How To Reduce The Chances Of Your Website Being Hacked

All types of websites are prone to hacking. Even your own email address is prone to hacking at any point in time. For as long as there is a site that could be hacked and information that could be exploited, your website is never a hundred percent safe. This could very much damage your account as well as your reputation if the hackers have managed to exploit your identity with negative intent. It can be worse if you are running a business and your hacked website starts getting in the way of your sales, operations and reputation management.

This is exactly why you have to at least reduce the risk of your website being hacked. While there is still no known definite way of eliminating hacking, it is just important that you stay on your guard so that chances of your website being affected by it will be lessened.

One way to reduce the risk of your website being hacked is to secure your account. Make sure that you nominate a password that cannot be easily tampered with. It would also be better if you refrain from broadcasting around what your password is. If you can, change your password periodically to avoid predictability. Also, use different passwords in your various online accounts.

Another way of keeping your website safe is to name only a few trusted people as administrators. It may be you and your assistant or your IT personnel. Having only a few people who know how to access your website can minimize the risk of a lot of the others accidentally forgetting safety precautions in terms of website security and eventually putting your account in danger of being hacked.

Finally, it would definitely help you keep your website safe from being hacked if you always monitor activities within it. Spending even a few minutes of your everyday logging in to your site gives you a brief update as to the happenings around it. You would then be able to distinguish if something wrong is happening or if some of your posts are deleted or if there are comments about your content that are unexpected.

All in all, it comes down to preparing your website for any possibility of intruders. Knowing what you are up against would also help so that you can enhance the basic guidelines above. Your online security may seem a minor concern but it is definitely not.

Top 5 Reasons to Check Website Security   Why Ignoring IDS Could Lead to Substantial Damage for Businesses   

Should We Be Hacked Off With Hackers?

These stories tap into the very real and personal fear that we are being watched. None of us are safe. Everyone on the internet is out to get us in one way or another.

The media is very good at feeding this fear, reporting incidents that will shock and choosing to ignore others that don't have the intimidation factor. Did you know, for example, that your details are far more likely to be compromised by someone leaving a USB memory stick on a train than by a website being hacked?

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse claims that 180,000,000 individual records (including names, addresses and credit card information relating to members of the public) were compromised in 2005, in breaches caused by the loss or improper disposal of paper records, portable devices and desktop PCs. In comparison, 631 records were compromised through hacking activity or malware during this same period.

In the past 2 months, we have heard how hackers have targeted LinkedIn, Yahoo Voices and Formspring, obtaining and posting millions of user passwords online. What seems to be glossed over, though, is the fact that many of the hackers have targeted these sites to show their owners how easy they are to breach. Several groups have claimed that their actions are meant as a 'wake up call' rather than a threat. Obviously, there are hackers who sell the details they obtain or use them for malicious reasons, such as emptying PayPal or online bank accounts, but many of them don't.

In reality, we are the biggest threat to our online security, because we don't choose strong enough passwords when we sign up for things. The ideal password should be 8 or more characters long, and should contain at least one number and one capital letter. Nearly every website that uses a password system tells us this or similar information, yet the 3 most popular passwords that were stolen from LinkedIn were "link," "1234" and "work." Hardly difficult to guess given the context of the site ("sex" and "dragon" were also popular, but we'll avoid those).

Of course, the more difficult your password is to guess, the more difficult it will be for someone to hack your account personally, but what happens when an entire website gets hacked, and not just your part of it? It's frustrating because, realistically, there's nothing you can do about it. If the owners of the website don't have a tight enough security system in place, chances are your details are going to be compromised.

Because of this, it could be argued that one benefit of hacking is that it makes websites tighten up their security. LinkedIn have now introduced further levels of password encryption to protect their users' data. Formspring disabled all accounts until the issue had been dealt with, and asked all members to change their passwords. Small changes, but they act as a major deterrent.

It is important not to over or underestimate the threat hackers pose. Yes, be as sensible online as possible, but don't live in fear. Choose complex passwords and be careful what you sign up for. If you're unsure, research. Knowledge is power, after all.

Top 5 Reasons to Check Website Security   Why Ignoring IDS Could Lead to Substantial Damage for Businesses