PSA Christmas is when hackers attack. Here’s your safety checklist.

by | Nov 4, 2019 | General

stealing christmas

Every year it’s the same thing.

We see tons of websites attacked, data stolen, and we get people calling us about problems that are far too late to solve, especially in healthcare. Hackers wait until you’re not looking, until they know that you’re not even at the office. Then they attack.

Here is your Christmas website security checklist to keep you safe and secure for the holiday season!

  1. Update your content management system core to the most recent version. These systems are updated by their creators as exploits are found, so the most recent version is always the most secure.
  2. Update your plugins or modules to the most recent versions. Old code is much more likely to be hacked.
  3. Make sure you have a backup that runs regularly and saves your website code and database or databases to a 3rd party system.
  4. If your site isn’t encrypted (it doesn’t have the lock icon to the left of the url in the address bar), make sure your SSL or TLS certificate is current. 
  5. Make sure your passwords are complex. No passwords like “password”, “secret”, your name, your birthday,  your child’s name, etc. These simple passwords are like gold for a hacker and they are constantly trying to guess your passwords. If this sounds like it might be a problem just search for an online password generator to create secure passwords.
  6. No one in tech should ever ask for your username and password, EVER. If they do, there is a good chance that they are not who they say they are and are trying to get into your system. 

There are plenty of other things that can be done, but this is a great start and will cover most of your bases. 

Don’t know how or don’t want to deal with it? Leave it to the experts.

If this list sounds overwhelming and you don’t want a call on Christmas day letting you know that your site is down and a hacker is demanding money to put it back up, then we’ve got a present for you! 

We have been working since the summer to launch our new set of services at https://www.supportmy.website where we can take care of all of these things for you now and throughout the year. Just for our current and past customers, we are offering a huge discount starting at $200 off. 

Look out for our upcoming series over the new few days on how to do almost all the things in the list above. 

Have a safe and happy holiday season from your friends at Support My Website!