My website hacking story

When it comes to running my business, there is one thing that has caught me out recently: website hacking.

It happened a few months ago, at one of the worst possible times too. We were driving along the motorway in the middle of a 200 mile trip to Chester. A reader had sent me a screenshot of one of my blog posts – I had been hacked.

You never think it is going to happen to you, your blog or your business. In my situation, I was limited to my phone or waiting a few hours until we reached our destination. I wasn't able to properly look into what had happened, how it had happened and what I needed to do.

I was extremely fortunate in that it was only one blog post that had been hacked, and that they had left the previous version on WordPress, so that it was actually really simple to solve. I soon found out that it had happened to a ton of other bloggers and websites, simply from not having updated WordPress to the latest version.

I was very lucky in this situation, and it has made me upgrade my website's security and take backups more regularly. Regardless of whether you blog as a hobby, or for your business, being hacked can bring a lot of devastation.

HP Studios have recently launched a series of short video clips starring Christian Slater, all about how hacking, and website hacking, can be done so easily, and cause a lot of chaos. Here's the trailer:

The best advice I can give you in regards to website hacking is that prevention is better than the cure! Make sure that your passwords aren't easy to guess or crack, that you keep WordPress and plugins updated and that you look at getting increased security for your website or blog.

If you do find your website hacked then don't panic, and look around for others who have had similar problems before you take any action. Hopefully website hacking will never happen to you!

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Collaborative post.