Hackers targeting me – Isn’t that a little over-dramatic?
Is it really? Did you know – 61.5% of all internet traffic is from automated sources such as bots, phishing attacks, hacking tools, scrapers and spammers, and impersonators?
Did you know that global cyber–crime damages are predicted to cost up to $6 trillion annually by 2021?
A recent report released by Incapsula, a cloud-based web-security service, found that 61.5 percent of all website traffic comes from non-human visitors. If you’re reading this and you’re human, you’re now in the minority.
Bots are software applications designed to perform automated tasks, such as with search engines crawling and indexing websites. Bots can also be malicious, like those used by hackers and spammers. Malicious software is used to infect websites, gather data and in some cases even hijack computer resources. A site where an attacker has gained an access to can be used to redirect traffic and infect visitors with the malicious software.
Hackers also use bots to apply stolen data in a flood of login attempts, called “credential stuffing.” These days, more than 90% of e-commerce sites’ global login traffic comes from this type of attack.
OK, It’s bad out there. What do I do?
There are many things you can do to make sure your website is secure. For WordPress websites, it’s critical to keep your WordPress version and all plugins up-to-date with the latest releases. New releases often contain security fixes, and once hackers know there’s a weakness they will try to exploit it.
Your website should also enforce strong password protection. A strong password is at least 8 characters long, has upper and lower case letters, at least one number, and at least one special character. The more complex the password, the more difficult it is for the hacker to break it.
You should be running a security plugin that monitors your site for malicious login and other hack attempts. A good plugin will block bad bots and blacklist repeat offenders by their IP address. Two good plugins are iThemes Security and Sucuri. Sucuri also offers full-time firewall and website monitoring.
Install Secure Socket Layers (SSL) on your website. SSL encrypts data on your website such as contact forms and login pages. Most host companies offer free SSL and those that don’t have certificates for sale on an annual basis.
Still Having Security Issues? Get Professional Help
If you’ve kept your WordPress website updated with a good security plugin, you’re probably ok. A professional website developer would be able to troubleshoot and identify whether or not your site has been hacked and provide resolution to these problems.
If you’ve been hacked or if you’d like help to check if your website has been hacked, contact us anytime. For full security and full-time monitoring of your website, Sucuri website security solutions are at the top of their class: