The View: Issue 32

Welcome to the 32nd edition of Aspect IT’s newsletter, The View.

Protect your web site

Over the last couple of months, we have received numerous requests from companies to recover their hacked web sites.

We don’t know why this has increased, but we thought we’d share this information to our subscribers and also some tips to stop it happening to your company.

We can never understand why hackers really bother attacking SME’s as they do not generally achieve anything, except getting their name onto a web site. However, it is very frustrating and can cause a company a lot of damage.

1. Backup regularly:
   Many of the companies we have helped didn’t have a recent backup of their web site. Most people forget to do this and think the web hosting company will have a backup. However, this isn’t always the case and even if they do, it generally isn’t very recent and costly to restore.
   When you have your own recent backup, you can simply restore your website and overwrite the hacked content.
2. Keep your software up-to-date:
   As you would with your PC, you need to ensure your website software is kept up-to-date. This means if you are using a product like WordPress or Joomla, then install the latest security updates.
3. Review your passwords:
   You should always use complex passwords for your website so they cannot be easily guessed. Some hackers use dictionary or brute force attacks, which simply means they guess password combinations until they find a match.
4. Install security plugins
   Most website Content Management Systems (CMS) have plugins to help prevent hacking attempts. For example, WordPress has a great plugin called Better WP Security

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