5 Easy Steps to Protect Your WordPress Website
WordPress is the world’s most popular website platform. WordPress powers more than 42% of the world’s websites, far outnumbering any other single platform. WordPress’s popularity stems from how simple it is to use, even for non-techies.
Even as people flock to WordPress to build websites, they are concerned about website security. WordPress sites are thought to be less secure than those built on other platforms. Yes, many hacked sites are built on WordPress, but this is primarily due to the platform’s popularity. With WordPress powering nearly half of the world’s websites, the chances of any given hacked site being a WordPress site are pretty high.
WordPress sites have a good level of security, but the security of your individual site is dependent on the measures you take to protect it. To reduce the possibility of someone breaking in and stealing your belongings, your home has door locks, security cameras, and burglar alarms. Similarly, you must take precautions to secure your website.
Unfortunately, there are many hackers and cyber-thieves out there who want to hack into websites, steal data, and cause damage to businesses. You must take precautions to secure your website so that it does not become a target for internet criminals or bad actors.
Here are five easy steps to secure your WordPress business site that don’t require any coding, advanced technical knowledge, or even much WordPress experience.
Table of Contents
5 methods for securing your WordPress website
1. Keep your website updated on a regular basis
Nothing in life is static, and the internet is no exception. WordPress releases updates for the core WordPress version on a regular basis, and it’s critical to install them as soon as they’re available in order to secure your WordPress website. Updates are available to fix bugs and close security gaps, so they play an important role in keeping your site secure.
It’s also important to keep your WordPress version up to date. You should also keep all of your plugins and themes up to date to prevent hackers from using them as a backdoor into your site. It’s best to configure your site to automatically run WordPress updates so you don’t miss any updates or forget to run them.
2. Check your plugins and themes again
One of WordPress’s strengths is the availability of tens of thousands of plugins and themes for customizing your site. With so many available, it’s not surprising that some are created by people who are untrustworthy, inexperienced, or prone to taking lazy shortcuts.
Use only themes and plugins that are actively managed and provide reliable support and regular updates. Everyone wants to save money, but using a free plugin or theme that isn’t listed on the official WordPress plugin repository isn’t worth the risk.
Another possibility is that you will end up with a nulled or cracked theme, which is a hacked version of a premium theme. Premium themes are more expensive because they are thoroughly tested, include full support, and are built by skilled developers. When you purchase a nulled theme or plugin, you are not simply purchasing a knockoff; these knockoffs frequently conceal malicious code that can harm your website and database and/or steal your data.
3. Make your passwords more secure
The front door, aka your admin username and password, is the simplest way for hackers to gain access to your site. They do this using a brute-force attack, which means they bombard your site with thousands of different username and password combinations in the hopes of guessing the correct one.
To secure your WordPress website, change your default usernames and passwords to something unique and difficult to guess. Avoid using simple passwords such as 1234, your birthday, or anything else that is easy to guess.
Choose a password that contains at least one number, one symbol, and one capital letter. If you’re worried about forgetting your passwords, a password manager can help you keep track of them all. Another option is to use the name of a song or an easy-to-remember sentence and simply replace one or two letters with a symbol and a number.
Remember that we’re not just talking about your WordPress site password. Your WordPress dashboard, site databases, WordPress-managed hosting account, the email address you entered in case you need to recover your site, and your FTP account are all potential entry points for hackers, so they all require strong passwords.
4. Examine user permissions
As your company grows, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to manage everything related to your website while also running your company. You’ll probably need to give at least a few employees access to your site so they can update your content, add blog posts, or correct minor errors.
However, the more people who have access to your site, the more likely it is that someone will make a mistake that compromises your security. As a result, it is critical to review the list of people who have access to your site on a regular basis and determine what they are permitted to do.
WordPress allows you to assign user permissions and roles ranging from Subscriber (who can only see their own profile) to Administrator (who can see everyone’s profile) (who can change anything and everything about the site). You should limit each person’s access to what is absolutely necessary, and you should disable registration so that spam profiles cannot subscribe.
Anyone who no longer requires access to the site should be removed as soon as possible. Leaving unused profiles on the site raises your chances of being hacked.
5. Disallow bad bots
Bots are automated visitors who examine the content and performance of your website. Google, for example, uses bots to scope websites for ranking, but not all bots are harmless. Bots are also used by hackers as spies to look for vulnerabilities that you may have overlooked.
When hackers come across a site that blocks their bots, they take it as a warning to avoid it. This is why it’s a good idea to block bad bots listed on botreports.com from accessing your site. Fortunately, most security plugins already block bad bots on the list, so if you don’t already have one, you should get one right away. In either case, you can use the StopBadBots plugin to block bad bots separately.
The right strategies can aid in the security of your WordPress website.
WordPress business sites can be extremely secure and effective, but much depends on you. You can sleep soundly at night knowing that your website is secure if you keep it up to date, use only approved plugins and themes, check passwords and permissions, and keep bad bots out.
If you need assistance to secure your website in WordPress, you can contact our team of web developers.
5 Easy Steps to Protect Your WordPress Website
WordPress is the world’s most popular website platform. WordPress powers more than 42% of the world’s websites, far outnumbering any other single platform. WordPress’s popularity stems from how simple it is to use, even for non-techies.
Even as people flock to WordPress to build websites, they are concerned about website security....Show More
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