The digital age certainly gave rise to great conveniences such as social media and websites, not only for personal use but also for businesses, but it also gave rise to a dangerous element known as cyber-crimes. Nowadays, you can connect to anyone from anywhere in the world, and you can access all kinds of knowledge and information for free, but this also holds true for cyber-criminals who are looking for victims to lure into their trap.
This isn’t a new phenomenon – it has been around for some time and has been documented when an incident has been essentially dangerous for the victim. There have been numerous reports on how people were scammed out of their money by entering their personal information (which may include credit or debit card details) in what seemed like a trustworthy and legitimate website at the time, people being extorted or blackmailed over sensitive information that cyber-criminals obtained, etc. Even celebrities have been targeted by these cyber-crimes – from having their personal details accessed illegally or even sensitive media released to the public.
Corporations are not safe from these attacks as well. Earlier this year, HBO faced a heavy adversary who had managed to steal 1TB of their data which contained personal information of the company, the staff, and even actors involved with their shows, scripts of their series, and most importantly, all episodes of their tentpole series “Game of Thrones”, which was airing at the time and seemed to be the primary target for the attack. While this did not become as devastating as the 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that nearly caused the studio to go under, it was still a pretty big incident, especially when you consider how the hackers have repeatedly threatened the studio that they will release what they got to the public if they did not pay the hackers.
In spite of these incidents, however, 73% of WordPress sites still remain vulnerable to being attacked. This only means that a large portion of WordPress-based websites are alarmingly susceptible to cyberattacks and hacking at any time. This is a dangerous position to be in for businesses because it isn’t only their sensitive data at risk – they can also potentially risk the personal information of their clientele and can cause numerous problems – one of which being a lawsuit against the company for negligence.
At the forefront of WordPress protection is the WordPress firewall, which can deliver more than just protecting your website against potential cyberattacks. Learn more about WordPress firewalls with this infographic by NewtLabs.
Apart from having a WordPress firewall, there are many other essential steps one must take after installing a WordPress site to secure and optimize it, learn about them in this handy infographic.
Do you have WordPress firewall installed for your site? Which firewall do you prefer, Wordfence or any other? Let us know in comments below.
