Sunday, November 30, 2014

Do Hackers Bother with Lit Blogs?

I'm starting to notice a disturbing trend since my return to active blogging (after a 13-month hiatus, I've been blogging again for about six weeks), and I'm wondering if other book bloggers are noticing the same thing.  Simply put, the source of a good percentage of my blog traffic has shifted from Western Europe to countries known for most of the malicious hacking that goes on in the world today.  And that (while maybe it shouldn't) makes me a little nervous.

Prior to my time away from the blog, the majority of my visitors came from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, France, Australia, and India (pretty much in that order of magnitude).  But since my return in October, while I still get visits from all the previous countries on a regular basis, the Ukraine, China, Russia, and Poland have moved into the top six or seven countries from which my visitors come.  I have to wonder if many of these are just hackers looking for a way to mine usable information from the blog.

Should I be concerned?  Would you be?  What could they possibly get from hacking into a blog since the blog is hosted on an outside server and not on my home computer network?

As you can see, I have more questions than answers.  I would welcome your input, guys.

4 comments:

  1. Well, you must be getting more traffic overall than I am. I have not noticed a shift like the one you describe.

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    1. What made me notice is that my traffic if slowly but steadily returning since my absence from the blog - but coming back in a much different mix of countries from what I had the first seven years on the blog. It spooked me a little...

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  2. My traffic hasn't shifted at all but the amount of spam that gets through the WordPress filters has gone up dramatically in the past few months. What you have noticed probably isn't something to worry about. Just keep an eye on it and make sure you have a really strong password.

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    1. Blogspot is actually doing a great job with the spam. I get less and less of that kind of thing all the time. But the traffic blips from specific people do indicate to me that someone, or many someones, are trying to play games. Regular traffic is still pretty steady, and slower than when I left blogging 13 months ago, but creeping back up to old levels, thankfully.

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