For over four years I have been blogging away merrily, adding posts not quite as frequently as I would like sometimes and just really enjoying having my own little home on the internet.
A little while ago some prominent Australian bloggers endured our worst nightmare, they were hacked.
One of them, possibly more lost EVERYTHING and had to start again.
I honestly don’t think I would have it in me to create all my content over again.
I would probably walk away and hang up my bloggy hat for good!
BUT I did not take action to secure my blog as I really didn’t know where to start.
Thanks universe for sending me reminders in my Facebook newsfeed quite regularly.
It was time to take the blinkers off and find some solutions for my peace of mind.
STEP 1 – INSTALL WORDFENCE PLUG IN
This was really easy to do and I am still using the free version rather than the payable upgrade option.
I now get sent an email when anyone tries to login to my site. I cringe and smile at the same time, as they were unsuccessful.
The default setting for login attempts is 20 and after that you are blocked from trying again.
I changed this setting to blocking after 3 attempts. I am mean like that 🙂
If I forget my login details well I kind of screwed, but thankfully I have never forgotten them yet.
STEP 2 – BACK UP
Hands up if you have never actually created a back up copy of your blog?
For a very long time I had not either.
There are plenty of ways you can back up a blog and I spent quite a bit of time researching an option that would work from me.
I am a set and forget kind of gal, I did not want to have to remember to regularly perform a back up myself. Nor did I want the data stored on my computer.
My solution that works perfectly for me is VAULTPRESS.
Every single day, Vaultpress backs up a copy of my blog and stores it externally for me.
It costs $5.00 per month and is worth every cent for ease and peace of mind.
If some wicked hacker can login after only 3 attempts and turn my blog to mush, I will have a complete copy to start again with.
Apparently it is very easy to do if necessary.
I am hoping I never have to find out.
Just this week I read about another blogger who had her site hacked, and this time it didn’t make me feel uneasy, just damn angry that people can do this to another person.
What steps have you taken to protect your precious piece of internet real estate?
Sharing for #FYBF at With Some Grace.com
Uh Oh. I’ve done nothing to protect my site! And after blogging every day for 6 years I am thinking I would be devastated if my site was hacked and I lost everything. I would definitely throw in the towel.
I’d better do something about it then.
Thanks for the advice!
Excellent advice!
I usually manually do a full cpanel download from my servers after hearing that the plug ins aren’t always complete.
Great tips! Only use one, but off to install the other.
OMG – if I lost everything I don’t think I would have the energy to start all over again. My wordpress blog has a plugin that does automatic back ups but I know there is more I can do – starting with having a look at the wordfence plugin you speak of. Thanks for the reminder and tips! 🙂
Great suggestions! I only did something about backups this year (after 5yrs of blogging). I guess I’d been lucky to date. I’m not sure my blog is kill-proof, but at least I’ve now made SOME effort! 😉
Oh no, that’s terrible!!!! I have wordfence but your post is a reminder to check that my backups are actually happening!
If I lost everything, I would be done. There is no way , no way I could do this to my family.
I definitely need to look into wordfence as well as back up! I don’t understand why people need to hack sites, either. Is it boredom? What do they have to achieve?