Practical Ways to Secure Your WordPress Website

WordPress is the first preferred choice of most web designers as well as businesses, unless they have some other plans for their website. It is easy and simple, and anyone with basic technical knowledge can deal and manage WordPress websites, which makes it so popular in the world of websites. A large community is always available online for support and this is one of the millions of reasons that keep the open-source framework up.

Though the WordPress platform is most preferred as well as the easiest one to work on delivering an awesome website design, still it has some cons that generates fear in business owners as well as the end users when they are using a WordPress website. Service denial, malicious hijacks, existence of hidden passages, pharma hacks, etc. open up the door to hackers, which is a matter of serious concern. Being in the year 2017, we should not give our customers a reason to mistrust our services due to lack of security in the designs we develop.

Yes, there are tips and tactics that can be implemented to protect your WordPress site from the so-called disasters:

1. You do not need an Admin Super user. Do you?

It is a simple thing that most of us do. We create admin super users for our WordPress websites. Actually, when someone breaks into your website, they very well know what your admin super user password would be and this is the path to it.

In almost all the cases, the top-level security account belongs to the admin and the password is not something great such that it will ensure that no one breaks in.

What can you do here?

Delete the Super user account and create a super strong admin account with a complicated user name and password.

2. Backup

Most of the people have this in their minds but fail to provide any backup for their websites. This is something that people tend to forget. In case of an emergency or an unexpected disaster that could strike at the wrong time, it is always better to have a backup planned for your website.

How do you backup your wordpress website?

On your site’s admin panel, you can find the tools option. Upon navigating to the tools section, you click on “Export” and create a backup for your website. It is always important that you create a backup for your business, because this is one of the ways you are ensuring that it lives while everything else stops existing.

3. You could lock your website

Of course, almost every one of the readers is aware of this security measure –when it comes to WordPress websites.

When someone inflicts forced logins and ultimately fails in the attempts, this lock down would save your website from any damage.

What happens here?

Someone tries to break in using wrong passwords and when there is an attempt to break in with wrong ones repeatedly, the WordPress site gets locked and you’ll be notified.

WordPress provides you with a number of security plugins that can be used to secure your website. The iThemes Security plugin is one such a plugin that helps you to set up the number of failed login attempts after which you want the lock down to grope the hacker and send you a notification about the unauthorized entry.

4. Data encryption

We have already discussed the admin screen; also, here is something that you could do to ensure that your admin panel is safe. You can use a Secure Socket Layer or SSL certificate to ensure that your admin panel is secure. This will guard the transfer of data between the server and browser.

You can get it from companies that offer it or from your hosting company (ask them to make it a part of your hosting package).

5. Are you using the latest version?

It is always a great idea to use an updated version of your PHP, WordPress and plugins.

These days the WordPress and its plugins are automatically requesting an update. These updates are coupled with excellent security measures that will ensure that your site is secure against all kinds of hacks.

It is not only the WordPress and its plugins that you should be updating, but the PHP part should also be updated.

Ensure that you are using the latest version of PHP to prevent any kinds of hacks that an older version of PHP could result in.

6. Choose your passwords carefully

Be it your personal smart devices or the website that you own, it is essential that you choose your usernames and passwords carefully, as we had already discussed in the previous points regarding the same.

A lot of people prefer using simplest of passwords, which doesn’t demand any kind of basic hacking skills even. So, when you set your password ensure that it is too complex. No one can even think of this combination in their dreams.

7. Do you have a two-factor authentication system?

Now that you have set up the most complex passwords, still we need to ensure that this part is safe. There are the most intelligent kind of hackers who can break through the most complicated passwords. So, the next step is to secure your system with a two-factor authentication process.

After typing the complicated password, this two-factor authentication process will require a second authentication.

You could choose a SMS message or phone call requesting a one-time password (OTP).

This will secure your website from all kinds of hackers out there.

8. Track your file system

It is not only the website that you need to keep an eye out for and protect it, but the files associated to your website should also be protected.

You can do so by protecting the database which stores all the necessary information related to your website.

You can utilize the WordPress plugins such as the Wordfence for protecting the file system connected to your website.

9. Prevent file editing

Whenever you provide the other users with an access to your WordPress admin panel, they can access your dashboard and this will allow them to edit all the files that are related to the installation of your WordPress. And, this access is applicable to your wordpress themes and plugins.

Disallow file editing and save your files from being hacked.

10. Disabling directory listing

Another point you should remember to safeguard your WordPress is to disable the directory listing.

Whenever you create a new directory and forget to put in an index.htm file in it, you are providing visitors with access to the full directory listing along with everything that is listed inside the directory.

11. Update

It is necessary that you ensure your WordPress website is updated regularly as we have already discussed that the PHP and plugins should be updated with the latest versions.

There could be security loopholes that you are unaware of. So, whenever you update your wordpress website you are automatically fixing all these and ensuring that no threats prevail around.

There could be bugs that need to be fixed which went unnoticed because you didn’t take the effort to update your WordPress.

This is one of the points that could be the weaknesses of your website and a hacker might take advantage of. Prevention is always better than cure. Keep it updated to prevent them from exploiting your website.

Also, it is recommended that you remove the version number of your WordPress site. It appears on the site’s source view. Hackers can build up a perfect hacking story if you have put this up.

Let us keep hackers at bay by preventing their entry removing all kinds of version numbers for the WordPress site that we have put up.

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