because it's years of work that flies away in a matter of minutes.
I created a blog on network marketing myself and downloaded the WP-DB Backup plugin. I opened an express gmail email address for using the plugin. I set it to send me a backup every day to my dedicated mailbox. I prefer to plan ahead because it happens quickly.
I have also activated Akismet which I find quite powerful.
Regarding the three plugins you just mentioned, I did not know them.
Thank you very much for sharing this info !!!
Sincerely,
Olivier
Good evening Olivier,
Glad to know that you take care of your blog. We all have an interest in doing it because as we often say: "You never know ..." 🙂
Really interesting about what you do
Chapeau
Thanks Red1
Hope this article has helped you protect your blog.
Sincerely,
Thierry