Thank You Mr. Hacker – All z Well!

Finally, after more than a month my blog is back after being hacked by an Iranian hacker. I really can’t relate to what these hackers feel when they are able to hack websites but honestly it’s a waste of their time.

Apparently, while I was busy doing other business tasks, I wasn’t really able to update my personal blog for quite some time so I ended up suffering the consequences.

But as much as I want to get mad that Iranian Hacker, I am choosing to focus on the positive lessons that this event in my life has brought. Also, since I know for a fact that I can’t get even with him (hehehe).

To tell you honestly, I’m no good in making HTML codes, CSS, or whatever web developing languages that is available to use. I’m just a marketing guy who likes to talk about a lot of stuff especially about my life as a Christian Entrepreneur. So again, it will be useless even if I get mad at the Iranian Hacker.

In fact, the best thing that I can do for that Iranian Hacker is to pray for him. May God have mercy on him for messing with a loving child of God like me. hehehehe

Also I want to share with you the lessons I learned with the challenge that I faced when my website was hacked.

Always try even if you don’t understand

Once my website was hacked, I tried to get it back right away but apparently I had to learn stuff on my CPanel (hosting admin) and had to deal with SQL, Database, Local Host, and a lot of stuff that really made my nose bleed. After 15 minutes in looking in my CPanel I had to stop since I lost all the blood in my body. Hehehe… Seriously, it was such a new world for me that whenever I tried to get WordPress blog back I would so uncomfortable that I can’t do anything at all.

It was like entering a new world and learning how to walk for the very first time again. I had to bleed and try almost everyday.

Thankfully my good friend and fellow internet marketer – Hanz Florentino helped me on how to get it back. So I tried and tried again until I finally got it back.

Always seek people that are better that you

Like I mentioned above, it was because of Hanz Florentino that I was able to get my WordPress admin back. But He was not only the one who offered to helped. Janmck Hilado and Paul Tibayan also gave me advice on what I needed to do.

All of the people above are hands-down better Internet Marketers than I am. So at the times that I was trying to get my website back, I always seek their advice and guidance. And thanks to them, I can again write whatever I want in my blog.

Always be concerned for security

As a person, I’m not really much of the details. I’m more of the have fun type of guy and let’s do it guy, without any concrete plan at all. So I tend to leave the details behind and work on them later once it causes me any trouble. If doesn’t cause anything bad, then I forget about it all together.

With all my WordPress blogs (even affiliate sites) I just left the passwords, and allowed the computer to remember it. I hated the hassle of logging in every time I would open my blog.

But because of that I suffered a grave mistake.

Jan told me that when you leave your web pages open, hackers can access that page and hack your website. So that’s exactly what happened to me. And worse, since I didn’t memorize my passwords and even my usernames, I had to go through the process of getting it again even from my hosting account.

So that’s also one of the main reasons why I wasn’t able to get website back as fast as I was suppose to.

Last and very important lesson – Always have an excellent password and change it from time to time.

This is one lesson that I really learned painfully.

Now my guidelines in my online passwords are:

1. Each website has to have a unique password and username
2. Never leave web pages open without logging out
3. In my passwords I now use CAPITAL LETTERS, special characters, numbers, and small letters
4. I also make sure that my passwords are not related to me and whatever things can lead to hackers discovering my password

Well, what the hacker didn’t really do much damage except on the fact that my Google Adsense earnings for that specific website became stagnant for quite a while. But the lessons that I have learned in this “event of my life” has really taught me well. For me that is what’s important.

Like what they say in the movie Three Idiots – ALL IS WELL!=)

Always be a blessing to others!

Jake Bere