Last week, I got a phone call from a company whose websites had been shut down due to suspicious “phishing” activity. They asked me to look into the problem for them, which I gladly did. Once I got into what the problem was, it turned out they had been hacked. Now, this type of thing can happen to anyone and any company. As long as you are online and have a website, you are always going be susceptible to these “hackers.” There are many reasons why people will want to hack your site, a lot of times it has to do with money. Whatever the reasons are they are not right, but there are precautionary steps you can take to help prevent this problem from happening to you. The following is a list that I have developed over time to help you keep your website/websites safe:

1. Keep everything updated constantly. This includes if you are using WordPress, Joomla, etc.

2. Be cautious with who you hire to run your sites. Make sure they know what they are doing and keep your information safe.

3. I generally believe that it is better to use static sites rather than CMS (ex.Wordpress)

4. Constantly manage your site with fresh content.

5. Always check your site for “bad files” that are not supposed to be there.

Hopefully these tips can help you or your company and prevent these hackers from getting into your sites. Let me know if you know of any additional tips that you would like to add to the list! Thanks for any feedback or comments!