We all know the story of the three little pigs.
Each pig started off with a great plan. Confident in their security and safety, they went about their lives. In the end, we are left with only one pig.
Often what we build on the outside looks great. The house of straw probably kept the little pig warm. It certainly gives the pig a place to live. But the wolf was able to get in without much effort.
Your website is similar.
On the outside, it looks great. Everything works and you see lots of traffic to your site. Then some time passes. It’s still working, but in the back things are starting to fall apart.
And then it happens. The website crashes. This crash is the metaphorical wolf. You never know when he will show up and tear your entire world apart. And recovery might not be easy.
You see, the problem is you don’t know what you don’t know. So, the straw house looks pretty darn good. It doesn’t matter to you because it’s standing. The website works.
Yet most websites require maintenance. And security is a huge part of that maintenance. It’s not just updating here and there. Because while you might have all the updates done, the site could still be vulnerable to attack.
Just because a plugin or theme does not have any updates does not mean it’s secure. The number of bad actors will far outweigh the efforts by most developers. And sometimes the author gets tired of working on the project. Once abandoned, it’s open to attack.
In any given day, a reliable website firewall will block hundreds to millions of attacks. Yet a shocking percentage of websites don’t have a firewall at all. The owners didn’t know they needed one at all.
Knock, knock, and crash.
So, what’s the solution? Well, the easiest thing you can do is be prepared. Start with robust backups of your website. Don’t just assume they are there but test them. Make sure you can download a copy and open it.
Schedule a time every six months to go into your website and review what you have installed. In WordPress, you can click view details for each plugin see the date it was last updated. If it’s been over a year, then you probably want to replace that plugin with something that’s still getting updated.
Another thing to consider is hosting. A website is only as good as the place where it lives. If you pay bottom dollar for your website hosting, you get bottom dollar services. And some of those bottom dollar hosts stuff way too many sites on the same server.
Unfortunately, just like in real life, when one of us end up sick, we all do. One website unrelated to yours can spread malware to yours. And you will never know what happened.
Pay for reliable hosting and monitor your website for uptime so you know your site will be ready when it’s needed. Find a host that offers a firewall to protect your site or install a plugin to help you handle security.
If you are feeling confused about how to do any of this, or concerned about the security of your website, simply reply to this email and let’s talk.