9 Ways To Protect Your Blog From Spammers and Hackers

9 Ways To Protect Your Blog From Spammers and Hackers

Real Estate Investor · Huntsville, AL · Member since 2010 · 44 posts · 11 votes

Bloggers should make securing their blogs a high priority. Blogs are spammed and hacked everyday by ruthless individuals. There are steps that you can take to increase the security of your blog and limit the chances of someone hacking into your online account, stealing your content and re-posting it for their benefit or, worse yet, stealing email addresses of your followers and spamming them using your account info or selling their info to someone else.

1. Use plug-ins that will hide your login screen. There are free plug-ins available such as Stealth Login for WordPress bloggers

2. Ban certain users. Use blog plug-ins that prevent users from making several attempts to access your blog by trying to crack your password.

3. Use blog plug-ins that prevent automated programs such as spiders and bots from obtaining access to your blog.

4. Use blog plug-ins that can encrypt your logins

5. Use plug-ins that ensure stolen passwords can be used only once - very nice

6. Update your blogging software and plug-ins regularly

7. Use a strong, complex login password

8. Change the admin name

9. Use plug-ins that can check comments via a web service to verify that it is not spam

Hope the above info is helpful to you....I've been in the I.T. field for over 10 years...8 of the 10 years were spent fighting viruses, rootkits, trojans, spyware, and worms. I've seen the damage done to businesses and frustration expressed by individuals that have been affected by malware. In most cases, it's the "little things" that could have been done to prevent or limit the damage done to a company's servers/workstation or a home user's computer. And, in most cases, the damage can be reversed in a cost effective way by a person truly skilled in malware removal. Take the steps above and protect yourself and your data. If you have any questions, please let me know...thanks.

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Real Estate Coach · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2011 · 11 posts · 3 votes
15y

The WP plugin Login Lockdown is definitely a great addition to any WP-based blog. You should also check out the "Secure Wordpress" plugin.

2 other tips:
- change the "readme.html" file included with Wordpress to something different because it shows your current version of WP to would-be hackers
-check your "wp_login_fails" MySQL table via phpMyAdmin to see if people are trying to brute force their way into your site

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  • Joshua D.Pro Member
    BiggerPockets Founder · HI · Member since 2008 · 16k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    16y

    Good suggestions, Dave. Perhaps you could point us all to some of these plugins that you recommend?

  • Investor · Round Rock, TX · Member since 2010 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    16y

    We had to lock down our blog comments and our submission forms on our websites because morons kept sending us stuff with bots.

    Good suggestions!

  • Real Estate Investor · Huntsville, AL · Member since 2010 · 44 posts · 11 votes
    16y

    Thanks Joshua and Bryan....below you will find some tools to help secure a blog:

    Login LockDown limits the number of login attempts from a given IP range within a certain time period.

    Chap Secure Login encrypts login passwords.

    WP Security Scan scans your WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities.

    CopyGator is a free service designed to assist in determing if and where your content has been copied to...

    Hope this helps.....

  • Real Estate Coach · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2011 · 11 posts · 3 votes
    15y

    The WP plugin Login Lockdown is definitely a great addition to any WP-based blog. You should also check out the "Secure Wordpress" plugin.

    2 other tips:
    - change the "readme.html" file included with Wordpress to something different because it shows your current version of WP to would-be hackers
    -check your "wp_login_fails" MySQL table via phpMyAdmin to see if people are trying to brute force their way into your site

  • Will BarnardPro Member
    Moderator
    Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes
    15y

    Excellent contribution to this community. Assuming you take on new custimers, let me be the first to suggest that our membership community take notice to the fact that rather than hard sell or spam an ad here, you provided free and valuable advice to others and that should be rewarded by the membership strongly considering using your services for their blog and virus protection services.

    Great job.

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