I love just about everything about the Internet. It has allowed me to work from my home in Scottsdale AZ and have connections all over the world. I can create movies, cool audios, websites, online communities much more… but there’s one thing that I wasn’t expecting and it happened twice in the last two months — I was hacked.
The first time was a little over a month ago when I went to my main site: www.MasteringOnlineMarketing.com and instead seeing my site and links to my businesses there was a white screen with absolutely nothing on it (gulp!) and I didn’t know why.
The second time was yesterday when I received a link on Facebook that referenced me being in a video. To be honest I wasn’t paying much attention and I had been featured in people’s videos a number times so I clicked on it (big mistake). The next thing I knew I was appearing on many of my friends walls with the same message (from me!) asking them to click on link that would spread the virus even further!
Long story short — both of these problems were resolved –but some lessons were learned the hard way that might benefit you as well:
1. Have a web hosting service that has excellent 24-hour support. When my site went down I called my provider and someone picked up the phone immediately. He looked at my files, diagnosed the problem and let me know exactly what was necessary to fix it. Thanks Blue Host.
2. Have a good web designer who can go into the code and fix the problem quickly. Thanks Jody.
3. Be careful what you click. Regarding Facebook… even links that may seem to come from a friend, may not. Hackers are crafty.
4. Change your password regularly on your blog, Facebook and other important sites. Pay attention to your security permissions settings and apps that may be causing problems. If you don’t understand how find someone who does. Thanks Tina.
5. Realize that this can happen to you too.
Do you have any safety tips or precautions that you can reccommend?
I am sure there are more things you can do but hope these help. That said … I still love the Internet!