As a fellow blogger, I know that you put your heart and soul into your blog. We all pour countless hours of effort into creating amazing content for our readers as blog owners, so it’s vital that we protect our hard work. Cyber crime isn’t just something for big businesses to worry about, even the smallest home business owners and bloggers can be targeted. It could be to gain personal and sensitive information like email addresses, names, and passwords which can be used for identity theft or sold on the dark web. And since bloggers can sometimes have financial information linked to their blogs (such as payment details for sponsored posts etc) this can make them a tempting target for cybercriminals. If your blog is bigger and you have an audience, cyber attacks might occur as a way to disrupt operations or steal valuable data. So for these reasons it’s vital to safeguard your online presence. Here are some of the ways that we as bloggers can protect ourselves against cyber criminals.
1. Strong passwords
Although it may seem obvious, many people continue to use weak or common passwords that are simple to guess or for software to crack. Use a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. Never reuse passwords and be sure to set up two factor authentication. You should do this for your blog account (so Blogger, WordPress or whatever platform you use) as well as your blog’s email and any connected social media accounts. Again, don’t reuse passwords as if a hacker gains access to one area of your blog they’ll quickly be able to take over everything.
2. Up to date software
When any software isn’t up to date it can have security vulnerabilities. Whenever an update is available, install it immediately. Keeping your computer and browsers updated and everything well maintained means its more difficult for cyber criminals to gain access to your blog. It’s worth enabling automatic updates for your blogging platform along with plugins, and themes as that way you don’t have to worry about manually updating them. Make sure things like firewalls are installed and up to date, these are an essential tool for bloggers to protect their online presence from cyber crime. This security system essentially acts as a ‘bulletsafe vest’ as it’s a barrier between your blog and the internet. It filters out malicious traffic and unauthorized access attempts so be sure that this is all taken care of.
3. Don’t click anything you’re unsure of
As a blogger you will probably often get companies contacting you so receiving emails from unknown senders will be normal. But not all of these will be who they say they are. Be careful giving out any personal information since scammers acting as sponsored post companies might be tricking you. Never click on links within emails and only download files from reputable sources. If you’re a blogger who gets sent a lot of items to review, it can be worth opening a PO box to protect yourself rather than giving out your home address. And always ask for payments through sites like Paypal which are safe, be wary of handing out bank details.
How do you protect yourself as a blogger?
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