Explosive increase in hacks and data theft by 2020
Reports of hacking aimed at stealing personal data saw a 30% increase in 2020. These are reports of hacking, phishing or malware. It appears to be a new challenge for hackers to obtain personal data to cause harm to individuals. In this way, people can suffer severe financial consequences or suffer great reputational damage through identity fraud.
Hackers are taking their time
Long before the hackers strike, they are already present on a website or other application. They first figure out the organization’s network and where the personal data is stored. Once they can also gain authority in the network by granting themselves privileges, these criminals can do enormous damage in one stroke.
Security with 2FA or Multi-factor authentication
2FA or Multi-factor authentication can often prevent or limit the damage done by hackers because a visitor to a website, must log in at least 2 different ways before gaining access. This usually works with and password and a code sent to you by text message.
In 2020, an estimated 2,000,000 people were harmed by creating a data breach because only 1 step was needed to log in.
With proper security, damage can be reduced or avoided. When processing sensitive personal data, the use of 2FA or multi-factor authentication is even mandatory.
Why is it important to maintain your website properly ? Why a maintenance contract ?
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Security
Security is perhaps the most important reason why you should keep your WordPress website up-to-date.
WordPress supports more than 30% of the world’s websites. Because of its popularity, WordPress is a target for hackers, data thieves and hackers.
It also means that hackers can break into your website via “old code.”
In addition to WordPress, plug-ins can also be abused by those hackers. You need to make sure that all your WordPress plug-ins, themes and the core itself are always up-to-date.
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Speed
Doing updates can make your website run faster. Each new release comes with several improvements that make your website work faster and more efficiently.
For example, WordPress 4.2 improved JS performance for navigation menus, and WordPress 4.1 improved complex searches, which helped the performance of sites that used those searches.
Since speed is a big factor in SEO, be sure to keep your WordPress up-to-date to ensure maximum performance benefits.
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Compatibility of your plugin
Often plug-ins and theme developers align their updates with major WordPress releases to ensure they benefit from newly available features and improvements.
However, in some cases, an update can damage your existing WordPress plug-ins if they do not follow best practices and coding standards.
Therefore, it is crucial that you make regular WordPress backups .
In short, the only drawback is that in some rare cases your site will break. The advantage is that you can
- Improved WordPress security
- Cool new WordPress features
- Faster WordPress experience
- A bug-free WordPress website
- Better compatibility
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Backups
Backing up your website regularly is essential. Every experienced website owner knows this. Unfortunately, many new WordPress users don’t take backing up as seriously as they should. This is sometimes due to the assumption that everything will be fine. Others have looked at backing up their files and decided it was too time-consuming or expensive. In reality, if something goes wrong with your website, you could lose everything.
It is not unusual for Web site owners to take backups seriously only when something goes wrong. It is a hard lesson they will never forget. If you are smart, you will get into the habit of backing up your website from the beginning.
Why is a backup important? When can you put it back?
- Server failure :
- Hacking
- Errors in code
- Backups of hostings not always reliable
Be smart and back up often
It is important to back up your websites regularly. Backing up your PC every day is not always practical, especially if your website uses a lot of storage space. A more practical solution is to use an external service to back up your files.
