Protect Yourself from Cyber Attacks!
An Old City Wall at Jerusalem, Though Dated, Still Holds Strong and Regulates Entry
From times immortal, mankind has always had to fortify their cities and other political divisions from invasion. That is one of the realities of living on the earth and will always be as long as we are here. From city walls to militarization, we must also do the same with our computers and our online documents. Siege is ever present and every website owner needs to fortify their online real estate (and their home/business computers as well!) This is an evermore rising issue and is getting more and more technically perfected, thus must our city walls be ever built up, made taller, stronger, improved, rebuilt, whatever is necessary to keep out the enemy and build up defense.
We must also build moats around our city walls to keep siege towers and battering rams from reaching the walls! Sadly, it is coming a time when we must put hungry crocodiles or acid in those moats and pour hot oil down on the enemy that is attempting to scale or undermine the walls!
Fortify Data & Websites - Avoid Compromise!
Keeping everything, Windows (or any other OS) and WP installations updated is the prime thing everyone should be doing. If there's an update - do it now, not later!
The less plugins you have on your websites, the better, in my opinion. It not only keeps out vulnerabilities, it also helps your website run faster. Some of these things can seriously cause lag in web page loading. Plugins, outside of not updating your WP installation when they come up, are the prime targets and points in the walls vulnerable to being breached.
Backup your computer and websites! Wealthy Affiliate Hosting does back up all websites, but you should too. You should also have your own archive backup of your computer (at least for files that are irreplaceable) AND cloud storage if possible.
Even the best-protected computers and networks get breached! It has happened to the FBI, hospitals, big business and government, not to mention millions of home computers everywhere. Archives that are stored on computers and external hard drives, not connected to the Internet cannot be reached by the enemy. Using the relatively-safe cloud storage providers is another line of defense against idiots who have nothing better to do than to deploy sinister attacks on innocent hard workers!
I'm sure I don't need to include having one of the most effective antivirus platforms (paid version if possible, since this is one of the most elementary MUSTS of having a computer connected to the Internet. I also should not need to stress the staying away from "naughty" and other untrusted websites AND LINKS you are unfamiliar with, since most everybody knows this! Albeit, a high percentage of successful attacks, sometimes repeated on the same systems, occur because these people don't bother with these simple steps!
I realize what I have here isn't all about website protection in the online environment, but all of it helps.
A platform I have been seriously considering is Kaspersky Labs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab
This is a Russian-based (but evidently is controlled by an entity in the UK, if I have my facts straight) that has the highest expertise on Russian cyber attacks (a.k.a. all cyber attacks) than any other. It may be very well worth looking into. Albeit, there will be folks who do not trust this platform because its home base is in Moscow.
I have what's called https://saferweb.com which is yet another layer of protection against cyber attacks. It is a free program worth looking into.
Doing some simple things however, can provide the best protection you can have for both your computer and your websites. Remember this...
The more known you are on the Internet, the more vulnerable to attacks you are! Keep up with the necessary deployments!
You may be well aware of all these items, but have you actually taken these steps to defend your assets? If you have not, you should start right now!
Recent Comments
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Thank you Chrissie. Someone else wrote about Russian cyber attacks on here and it inspired me to write about ways to avoid this. This is why I have stressed Kaspersky Labs. When I can see my way, I will be purchasing this protection. It is known to be one of the best and also deals with rootkit, which is not a nice thing to have to deal with removal.
Wrote it to educate, but it could serve as a warning, because this is serious business.
You hit a home run with this one buddy. I am very fastidious about keeping up to date on my computer protection programs and run some every day. And you're also quite correct about Kaspersky. I'm not very tech saavy but my techy(and close friend) is. He said the same thing about Kaspersky.
I have known about Kaspersky since 2004. It has been protecting online businesses since not long after the Internet as we know it, developed, having been founded in 1997, now 20 years old. If this were anything other than it says it is, it would have been long gone. When I can afford it, I'm going to dump what I have now, which is Avira and Microsoft's Defender.
I don't download stuff from anywhere but websites that are trusted and secure, well-known and respected. I have my computer protected with the above said antivirus programs and an added protection, the program mentioned above in the blog post.
I have my important files in two places - a dedicated external hard drive and One-Drive cloud storage. I wouldn't have the cloud storage, nor have chosen One-Drive, but my sister got it for me through a family plan. My sister is the only one in my family that will interact with me.
Thanks, my buddy, for replying!
Daniel
No problem. Now on the subject of protection, my techy also said that ESET Nod32 ranks very high currently. I'm using that on one desktop and I have Webroot on the others right now. You do know that you can usually find the serial code or key to open up full functions for most protection programs online, right?
A timely reminder Daniel. There has been a huge increase in the number of attacks lately, some of which could have been prevented by keeping WordPress up to date. Updates
I have Windows 10 and hate the updates, but at least they're now putting them out as cumulative updates rather than having one almost on a daily basis! Windows is a prime target for siege. From what I hear, Windows will, in the near future, be offered as a subscription-based operating system. There will be a monthly charge to use it. I will hopefully be reverting to Linux by the time this happens. Linux is pretty secure, though it has far less support for many programs out there. It does, however provide support for most anything one would need for any kind of content creation and programs for any basic needs in computing.
I try to keep up on WP updates. I sometimes miss them but usually not by more than a couple weeks at the most.
Thanks Marion for replying,
Daniel
P.S.: I followed the link and learned something over there!
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It's important to look at your options for securing your work efforts. I agree! But after reading this, I would have reservations about using Kaspersky as part of that solution:
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/257289-israel-kaspersky-lab-nsa-data-russian-government