WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) and the power of more than 30% of websites. During this expansion, hackers have taken note of this and have begun to target WordPress sites specifically. You are no exception, no matter what kind of content your site provides. If you do not take those precautions, you can get hacked. Like all related technology, you need to test the security of your website.
In this article, I will share our ten best tips to keep your WordPress website safe.
- Pick a good hosting company
The easiest way to secure your site is to go with a hosting provider that provides multiple security layers.
It may seem tempting to go with a cheap hosting provider, which means that you can spend it elsewhere within your company after saving money on your website hosting. However, one cannot be tempted by this route. It can cause nightmares on the road, and often trigger them. Your data may be removed entirely and your URL may start redirecting elsewhere.
For a performance hosting company, charging a bit more means that additional security measures are automatically added to your website. An added benefit, you can speed up your WordPress page much faster using better WordPress hosting.
- Don’t Use Nulled Themes
Premium WordPress themes look more professional and have more ways to customize than free themes. But one could argue that you will get what you pay for. Highly skilled developers coded premium themes and tested to exclude multiple WordPress checks. There is no limit to customizing your design, and if something goes wrong on your page, you will get full support. In all of these, you will get regular theme updates.
But, some sites provide null or broken themes. An invalid or torn theme is a hacked version of a premium theme that can be accessed through illegal means. They are also really risky for your site. Those themes contain secret malicious code that can ruin your website and server or log your administrator credentials.
Although it may be tempting to save a few bucks, always avoid nulled themes.
It is a time-consuming task to check your website security for malware regularly and, if you refresh your knowledge of coding standards daily, you may not even realize that you Looking at a piece of malware written in the code. Luckily, others have assumed that not everyone is a developer and excluded security plugins from supporting WordPress. A security plugin takes care of your website’s security, scans for malware, and tracks your site 24/7 to review your website regularly.
- Always use a strong password
Passwords are an essential part of website security and are unfortunately often overlooked. If you use a plain password, you must immediately change your password, i.e., 123456, abc123, and password. While this password may be easy to remember, it is also effortless to guess. Without much hassle, an advanced user can easily crack your password.
You need to use a complex password, one that is auto-generated with a wide variety of numbers, redundancy combinations of characters, and special characters such as percentages or ^.
- Disable editing files
Your dashboard has a code editing feature when you set up the WordPress security that allows you to edit your themes and plugins. You can access it by going to Appearance> Editing. The other way to find the plugin’s editor is by going under Plugins>Editor.
I suggest that you disable this function when your site is online. If any hackers hack your WordPress admin panel, they can insert subtle, malicious code into your theme and plugin. Often the bar code will be so subtle that you cannot notice anything until it is too late. To disable the ability to edit plugins and theme folders, simply paste the following code in your wp-config.php file.
Defined ((DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT ‘, true)
- Install single sockets layer Certificate
The single sockets layer, SSL, is useful for all types of websites today. Initially, SSL was required to make a site secure, like processing payments for specific transactions. Today, however, Google has recognized its importance and provides sites with more weighted space within their search results with SSL certificates.
For any website that processes sensitive information i.e., passwords or credit card details, SSL is mandatory. Without an SSL certificate, all data is passed in plain text between the user’s web browser and your web server. Hackers can read it. It encrypts sensitive information before using SSL between your client and your database, making it difficult to read and protect your page.
- Change your WordPress-login URL
By default, the address “yoursite.com/wp-admin” is used to login to WordPress. Leaving it as the default, you can make a brute force attack to crack your username/password combination. If you allow users to register for membership accounts, then you can get a lot of spam registrations. To avoid this, you can change the admin account URL or add registration and login page with a security question.
Through adding a 2-factor authentication plugin to your WordPress, you can also secure your login page
- To access your account, you must provide additional authentication
- It can be your password and email (or text). It is an enhanced security feature that can prevent hackers from accessing your site.
- You can also check which IP has failed the most login attempts, and then you can block those IP addresses.
- Restrict login attempts
By default, WordPress allows users to try to login as many times as they want. While it can help if you often forget which characters are capital, it also opens you up to force attacks.
Users can try a limited number of times until they are temporarily blocked by limiting the number of login attempts. A brute force limits your effort as the hacker stops before finishing his attack.
- Hide wp-config.php and .htaccess files
While this is an advanced process to improve the security of your site, it is essential to hide your site’s .htaccess and wp-config.php files to prevent hackers from accessing them.
We strongly recommend implementing this option by experienced developers, as it is mandatory to back up your site first and then proceed with caution. Any mistake can make your website inaccessible.
- Update your WordPress version (plugins and themes)
Keeping your website secure is a good practice to keep up to date with your WordPress. Developers make some improvements with each update, often with enhanced security features. Through updating to the latest version, you help protect yourself from falling prey to pre-identified bugs and vulnerabilities that hackers can use to access your page. It is essential to update your plugins and themes for similar reasons.
Conclusion
WordPress security is one of the significant components of a website. If your WordPress security is not maintained, hackers can quickly attack your site. Maintaining the security of your website is not difficult and can be done without spending a penny.