A recent report found that website security breaches had increased by 67% over the previous five years.
560,000 new pieces of malware are detected every day, in sites large and small. These include legitimate small business or personal websites that are unwittingly distributing malware or simply vandalised for the fun of it. You can read about why anyone would hack a small website here.
At aerta creative site security is taken very seriously.
Shared hosting
Compared to expensive, dedicated servers, shared hosting offers an economical way of hosting small-to-medium-sized websites. Sharing your hosting with others does come with responsibilities, though; any breach of security on your site can put at risk other sites with which you share the server. That’s why it’s in everyone’s interest to keep their site secure.
WordPress and site security
As a platform, WordPress offers great opportunities to add extended functionality to a website without the considerable expense of commissioning a programmer to configure a bespoke content management system. The platform powers roughly 40% of the entire world-wide web, and as such is a target for hackers and other devious operators.
Every WordPress site designed by aerta comes with an optional comprehensive long-term support package to maintain your site’s security, including:
- regular monitoring of your site’s visibility and functionality
- restoring from any available backup if it is hacked
- manually updating the WordPress core, theme and plugins if required
- renewing annual plugin subscriptions if applicable
- monitoring your site’s performance after automatic and manual updates have been implemented
- liaising with plugin/theme developers if an update has caused any hiccups
- installing and configuring the Wordfence security plugin (and the pro-version if you subscribed to that option) and monitoring Wordfence’s ongoing recommendations and alerts, checking whether plugin vulnerabilities flagged up by Wordfence apply to your site
- updating, when required, your PHP version (the background coding framework which supports WordPress)
- regular monitoring and deletion of spam comments
- regular monitoring of your site’s ‘health status’ as reported by WordPress, and implementing any core recommendations
- manually blocking IP addresses which repeatedly attempt to hack your site
- resolving any mobile visibility issues identified by Google
The regular site maintenance programme is invoiced every six months, and typically costs between 79.00 and 125.00 per year, depending on the size and functionality of your site
What the security maintenance programme doesn’t include
- amendments and updates to your site’s content or design when implemented by us. These are charged on an hourly basis, in addition to the security maintenance programme. There is a 1/4-hour minimum charged for content changes implemented by us.
- annual renewal of your domain and web hosting – either if we deal with renewals or you settle these costs yourself.
What you can do to help
- regularly check that your site is live, functioning correctly and hasn’t been hacked – and report any problems immediately.
- if they’re your responsibility, settle your domain and hosting invoices promptly
- install effective virus protection on your computer
