It’s a word no one likes to hear. It sends chills down the spines of developers, and sends site users and owners alike into a frenzy. What are we talking about? Hacks. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they happen all the time. On average, every 39 seconds a new site gets hacked. One in three Americans will be affected by hacks this year. Some cause minimal damage, while others can bring entire industries to their knees. Regardless of their severity, hacks are a big deal no matter how much damage they do. You will definitely want someone in your corner who knows what to do if your WordPress site gets hacked.
While site security should be front of mind in every website owner, your host should also do its own due diligence in protecting your site and your users. How does Pressable handle hacks when they occur, and what do we do to keep your data safe from the beginning?
How Do Vulnerabilities Occur?
When it comes to WordPress, hacks can occur for many reasons, whether it’s a vulnerable plugin, a WordPress core mishap, or even an insecure username or password. Usually, a security researcher finds a vulnerability and reports it to the developer. The developers fix the issue and push out an update. A few weeks after the researcher reports the issue, they publish it online to gain notoriety.
But that’s not always how it goes. Some developers don’t update their plugins after vulnerabilities are found. When hackers send out robots to take advantage of the new-found hole in your defenses, your information gets compromised. But there is good news. With proper defenses and a team of experts behind you, you can keep the hackers at bay and your data secure.
How Pressable Handles Hacks
When your site security gets compromised, it’s no time to play the blame game. You just want the problem to be fixed, and that’s exactly what we do. We are actively monitoring for malware threats and our team of WordPress experts gets right on the case at the first sign of intrusion. After an instance of malware is detected, we’ll work with you to ensure that your site is restored to a safe and secure state.
Once your site is safe and secure again, we’ll share our expert security audit. We’ll highlight potential issues or even the source of the original hack so that you can prevent this from ever happening again. Whether it’s an outdated plugin, the lack of an SSL certificate, or any number of other issues, we’ll find any vulnerabilities and instruct you on how to fix them. When it comes to SSL certificates, we even provide them to you for free.
What You Can Do for Security
Choose the Right Plugins
There are thousands of plugins out there. That’s why it’s important to choose the right ones. What makes a good plugin? Make sure it’s updated regularly to avoid security vulnerabilities. And this one should go without saying: look for glowing reviews and high download numbers. If so many people are using it, it must be good, right?
Use Strong Passwords
Must contain one capital letter. Must contain one special character. Must be at least eight characters long.
Did those three sentences make you cringe? We know. Nobody likes making a different password for every different service they use, but just like plugin and core updates, they’re a fact of life. By using complex passwords, you protect yourself, your site, and, in turn, every other site on your host’s servers. While it’s difficult to remember them all, there are services out there to help, like OnePassword. As soon as you get login credentials for your WordPress site, change your administrator password, and definitely change your username to anything but ‘Admin.’
What Pressable Does for Security
The easiest way to come back from a hack is to prevent it altogether. Now, any host that tells you they can prevent 100% of hacks is probably pulling your leg, but there are plenty of things your host can do to help give you peace of mind. At Pressable, we provide you with all the tools necessary to lock your site up tight.
WP Core Updates
Updates are part of WordPress, plain and simple. But when you host with Pressable, we take WordPress core updates off your plate and perform them for you. That way we can ensure all of our sites are secure from any core vulnerabilities. This not only secures your sites, but all sites on our platform.
Jetpack Security Daily
Jetpack, when properly configured, provides tons of features that will keep your site locked up tighter than the hope diamond. That’s why we provide Jetpack Security Daily to all our customers for free. You read that right: free. If you have difficulty setting it up, our team would be glad to help. Just submit a ticket to our support team through our control panel and we’ll be glad to help.
SpamHaus.org Checks
Our support team works 24/7 to keep your sites secure, whether we’re updating the WordPress Core or watching for malware intrusions. We regularly check Spamhaus.org for Pressable IPs and domains to ensure each site on our platform is safe, secure, and locked down.
Free SSL Certificates
SSL certificates are a great way to secure both site and user data. By encrypting the signals sent between the site and its servers, SSL certificates make it that much more difficult for bad actors to grab valuable data. Plus having an SSL certificate will help your site when it comes to page ranking on search engines. We work with Let’s Encrypt to provide free SSL certificates to every site on our platform, and just like Jetpack, it’s absolutely free.
Want to learn more about what Pressable does to keep your site secure? Check out all of the WordPress hosting features that we offer. Or schedule a demo to see what we offer underneath the hood. Contact us to set up an appointment today.
Zach Wiesman
Zach has 12+ years of experience with WordPress, from creating and maintaining client sites, to providing support and developing documentation. A knack for problem-solving and providing solutions led Zach to pursue a job with Automattic providing customer support in 2015 working with WooCommerce support, and now Zach has recently joined our team here at Pressable. Outside of work, Zach enjoys spending time with his family, playing and watching sports, and working on projects around the house.
