20 years ago, everyone dreamt about a career in a law firm. 10 years ago, everyone dreamt about a career in web development. Today, everyone wants a career in blogging. It is impossible to count the number of blogs on different platforms, as there are hundreds of millions of them. Blogging started as another online entertainment and in a few years, became another form of media.
Modern bloggers have as much influence as journalists and columnists. They become the first to describe the most important political events; they set the trends in fashion and photography, and they are the best field for effective advertising. However, running a blog is by far a challenging and effort-demanding process.
As new blogging becomes more business-like, it also acquires all the problems and challenges of business. Moreover, it also acquires all the dangers of business, and for many top bloggers, this is the biggest problem. They can handle negative commentaries and threats, but they are not ready that someone may hack their blog.
How Can a Blog Be Hacked?
As a rule, blogs are hacked with malware. This is not the most sophisticated method thought the most compelling. There are several ways in which your blog can be infected, including banners at untrusted portals, infected control panel, interference into the HTML structure of your blog with the administration panel, untrusted usage plugins, and apps.
If you are an influential blogger, the methods become more brutal and more dangerous. They implement third-party integration to get control over your personal data, including login and password information to the administrative panel of your website.
It is easy to understand that your blog is hacked (except for the obvious reasons like changed passwords and disappearance of all information):
- Your ranking becomes lower
- New links appear
- Added new keywords
- Changed titles and descriptions
- A dramatic change in traffic
How to Prevent My Blog from Hacking?
Understanding cybersecurity basics, you can prevent yourself from hacking your blog. Of course, the more familiar you become, the better methods you should implement.
Manage the Access
Your blog is a public place where anyone can express his or her opinion. But you are the blog administrator, and you need to keep everything under your control. Sensitive information like login and password belong to you only, so use all the protective methods not to disclose it from the third parties.
Never give access to people whom you do not know, and if you notice some strange activity in your account, block it or take some measures to prevent another intervention.
Choose Safe Passwords
We all know that qwerty is one of the most popular passwords along with 12345. Still, we continue to choose these passwords. If you want to keep your information protected, you need to reset it immediately! It is better to use both digits and letters of the different registers. Additionally, it is better not to choose your phone number or date of birth as a password.
Reset passwords regularly. This is an easy way to keep your account protected.
Use Secure and Reliable Hosting:
Your hosting provider can keep you safe from interventions, and it can become the reason why these interventions happen. If you want to save money and choose the least expensive hosting, you can easily become a victim. Cyber-attacks are frequently aimed at blogs that do not have enough protection.
However, even some free hosting providers may be secure so do not forget to check users’ feedback beforehand. In India, BigRock, Milesweb, ever data, and GoDaddy are the most commonly used, hosts.
They have Advanced storage with NetApp FAS3240, 99.999% (“Five Nines”) Uptime, and RAID-DP which ensures Zero Data Loss. The prices are very reasonable. And if you are a new customer you can get a lot of offers. See here for BigRock Coupons.
Do not save money on the protection software
This is the primary rule for any cybersecurity tips for newbie bloggers, even for classic and simple internet browsing. Your computer needs protection! It is easy to get your personal information if the computer is unprotected. Anyone can reach it, and you cannot prevent this until you do not start to use protection software.
Moreover, if you manage your blog using your phone or tablet, you need to protect these devices with data recovery software as well.
Backup your Information
Of course, backups will not save you from interventions. However, the basic rules of cyberliteracy insist that you should always have a copy of your data, including all blog settings, HTML, pictures, links, and texts.
Update the backups regularly, so you always can have access to all information even if your blog has been hacked. If you do not want to create reserves manually, you can use special programs that will do this automatically.
Be Careful with plugins
Young bloggers frequently add all possible plugins to their website to increase the engagement of the readers and build trust in a blog. However, you need to be extremely careful with plugins and codes that you create on your website.
If you are not sure that this plugin or code is safe, never install it. Use WordPress plugins from trusted resources, such as WordPress. Do not forget to update plugins regularly just to keep them safe and secure.
Mind the Applications
Applications seem to be fun: they make your blog look better. But some applications are created to steal your sensitive information and use it to hack your blog.
Again, never install applications from untrusted sources. The same idea concerns the links and images that you add to the code of your site. Some of them may contain a hidden script that will be used to get your password and log in.
