Network Box, a security company has released a whitepaper or you can call it a small guide which tells you some of the common things one should do, in order to ensure that your blog doesn’t become one of the blog’s which got hacked. Once a blog gets hacked, it can be used to serve all sort of content and ultimately can harm the blog’s reputation.

Here are some of the suggestions mentioned in the whitepaper, which you can download from here.

1. Keep your blogging software up to date.

This is a no brainer. Every now and then, hackers use various SQL injection attacks or exploit some bug in the blogging software which can result in “the hack”. It’s always advisable to update your blog to the latest version as it counters those attacks by fixing the bugs.

2. Keep strong passwords.

My name is Mayank and if it will be foolish of me to keep my password as mayank123, isn’t it? Always ensure that you use a strong (preferably alpha-numeric) password which should be hard to guess. Sometimes it’s not the real hackers, it may be some of your competitor who may try to play dirty.

3. CHMOD the directories well.

Alright, this may be slightly technical but isn’t very difficult. I suggest that you should use WP Security scan plugin and should follow some of the simple steps mentioned to CHMOD the important directories of your blog (in case you are using WordPress as the blogging software). If you are using any other blogging software, then feel free to ask their support team that what should be the ideal CHMOD settings for various important directories.

4. Keep a check on your comments.

We all know that how spammers fill the blog’s with spam comments if there is no comment moderation or anti-spam filtering plugins on the blog software. These spam comments may contain links to potential malicious websites which may just hurt some innocent reader of your blog and may even hurt you as there are scripts which can retrieve saved password in cookies or browsers.

5. Change the database prefix.

By default WordPress prefixes “wp_” in all the tables. One should change this scheme to something else as many attempts are made on the assumption that the database prefix will be the default of what blogging software keep.

There are various other tips which are included in that whitepaper, although these are some of the basic steps which should keep your blog away from hackers.