Just the FAQs Blog

Several major hosting companies have recently sent notices to their clients that routine maintenance will be performed this weekend. When so many servers are updated at the same time, it generally indicates that a new major cyber threat is floating about. Whether one is or not, regular updates and maintenance are performed because there are thousands of new minor threats produced by hackers every week.

Your site, computer, and browser need regular updates to keep them protected too.

Following is a simple checklist of routine maintenance that you can do in just a few minutes. While most folks put these tasks off because it disrupts their workflow, the time you invest here will save you countless hours of rebuilding a system that has been hacked.

Backup Your Site Files

If your site is on either a Blogger or WordPress.org platform, there are easy-to-use backup utility widgets and plugins that will do all of the work for you. Be sure to backup your site and content files. The site files are held in the theme. The content files are held in the database. Even if you have FTP access to your site, use the apps. They’re faster.

Backup Your Backup

Once you have stored the backup files from your site onto your computer, make another backup copy of them on another disk. This could be either an external hard drive, removable USB thumb drive, or a CD.

The rule of thumb is that if the data is not saved in three places, it’s not safe. One place is online. The second is on your computer’s hard drive. The third is on the removable drive. When it comes to data storage, redundancy rules.

Update Your Anti-Virus and Firewall Protection

The easiest, as safest way to do this is have your software auto-update and scan your system on a regular schedule. Yes, it slows down your computer’s performance time when it’s running. But that’s a small sacrifice to make compared to rebuilding all of the info on your hard drive. Most programs allow you to select the time when it’s best for the app to run. Perhaps you could run it during dinner, when you’re not likely to be working your computer. Be sure to have it scan any external drives regularly too.

Backup Your Computer’s Hard Drive

Because backing up an entire hard drive takes so much time, folks are reluctant to do this task on a regular basis. One trick you can use to get around this situation is to have it backup overnight while you sleep.

Backing up to an external hard drive is the fastest method to store your data. But, if you don’t have an external drive, there are several online storage services that charge a nominal monthly fee around five dollars. So, the yearly total would be less than the cost of an external hard drive, which usually has a two year lifespan. The speed at which the data runs will depend entirely on your Internet connection speed. But, if you perform the backup overnight, there is less Internet traffic, and that will improve performance.

Update Your Browser

Sneaking in through a security crack in your browser is the easiest way for a hacker to infect your system. Most browsers now come with auto-update reminders. Unfortunately, too many people just turn them off because they don’t want the look or features of their interface to change.

Bite the bullet and do the update. Learning the slight changes to the interface is a small annoyance compared to rebuilding your system.

While many consider it a painful chore to update their online security features, just consider how devastating it would be to your business to loose your entire site and all of its content. Consider how much time it would take you to rebuild if you lost all of the information on your computer. And, think of how long it would take you to get caught up on the backlog of work that accumulated while you were rebuilding.

There’s a lot of wisdom in that old adage, “A stitch in time saves nine.” Do your backups and updates soon.