Getting hacked is one of the worst things that can happen to a blog or website owner.

It can destroy weeks or months of work, cause large amounts of personal stress and even affect your revenue streams.

Sadly, getting hacked is one of the realities of online business.

In today’s episode I am going to go over 15 tips that will hopefully help you become more prepared. It’s my sincere hope that some of this information might be a catalyst for keeping you and your blog safe.

View the episode in iTunes here or if you like you can download it to your computer here and listen later.

What’s in this episode?

Here are a few of the things mentioned in this episode, as well as links to some useful relevant material.

• Distribute.IT is the company that experienced the terrible hacking incident here in Australia. Here is a summary of the incident and a breakdown of how it went down, and here is a news article about the 4800 websites that were lost. Fascinating (and very sad) story.
• Here’s a review of a VPN that I use in order to be a little bit more safe online.
• Security plugins and services for WordPress include BulletProof Security, Limit Login Attempts, Wordfence and Sucuri.
• I recommend David Steven-Jennings if you’d like to get a security audit done on your blog and/or blog servers.
• Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools if you haven’t already as they offer some good monitoring for SEO and security.
• Here’s some good information about WordPress backups and how to get a grip on it all.
• A good summary of password managers that can help you use complicated passwords, simply.
• Protection for your personal computer here and here.

Do you have any extra tips?

I’d love to know any other tips you might have in terms of security or managing a bad event. Please leave a comment below as it might really help someone who reads it.

© Top photo: Valeriy Kachaev.