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Protect Your WordPress Blog From Hackers With These Four Additional Security Tips

By Expert Author: Nick Dalton | View Article Summary
Word Count: 405 words | Views: 76 view(s)
Nick Dalton

There was a lot of importance given to the coding and running of WordPress in the last article on WordPress security. Listed below are four of the most important precautions that you need to take in order for your WordPress blog to be secure.

Utilize strong passwords

This is an obvious good security practice, but too often forgotten. Make sure all your passwords are strong: your admin account, the ftp account and any other WordPress accounts that have any edit privileges.

A simple web search will uncover a stories telling you the best way to choose strong passwords. Instead of being redundant, let me just suggest that you read these pieces and consider what they say. Additionally, following their rules does not mean copying the choices!

Use SCP in lieu of FTP

Do you use FTP when you transfer files to and from the server that hosts your blog? This is convenient mostly because there are so many good FTP programs available that make as easy to transfer files to a server as moving and copying them locally.

Instead of FTP, which can make your server log-in information easily visible, I suggest you use Cyberduck for OS X and WinSCP for Windows so that the same information is more secure while being sent to your server.

SCP implements file transfers connecting to the host using SSH therefore SSH login should be enabled on the server. Replaced FTP can be disabled at this point.

Write-protect your theme

There appears to be an exploit going around that modifies installed WordPress themes to add spam links or malicious iframes. One way to make this exploit more difficult is to modify the file permissions of your WordPress themes directory to 755 and the files within the directory to 644. The drawback is that you will now have to FTP modified files to your web server each time you want to make changes to your theme.

Most plugins write their data to the directory where they are installed. This makes write protection of the plugins directories impossible.

Review your site's HTML source often

You should view the HTML source of your web site often. If you find chunks of encrypted JavaScript, embedded IFRAMEs or hidden links to sites you don't know, then your blog may have been compromised. The reason to do this often is so that you can discover any issues before Google does and blacklists you, or any of your readers get infected by malicious software distributed by your site.
About the Author/Author Bio

Read more of Nick Dalton's WordPress security articles on his blog for Internet business owners and bloggers at TipsTricksToolsTechniques.com.

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Protect-Your-WordPress-Blog-From-Hackers-With-These-Four-Additional-Security-Tips/127686

Article Submitted: 2008-03-01 | This Article has been viewed 76 times.

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