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WordPress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS), which is powering more than 30% of websites in the whole world. However, as the CMS continues to grow, hackers have been taken note of this and have begun specifically to target WordPress websites.
No matter what type of content your website is providing to the public, you cannot be an exception. If you do not take certain precautions, you are likely to get hacked. You will need to take precautions and as a result, you need to check the security of your website. Fortunately, some web development agencies similar to Isotropic (Isotropic.co) build their websites with security in mind, so if you decide to have your website built by a web design company, you may be covered. However, it might be a little different if you decide to build your own website.
In this article, we will share with you the 10 best ways to secure your WordPress website(WordPress Security Tips).
WordPress Security Tips
Choosing a Good Hosting Company
The simplest and the easiest way to keep your website secure is to take a hosting service provider that has multiple levels or layers of security
It may seem tempting to go with a cheap website hosting provider, saving money on a website hosting provider means you can get to spend it somewhere else within your organization. However, do not feel tempted by this route. It can and often cause nightmares down the road. Your data could be completely deleted and your URL could be redirected to somewhere else.
Paying a bit more can always be helpful down the road. You can get quality services when it comes to hosting providers with additional layers of security and these are automatically attributed to your website. An additional benefit that you can get and leverage is that by using a good WordPress website hosting you can get to significantly speed up your WordPress website. Opting for the quickest hosting providers is always the safest option, so that your website has the highest search engine rankings.
There are many hosting providers out there, and we recommend you check 28Msec for some good reviews and comparisons of some of the major hosting services.
Recommended Reading: How to Make a WordPress Site Responsive?
Do not use Nulled Themes
Premium themes for WordPress have the ability to look more professional and provide you with more customization options than a free theme. But you can argue that you can get what you pay for. Premium themes are coded by utilizing highly skilled developers and these themes are thoroughly tested with multiple test scenarios in order to pass WordPress checks right out of the box.
There can be no restrictions on the ability to customize your WordPress theme, and you will get full support if something goes wrong on your website. Many of you will be entitled to get regular theme updates.
But there can be few websites that provide nulled or cracked themes. A cracked or nulled theme is a hacked version of the premium theme and is available via illegal means. These are very dangerous to your website. Those themes can contain hidden malicious code which could destroy your website and database and log your admin credentials.
While it may be tempting in order to save a few bucks, always avoid nulled or cracked themes.
Install a WordPress Security Plugin
It is time-consuming work in order to check your WordPress website for any kind of malware and unless you regularly update your knowledge of coding practices you may not even realize that you are looking at a piece of malware written into the code.
Luckily there are many others who have realized that not everyone is a developer and has put out many WordPress security plugins to help. A security plugin can take care of your website security, scan for malware and monitor your website 24/7 in order to check regularly what is happening on your website.
Sucuri.net is a wonderful WordPress security plugin. They are able to offer security activity auditing, file integrity monitoring, blacklist monitoring, remote malware scanning, effective security hardening, security notifications, post hack security actions, and even a website firewall (available at a premium).
Use a Strong Password
Passwords are an integral part of any website’s security and are unfortunately often overlooked. If you are using a plain password that is ‘12345, or abc123, or password’ you need to change your current password immediately. While this password may be easy to remember, it is also easy to guess. An advanced user may easily be able to crack your password and barge in without many efforts.
It is important that you use a complex password or in a better way, one that is auto-generated that uses a combination of letters (both uppercase and lowercase), numbers, special characters such as ^ or $.
Read More: 5 Steps In Android App Development Proces
Disable File Editing
When you are setting up your WordPress website, there is a code editor capable of function in your dashboard that allows you to edit your theme and plugins. It can be accessed by navigating to Appearance>Editor. One more way you will find the plugin editor is by going under Plugins> Editor.
Once your website is made life, we will recommend you to disable this feature. If any hackers can gain access to your WordPress panel, they can inject subtle and malicious code to your theme or plugin code. Often at times, the code will be so subtle that you may not notice that anything is amiss until it becomes too late.
To disable the ability to edit the plugins and theme files, simply paste the following line of code into your wp-config.php file
define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);
Install SSL Certificate
Nowadays, Single Sockets Layer, SSL, is very much beneficial for all kinds of websites. Initially, SSL was required to make a website secure for specific transactions, such as processing payments. Today, even Google has recognized its importance and provides websites with SSL certificate a more weighted place in its search rankings.
SSL certificate is mandatory for any website that is processing sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details. Without the use of an SSL certificate, all the data between the user’s web browser and the web server are delivered in plain text. This text can be easily intercepted and is readable by hackers. By making use of SSL, the sensitive information is encrypted before it is transferred between your web browser and the server thus making it difficult to read and in the process make your website more secure.
Change your WP Login URL
By default, the login URL for your WordPress website is “yoursite.com/wp-admin”. By leaving at a default you can invite brute force attacks to crack your username and password combinations. If you accept users to register for any kind of subscription accounts you may also get a lot of spam registrations. In order to prevent this, you need to change your admin login URL or add a security question to the registration and login page.
You can increase the security of your website by adding to your login page a 2-factor authentication plugin to your WordPress website. When you try to log in, you need to provide additional authentication in order to gain access to your website, for example, it can be your email or mobile OTP. This is an enhanced security feature to prevent hackers from accessing your website.
You can also check which IP address has the most failed attempts, then you can block those IP addresses.
Limit Login Attempts
By default, WordPress allows users to login as many times as they want. While this can help you if you have forgotten your password and you are trying to remember it, it may also open you to brute force attacks.
By limiting the login attempts, you can try a limited number of times until you get temporarily blocked. This can limit the chances of a brute force attack as you can get locked before they can finish their attack.
You can easily enable this by using a WordPress Login Limits attempts plugin. After you have installed the plugin you can change the number of login attempts via Settings> Login Limit Attempts.
Hide wp-config.php and .htaccess files
Please note that this is an advanced process and we recommend you to perform this process by contacting your developer. You need to take a backup of your website in case if something goes wrong. Proceed with caution. Any mistake will make your website inaccessible.
To hide the files after your backup there are two things that you need to do. First, go to the wp-config.php file and add the following code to it.
order allow, deny
deny from all
In the same way, add the following code to .ht access file
order allow, deny
deny from all
Update your WordPress version
You need to keep your WordPress CMS up to date since it is a good practice to keep your website secure. With every update developers are making few but important changes that include updates to security features. By staying updated with the latest version you are helping to protect yourself against the target of pre-identified loopholes and exploits hackers can use to gain access to your website
You may also like to know: 5 Security Issues While Developing Android Apps
Conclusion
We hope you find these tips useful in WordPress Security Tips. If you’re looking to hire WordPress developer or then do contact us at enquiry@nimapinfotech.com. You can also hire WordPress Developer in Dubai, UAE.
