Oh My God!!! My blog has got hacked and believe me I have not done anything wrong. You can shout like hell and gain some attention and sometimes even consolation for the fact that your beloved WordPress blog has been F%^$ by someone. Now, stop this you-blame-me-and-I-blame-you game for a while and get serious about it. Try to figure out how the hacker could get into your blog when you are saying that you have not done anything wrong. Sound intriguing? Believe me this is not that much tough to secure your WordPress blog. All you need to do is to follow some simple tips and believe you would not have to learn rocket science for that. Still finding it hard to believe, here is how you can do it:
WordPress Security Plugin: This is the easiest way you can safeguard the interest of the blog without adversely affecting the loading time. Yeah, you hate to use plugins but a WordPress security plugin is a must these days and however, you need to choose the plugin after much market research. Do not put your trust on new plugins as they are not going to do any good to your website, you your trust on something trustworthy like WebsiteDefender. Plugins of these kinds will inform you whenever there is an attempt to break through your website or there is any unusual activity on your website. A complete security package for you. Not impressed, here are two more:
WP Login Security: This is an amazing tool that will let you register a set of IP address as a white list for administrator access. So, whenever there is an attempt to login to your website other than the white listed IP addresses, an email will be shot to your mailbox and you will have all the information in your hand. You just have to block that IP address and voila.
WP Firewall 2: This is a nifty little plugin that adds a new layer of security to your WordPress blog by looking into the web request and then analyzing them and whenever there is an attempt to do harm to your website, it will thwart the attempt.
Use strong password: Do not share the password of your blog no matter what. And always come up with tough passwords with alphabets, numbers, special characters etc that will make sure that it will not be a cakewalk for hackers to break them. There are some bloggers who are in the habit of using their birth date as the password. This is an easy guess and therefore, if you’re doing the same thing, you need to change your habit and set for a really strong password and for God’s sake do not use the same password for all the accounts.
Update Your WordPress Blog: You should always upgrade your WordPress version as the new version always come with better security measures. Each time, there is a need to upgrade your WordPress blog, you should do it without wasting your time anymore. And try to hide information about your WordPress version as this will make it tough for hackers while trying to launch a malicious attack on your website.
Do Not Share Your Blog Plugin: I have come across some blogs where blog owners openly discuss what kind of plugins they are using in their blog to improve performance of their blog. But this information can lead to a major crisis as if a hacker manages to crack a particular plug-in, they will have his hand on your blog and other sensitive information.
Use One time Password: The name suggests it all. This will further boost the security of your WordPress blog. And the good thing is that you will not be using the main password while logging into your website anymore. When the installation is complete, you just need to generate a series of passwords, temporary of course and save them on your PC. These temporary passwords can be used once and that means, if a hacker manages to steal the password, he will not be able to change it since this is a one time password.
Michael Evans is a passionate writer and he is a contributing author of Bloggerjet where you can find blog promotional tips.