A Growth Industry
Recently the number of sites being hacked or infiltrated has risen rapidly. We see a lot of distraught site owners who have had their sites damaged, experienced a loss of rankings, or had data stolen.

Use Protection
Although most good hosting companies will protect their servers (and usually your site to some degree) it’s important to understand that you are responsible for your own site.

Take this analogy: You can use the strongest safe in the world, but if you leave the door open and someone empties it, you can’t blame the safe manufacturer.

Hacked Huh?
Before we offer you some simple tips, it’s worth understanding a few basics about the different kinds of hacks, their purpose and how they can affect you.

We won’t go into detail at this stage, but the number of exploits and the number of different types are increasing. Some of the most common include: XSS, SQL Injections and defacing

Staying up to date is a full time job, but like most types of crime, being prepared and protecting yourself should give you a better chance of weathering a storm should it happen.

So without further ado, here’s a basic primer on protecting your site from being hacked when it’s on shared hosting.

Simple Security Tips

1. Keeping Software Up to Date
If you are running old versions of software chances are it’s insecure, make sure you upgrade to the latest release. Most updates to software are security or functionality related, which means if you aren’t running the latest version you are likely to have missed a few security fixes.

2. 3rd Party Scripts and Code
Plugins, widgets or any other code (including free templates and themes) you install are written by other people under unknown circumstances. Some may be great, some may be full of holes. Be sure to research any code you want to use that you didn’t write yourself. Even a few Google searches should help you find out how secure the code you are using is.

3. Your Own Fault
One of the biggest causes of Identity theft and an easy way for someone to get details to your site(s). Your own computer is likely to be a weak link in the chain. Whether it be from poisoned powerpoint files or someone phishing your account details, the vulnerabilities are limitless. No matter how secure your site is, if the machine you access it from (including logging in and editing etc.) is not secure you stand a good risk of being compromised and it may affect more than just your site. …