5955 W Peoria Ave
Unit 6538, Glendale, AZ 85312
+1 623-930-1533
Customer Support
Mon-Fri: 8:00a - 5:00p
Other times, by appointment
Unit 6538, Glendale, AZ 85312
Customer Support
Other times, by appointment
You did it! You bought your first domain—some-domain.com. Maybe you’re selling widgets, opening a Shopify or Etsy store, or just staking your claim on the internet. Congrats! (Cue confetti cannons.)”
Owning and managing your new website on the World Wide Web is fantastic, and can be very profitable. It also comes with some inherent risks. Much like entering the ocean for the first time, you actually stand a chance of coming face to face with a great white shark, Jaws, if you will. Although, unlikely, the risk is there. The same goes for your new website. Within 24 hours, the sharks—er, hackers—will sniff out your fresh site, like blood in digital water. Honestly, I don’t even know how they know. I’m thinking that similar to blood in the water that attracts sharks, these nefarious actors seem to be magically drawn to new sites.
Why, you may ask.
Simply put, they want what you pay for so they can send out their SPAM, or build and unleash a new bot to attack another unsuspecting web user, or, worse yet, they just want to cause mayhem. Even small sites are juicy targets! Enter “Pinky & the Brain,” “What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!”
Okay, so your shiny new website is basically a neon “Open” sign for hackers. But don’t panic! Let’s see what these digital tricksters are up to—and how you can send them swimming the other way.
First things first, what is an attack?
The above image shows a firewall blocking an attacker from Las Vegas who tried unsuccessfully to access our website.They tried to create an “administrator” account that they could then log into our site and take control. Not nice!
There are countless types of access methods. Here are few of them:
So, what can you do about these threats? Simple, install a security software. For a basic WordPress website, which is pretty standard these days, you can use a plugin like WordFence. It’s simple, fast, and free! And yes, there are paid options—if you want the ‘laser sharks with frickin’ lasers’ level of protection.
For this discussion, let’s just focus on the free WordFence. It’s very effective and simple to set up. Install the plugin, activate it, register for your free account, and then follow a few prompts. Once you complete these steps, your protection begins immediately.
Now that it’s installed and running…now what do you do?
Great question!
If you want to be proactive, you can look at the Firewall. You can find this in the WordPress menu on the left: WordFence | Firewall | Blocking. The list shows you the IP addresses that WordFence has blocked and the time it blocked them. Since hackers are routine, you will see the same IP Addresses over and over. To prevent that, simply click the checkbox on the left and then click the “Make Permanent” button. That IP Address will not be accessing your site ever again.
There are other things you can do to help “harden” your security, but that would be another discussion.
Finally, if all this seems daunting, well, you are not alone. We would be more than happy to manage, and protect, your new site…for a reasonable fee, of course.