Preventing Website Viruses

It’s the bane of all website owners existence, accidentally acquiring website viruses. When running WordPress on a website there are some challenges as it is the most popular open source software on the web for websites and therefore there can be a lot of hacks.

If someone manages to hack your database, they can inject malware code that will infect visitors computers. Search engines like Google can de-list the site and ban it. If this happens to your website, it can be very frustrating and you can lose business over it.

In this article I’m going to share with you some techniques to prevent this from happening. The simplest thing to do is to make sure that your software is up-to-date. WordPress comes out with updates on both the themes and the plugins and the core software regularly.

These need to be updated by hand inside the back-end of the website. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s important to get a web developer to do these updates for you. Some updates can crash the website and you want someone who can restore the site properly if that happens.

Besides updating software regularly, there are some products that can be purchased that also prevent malware attacks. The best products to prevent this are malware scanners and malware blockers like Securi and Site Lock. These sites regularly scan the database for malicious code and automatically remove it or block it.

Another tool is a firewall, which is a bit more expensive and labor intensive product to set up, but it’ll be worth it on higher end websites.

Finally one of the smartest things to do is not install lots of plugins and themes on a production website. I recommend people play around on a non-important website with plugins and themes to see if they like them before installing on a production or live site.

The more plugins a website has, the higher chance of being hacked. Also, trying out free themes can be risky. Proceed with caution with WordPress and take the necessary steps to protect your site.

If you would like some help with your website Security contact us and we will advise you on which way to go

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Written by: Jophiel Silvestrone

Jophiel Silvestrone has written 325 posts in the Tech Blog.

Jophiel grew up on a ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana near Chico Hot Springs. Working on the ranch instilled work ethic and self motivation. Filled with this drive, Jophiel started mowing the local school's yards twice a month throughout the summers, at the age of 12. He moved to Billings in 2004, where he has been deeply involved in the local business community ever since. A serial entrepreneur, Jophiel has ran multiple businesses in our local community. The first business, a janitorial and carpet cleaning company, founded in 2005, has employed over 50 locals. Moving on to the media industry, Jophiel and several partners founded Green Directory Montana in the spring of 2007. Green Directory's sustainability ranking software awarded points based on sustainable or "green" actions. These points counted towards a business's total "Green Score," which in turn ranked them against other businesses in their category and throughout the entire site. It also featured a limited edition print version distributed annually. A business acquisition allowed Jophiel to focus on new projects, and a few close business colleagues and Jophiel started Rocky Mountain Mr. & Ms. Magazine, a lifestyle publication for men and women in the Magic City. After a year and a half at the helm of RM3 Magazine, the business was purchased. He now runs a web development company SkyPoint Studios and fathers his son Jaoquin, who plays football, basketball, soccer, and is learning snowboarding from his dad. Recently, has expanded to locations in Havasu, Arizona & Vegas. SkyPoint Studios is a market leader in both Billings & Havasu and Jophiel is working on building that same level of market dominance in Vegas. Specialties: Extensive experience in online and offline business. Especially savvy at WordPress, and operate several sites, one example is the blog: skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com/tech-blog. Check out skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com for the latest projects from SkyPoint Studios.