Every year, millions of unsecured websites are blacklisted by Google. WordPress websites with poor security allow hackers to take control of the website and gather sensitive information such as user information and passwords that they can use to exploit people. In fact, it can also ruin your reputation and cause you great financial harm by ruining online business operations. That’s why it’s crucial to keep your WordPress website secure.
Here are a few tips you may follow to keep your WordPress website secure:
1.
Set strong passwords and user permissions – Weak passwords make it easier for hackers to break the security of your WordPress website and gain access to it. You can easily create strong passwords using a random password generator and use a password manager to store them.
Also, don’t just create a strong password for your WordPress admin area. It’s equally important to set different passwords for your WordPress hosting account, FTP accounts, WordPress database, and your custom email addresses. Lastly, you should limit the number of individuals who have access to your WordPress admin account.
2.
Regularly update WordPress and keep backups – WordPress automatically installs minor updates but you have to manually update the major releases. You must also keep your WordPress themes and plugins updated since outdated themes and plugins can be exploited by hackers. Plus, keeping all the elements of your website update allows it to perform at its best.
Also, be sure to use a WordPress back solution since they allow you to quickly restore your website in the event of a successful attack on your WordPress website.
3.
Use a good hosting service – It’s essential to use a good hosting service, especially if you are using a shared hosting account since sharing server resources with other users makes your website susceptible to cross-contamination. Reputed shared hosting providers such as Siteground and Bluehost continuously monitor their network for malicious activity and offer extra measures that protect your website from DDOS attacks.
They also keep their hardware, PHP versions, and server software up to date to reduce the risk of system vulnerability. For a more secure platform, you may use managed WordPress hosting that provides automatic WordPress updates, automatic back-ups, and advanced security configurations.
4.
Use WordPress security plugins – WordPress security plugins such as Sucuri Scanner enables file integrity monitoring, audit logging, malware scanning, failed login attempts, email alerts, and more. You can apply the ‘Hardening’ option to prevent hackers from accessing key areas of your website.
You can also enable the Web Application Firewall (WAF) to block malicious traffic. There are two options you can utilize — DNS Level Website Firewall and Application Level Firewall.
5.
Transition your WordPress website to SSL/HTTPS – Enabling SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) on your WordPress website makes it possible to encrypt data transfer between the user browser and the website. SSL certificates can be acquired for free from a company called Let’s Encrypt but you may purchase a stronger SSL certificate for better security. Once you enable SSL, you would notice a green padlock symbol next to your website address, and the website address from then on would start with HTTPS instead of HTTP.
Stay Tuned
We’ll be making another version of this for more advanced tips for keeping your WordPress based websites secure.