Creating content is one of the best ways to grow your market and generate interest from shoppers these days, no matter which industry your business trades in. You and your team likely spend countless hours each month working on coming up with content to educate your customers, share news, get people excited about product or service launches and more.
However, all of this time and energy can go down the drain if your blog ends up getting hacked by a cybercriminal. You might think this isn’t likely, but unfortunately these days plenty of businesses find themselves a target, particularly when it comes to malware such as ransomware, which has been a huge issue in recent years. To safeguard your business, then, it’s important to take steps to protect your blog. Read on for some steps you can follow to do that ASAP.
Have Good Password Protection
For starters, it sounds like a really simple thing, but many blogs get hacked by cybercriminals because they’re not protected with proper passwords, so hackers don’t have to work hard to find a way in. In addition, many entrepreneurs and their teams don’t password-protect their computers, Wi-Fi routers or logins to various accounts. As such, hackers can break into these devices or accounts and then make their way into blogs in turn.
To stop that happening in your organization, ensure good passwords are used throughout. Hard-to-guess codes are at least eight characters long and updated every few months. Safeguard your data by creating passwords out of a mixture of characters, including letters (upper- and lower-case), numbers and symbols.
Make the code to your blog different to that used elsewhere, too. Many people use the same password everywhere, but this is risky because if hackers find out a password used in one spot, they can then access everything. In addition, ensure none of the codes used in your business relate to information that is in the public domain (such as on the company’s website or social media pages) where hackers can see it and therefore guess passwords.
Also, keep in mind that you should minimize the amount of people who have permission to access your blog. The only people with codes to get into its backend should be top managers or employees who post content regularly. If you need to have tech people work on the blog for you, create a guest password for them, and delete this code once they’ve completed their work. This all helps minimize risk.
Use Security Software
Make sure you install security software on the computers used to work on your business blog. Again, since hackers often get into devices, and can access blogs from there, you have to take every step possible to keep them out. Security software can help you to block cybercriminals.
Choose a quality endpoint security solution. You want to be covered against a wide array of threats, including ransomware, viruses, spyware, spam, malware and so on. Find an option that will block dangerous emails, attachments and websites; maintain user privacy at all times; keep online information, like login details and credit card numbers, safe; and protect against applications that try to steal data.
Ensure computers have working firewalls, as these act as another line of defense and help filter out threats coming in via the internet. Today, most devices have firewalls pre-installed on them, so you likely won’t need to purchase extra protection, but do make sure the ones on your computers are activated. Often, they’re put on gadgets but not automatically activated by manufacturers. Check the settings to get your computers working optimally.
Once you have all this software doing its job, don’t forget to update it. Developers often find security holes and will release new, more secure versions. As such, you must be running the latest version of programs to stay safe.
Use a Secure Blogging Platform
Lastly, when it comes to protecting your business blog from hackers, it’s also vital to choose a secure blogging platform. You can take all sorts of steps to proactively protect data, but if the platform your blog is hosted on is compromised, your efforts can all be in vain.
Choose a provider that takes security very seriously. Opt for a trusted, well-established name that has a record of secure operations and assurances for customers in place. Find a company that stores all blog data in the cloud, so if you do end up getting compromised by a hacker, all that valuable information you’ve created won’t just disappear altogether.