Use limited IP Access
This is not the most convenient way to manage your blog, though it is the most efficient if we are talking about protection. When you choose this option, you can be sure that no one will get access to your blog unless he comes to your home and uses your WI-FI. Before you set these limits, make sure that you have a static IP address.
As a blog owner, you need to use all possible measures to prevent interference and hacking. These 8 security tips for newbie bloggers are the ground rules of cyberliteracy that will help you understand what exactly you should do to make your blog a safe place for sharing your information.
Hey Richard and Saurabh,
People are more aware than before. it’s necessary to be safe than sorry. Your website can be hacked due to some vulnerabilities.
Always try to maintain that security factor. It’s important to choose the plugins carefully. A poorly coded plugin can be dangerous.
Thanks for the list.
~Ravi
Dear Ravi,
Thank you for your comment. i do completely agree with you about the plugins. They are the integral part of blogging security.
Good suggestion and important to take care and use them . I heard of some hacked sites and all the trouble these people had with it. .Really , as Ravi said, better safe than sorry .
Great reminder for everybody to take care.
Thank you Saurabh and Richard
Erika .
Dear Erika,
Thank you for your comment and appreciation.
Richard.
Hey Saurab,
Very timely alert indeed!
Yes, It is high time that we need to protect our resources.
The tips shared in this are really worth following..
I am following some but some are really unknown to me
will bookmark it and follow.
Thanks for sharing this valuable tips. Saurab
Keep sharing
~Philip
PS: Hey I found this informative piece on the pages of Inbound and i up-voted it and posted a comment too.
Thanks
~Phil
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Hi Richard and Saurabh,
Smart tips 😉 I vibe with restricting access. Only me and my web developer have access to my blog. I don’t give out passwords or user names to anybody. Even if I accept guest posts I do thing Pro Blogger style; send the post and I will publish with an author byline. Just makes sense unless you have a multi author blog where each author has posting rights. Thanks for sharing!
Ryan
Dear Ryan,
Thank you for your comment and estimation.
Richard.
Hey Saurabh,
The Internet is the ultimate vehicle for information retrieval and transmission in modern times, providing us with an information superhighway that links individuals from around the world in real time, connecting families, businesses and governments. Yet amid this vast expanse of digital data flooding that has become known as the cyberspace, attempts to decipher and exploit this information for personal or national gain have become increasingly pervasive. Criminal activity is now commonplace and increasing steadily with the growing number of Internet users and online traffic.
Evidently, there are tremendous financial and social burdens linked with cyber-crime. Perhaps even more seriously, on an international level, targeted cyber-terrorism has infiltrated the governmental infrastructure of multiple nations. Entrepreneurship can lead to widespread adoption of these scientific innovations. While internet security might not seem to be the most glamorous project in starting up a business, there remains a void in the market for nimble firms that can respond quickly to new and increasingly exotic cyber threats. Entrepreneurs also have a role to play in terms of building partnerships between public and private institutions in order to overcome inertia on the international level. Eventually, thanks for your wonderful interesting and informative thought.
With best wishes,
Amar kumar
Pretty good write-up summing up core security issues a blogger should be aware of. Traffic drop is a nightmare for anyone and one has to be prepared!
Hey thanks for the reminder, now i am aware how are the possibilities that are blog we be attacked. Thanks for sharing this wonderful and helpful post.
saurabh, quite organized post which talks basic things. Basically its about how you can take precaution but what if you get hacked? Its true that now every other person wants to make blog for himself and goes online. It really important to take necessary steps, get some knowledge to prevent any cyber attacks but you know what hackers are really smart. Besides some basic knowledge, you need to have some advance knowledge as well. If you are web admin, better to follow some reliable sources like PCMAG, gotowebsecurity, ycombinator news or hackers news etc to get updated about recent activities as well. What recently hackers done with Wannacry was really terrible attack. If you are not ready, you can get hacked anytime.
Richard the mentioned points were a great heads up! Running a blog makes you feel pleasant, but at the same time, it could be a nightmare as well, thinking of what if it gets hacked. Are we going to lose all the data? On which we have worked ass off?
So, it quite mindful to take some security measures, before it could be really painful and disastrous.
Apart from securing things with strong passwords, changed Admin URL, Modified username, it always important to schedule regular backups.
Great Article!