Tips to protect your website from getting hacked
Are you precious about your website security? Uncertain about what preventative measures you can take to impede hackers from taking down your website or accessing your supposedly secure online files and data?
Avoid being hacked – Official Google News concerning online security.
Below are some valuable tips to reduce the risk of your sensitive data getting hacked or stolen personal data!
1. Password Security
Many people and business owners use passwords that are memorable to them. We have seen scenarios whereby:
- people will use their first name as the username and their last name as the password
- they will use their first and last name as the username and their date of birth as their password
- most commonly, people will use their email address as their username and a simple one-word tag as their password.
How to create a strong, secure password that will give you peace of mind:-
Firstly you need to create a password that is made up of various characters. Including UPPERCASE LETTERS, lowercase letters, num83r5 (numbers), symb@}s (symbols) and punct,at1on (punctuation).
Why? Because hackers or code breakers use various automated tools to scan all the different combinations, usually of standard lowercase letters. Making your password with all the available characters ensures that hackers will not find your password. Imagine how many different combinations there are with all of these libraries and their variables!
Secondly, you should choose a password that is at least 15 characters in length. Strong password generator tools online can help make a strong password for you if you find it challenging to conjure up a password like this. If you are a Mac user, you can install Apple’s simple dashboard widget that will generate a password for you at the click of a button, which is useful quite often.
Read tips about solid passwords.
Why new domain suffixes are being released, in theory, the new suffixes – everything from .baby to .books and more – should help website owners to create unique, exciting domain names. A whole assortment of new URLs can be established and used to release these new suffixes. Businesses can create memorable, to-the-point URLs that catch their customers’ attention with a little bit of creativity.
2. Software Updates
Whether you are a PC user, use a server for stored files or have a website, all your software must be updated. Outdated software is very vulnerable to hackers. In layman’s terms, you are simply opening your front door to them and inviting them in for a cup of tea.
Outdated software is insecure. All of the latest updates released by software companies will have all the latest patches, and software companies will have spent a considerable amount of time and investment in eradicating vulnerabilities.
If you have add-ons on your website or plugins that are not up to date, they need to be removed or updated. They are an easy way for hackers to embed their tracking codes into corrupt files that can lead to stealing your private data.
3. Be alert to suspect email addresses
Hackers are becoming very sneaky with all of the phishing emails of late. It would be best to be very careful what emails you open and what links you click on in those emails.
Hackers usually attempt to hack your email address first – this is why it is essential to create a strong password. Once they steal your email information, they send malicious links to all your contacts.
Whatever you do, never click on any link that looks suspicious. If you do, you will be the target of a hack, and a file will attach itself to your computer. These hacks come in the form of many guises. One of the most used hacks will remember all of your keyword strokes, and you will never know it is even there. While quietly in the background, it will send all of the data to a hacker’s terminal, and they will try and steal any sensitive data from your PC, including bank details and sensitive data.
I always check to see where the email came from in the sender field. Not just the text that appears in the header of the email. Delve deeper to see the actual email address, it will usually be much gibberish, or it will be a strange name @gmail.com or @hotmail.com. Hackers use these free email accounts as anyone can set them up to be untraceable.
4. Use Google tools to stay informed of potential hacked content on your website
Having tools that can help you proactively monitor your site is crucial. The sooner you can find out about a compromise, the sooner you can work on fixing your site.
I recommend you sign up for Search Console if you have not already. Search Console is Google’s way of communicating with you about issues on your site, including if we have detected hacked content. You can also set up Google Alerts for your site to notify you if there are any questionable results on your site. For example, if you run a site selling pet accessories called www.example.com, you can set up an alert for [site:example.com cheap software] to alert you. If any hacked content about cheap software suddenly starts appearing on your site. You can set up multiple alerts for your site for different spammy terms. If you are unsure what spammy words to use, you can use Google to search for ‘common spammy names’.
