Hacking has been an ongoing problem on the web. Sophos, an IT security company, estimates that they found hundreds of thousands cloaked PDF documents in search results, which they reported to Google. To counter the hacking threat, Google is aggressively increasing its efforts to remove hacked sites from search results. If your site is on the WordPress platform, now is the time to review your security, backup, and real-time monitoring services. WordPress is open-source, free, and widely used, which makes it more vulnerable to hackers than many other web platforms. Your WordPress site might look great, but is it secure?
How Your Site Gets Hacked
Most commonly, WordPress sites get hacked when they’re not updated. Since WordPress is open-source, updates–and the vulnerabilities they fix–are posted publicly, which means that menacing hackers then have a detailed description of the chinks in the armor of WordPress security. Then, with that lethal information, they shoot their hacking arrows into websites that aren’t updated yet. WordPress updates come in three categories: core, themes, and plug-ins. Core updates are updates to the WordPress software itself while theme and plug-in updates address issues in your themes and plug-ins. For the most effective security, all three kinds of updates should be installed as soon as they are released.
The Woes of Not Having a Site Backup
You may have assumed that backing up is only for content on your local computer hard drive, but that all content online is automatically safe. Not so! Websites need to be backed up just as much as your computer. If you suffer a seriously-hacked website, where your site is destroyed with malicious code, you’ll be happy to have a backup you can revert it to. Otherwise, you may end up needing to recreate your entire website! You can’t afford the lost time and business from downtime. So, backup, backup, backup. And don’t wait until your site gets hacked.
What Real-Time Monitoring Does for You
Real-time monitoring means that a nifty monitoring service is constantly watching your site for potential hacking activity. If it detects malicious activity, it will automatically fix and clean the issue before you can say “boo.” Even with regular updates and backups, WordPress can be vulnerable. That’s why it’s important to combine your WordPress security and backup with real-time monitoring.
Don’t wait until your website gets hacked or kicked off Google search results to figure out a hack-proof solution. Start creating an effective barricade now with a WordPress security and backup service with real-time monitoring. Fortunately, at Optimize Worldwide, we offer all three in one convenient subscription package.
