Securing Your Site Against Spammers

Have you noticed your site getting bogged down or notice your hitting resource limits and not sure why? While there could be many causes, our support teams do occasionally find that a site has been compromised by spammers. Often, hackers will infect your site and use your server to send spam.
Preventing your server from being hacked by spammers will help it to run smoother and will keep your clients happier. Spam uses your server’s resources and create a higher load. If your server sends enough you may find yourself on a blacklist.
How do you know if your site has become a tool for spammers? You may get a warning from your ISP or an abuse report from your host. You may also find your bandwidth spiking and reaching usage limits.
Here are some tips we have gathered to help you prevent your server from sending spam:

• Make sure your site is secure, always use strong passwords and avoid malware.
• Exercise caution with your contact forms. Make sure they are not vulnerable to malware injections or abuse.
• Keep things up-to-date. Scripts, plugins, CMS tools all should be updated regularly. Additionally, any old or unused scripts should be removed. As a bonus this will help keep the backend clean and easy to work with.
• If spam becomes a problem investigate using a monitoring service to identify the issue.

Nearly 75% of email is spam. By taking the proper steps, you can protect your server and avoid contributing to the deluge.