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Old 05-23-2013, 10:20 AM   #7
FanIn80
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Quote:
Originally Posted by maverickstruth View Post
The most important thing is strong password selection. Most Wordpress hacks are brute force password attacks. Remember, a strong password is one that is long, not necessarily one with special characters and all that crap that people think makes them strong. This xkcd explains it really well: http://xkcd.com/936/

Now, aside from that, the other thing I do on my sites and my clients' sites is to install the limit login attempts plugin to give a further protection against brute force login attempts.

Also, get and use an automatic database backup plugin so you aren't relying on your host to have a backup.

Other things:

Create a second administrator account and delete the first one, so that you don't have a "user 1" in your database. And don't use 'admin' as the username.

Keep your plugins, themes and WP install up-to-date, even on sites that you maybe don't use or actively post on any more. Use only quality plugins and themes from authors with a good reputation and solid support (updates are a good indicator of this, as is a forum presence).

The are the main things that come to mind, but if I think of more, I'll post again. Really the biggest thing is password security.
Just to touch on what maverickstruth said about long passwords, what I typically do is look around my office and build a password out of things I see. It might sound silly, but it helps with having to remember the passwords you don't use very often. In addition, "thereisaclipboardonmywall" is easy to type, easy to remember and a lot harder to brute force than "iginla12" is.
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