For WordPress Owners/Users:

As secure as your hosting company may be, you’re still only as safe as your password is strong. If you’re still using letters only. Consider your door wide open. Sure, you may be fine now, and nothing’s happened to-date. But when your site comes crashing down, you have no one to blame, but yourself.

Now, let’s say you have both letters and numbers. That’s great! Unless of course those numbers and letters are related in ANYWAY to you, your family, your pets, or your favorite TV show, character, etc. Why? Think about it…with the mass of social networking we do, we’re bound to spill, and leave trails of, what we like. Consider your door left ajar. And again, when your site comes crashing down, you have no one to blame, but…yourself.

Now let’s move on to those that have letters and numbers, but they’re in no way related to you, your family, your pets, etc. You might even use a password generator – not bad – and you even have 12 characters. Consider your door, closed, but unlocked. Sure you’re safe, as long as no one tries the handle. ;) Yes, they’ll have to try harder than the above passwords, but it still might not be that hard. Again, when your site…yada, yada, yada…

Now let’s move on to those that use letters, numbers, and special characters. Now that’s a challenge! But only – IF – that password is in no way related to you. Here’s a great example. Let’s pretend my loved one’s name is Robert Downey (uh-huh). I could take his name and change it up like so: R08{r7|)@wN34. Not bad, right? But any hacker can figure that out.

So what do you need to do? Go off the grid with EVERYTHING you know and love, and choose something ENTIRELY random and unrelated. Choose a password with letters, numbers, and special characters, and make it – AT LEAST – 14 characters long. (The longer the better.) Change that password every 45 to 90 days. Pain in the ass? Yes, but you’re taking steps to keeping your site safe.

The other thing you should do, is back-up, back-up, BACK-UP! Why? If a hacker wants in, nothing will stop them. So backing up your data weekly (or as often as you post), keeps your content safe. And should your site go down, you can always install a fresh copy, with all your content in check.

Oh, and One More Thing:

Never, ever, EVER use “admin” (or ANY variation of the word) as your username. You’re just begging for trouble if you do. Why? It’s the first thing they look for!

Now It’s Your Turn:

What’s your most recent security or password nightmare?