To stay safe on your website, follow these eight simple steps.
There are many types of security threats that can affect any website.
Every platform, whether it’s private or open source, is under under attack all the time.
WordPress has a lot of helpful people in the community which can help you with your problems.
To protect your WordPress site from security threats, you'll need to take a few steps.
How To Protect Your WordPress Site
First, make sure you have updated your WordPress plugins, Second, be sure to protect your site with a strong password and security settings. Finally, be sure to keep an eye out for suspicious activity on your site.
There are 8 things you can do to protect yourself from cyber attacks and stay safe online.
By following these best practices, you will help make your WordPress site more secure against hackers.
- Use HTTPS.
When you visit a website, you need to use HTTPS to make sure that your information is safe. This means that the website is using a secure connection.
- Don’t use the word “admin” as your admin username.
Don't use the word “admin” as your username when you are logging in to the website. This is because the word “admin” is easily recognizable and could be used by someone who wants to break into the website.
- Require the use of strong passwords.
You should also make sure to use strong passwords. WordPress makes it easy to do this by providing a password generator.
- Update your plugins and themes.
You should update your plugins and themes as often as possible. This will keep the website running smoothly and protect it from any vulnerabilities.
- Website backup plan.
You should also make sure to back up your website regularly. This will help you if something happens to the website or if you need to change it.
- Minimize the use of plugins.
- Install a WordPress Firewall and Vulnerability Scanner.
- Two-factor authentication.
Finally, you should also use two-factor authentication whenever possible. This will make it much harder for someone to break into the website without your password.
1. Add HTTPS/SSL
Secure your website with HTTPS/SSL so that no one can steal your information or hijack your account.
Most websites now use HTTPS, which makes your information more secure. However, if your site isn't using HTTPS, you may need to get a SSL certificate from your web host.
To connect to your WordPress site, use the https:// address. This can be found at the General Settings tab.
If the website is upgrading from an insecure to a secure state, then the Really Simple SSL plugin (used by over 5 million websites) can make the transition easier. It will automatically handle redirects and other related tasks.
SSL helps protect you from security threats, like clickjacking and cross-site-forgery attacks. You can add security headers to make sure your information is safe.
Some web hosts offer free SSL certificates, which is known to help your website rank better on Google.
After you have switched to HTTPS, it's a good idea to make sure that no pages request links that go over HTTP.
To be sure that your website is safe, check for mixed content. This means that there are different types of content on the page, like text and images. If we find any, we'll take steps to fix it.
Mixed content is when insecure website assets (scripts, images, videos, etc.) are linked to from HTTPS pages.
To help you find errors on your website, we recommend using Missing Padlock. This tool will help you find places on your site where different types of content are mixed together. Once you've located the errors, you can fix them by linking to HTTPS assets.
2. Use A Secure Admin User Name
To keep your account safe, we recommend using a secure admin user name. This name will help you keep track of your account and make sure that only you can access it.
The vast majority of security attacks against the WordPress login screen are done with the username “Admin”.
There are two main ways that people try to get into your account. One is to try to guess your password, and the other is to use something you have already entered into your account (like your name or email address).
There are two main kinds of attacks that try to crack the login password:
- Brute force.
- Dictionary attack.
The brute force attack is when the computer tries to guess the administrator's password using a lot of different combinations of letters, numbers, and words.
A dictionary attack is when the hacking software looks up common passwords to try to log in as the administrator.
In most cases, the admin user name these software use is “Admin”.
If you want to keep your WordPress site safe, it's important to not use the username “Admin” as this can make it more difficult for thieves to access your site.
To take that one step further, you can create a firewall rule with the Wordfence security plugin to automatically block any human or bot that tries to log in with the user name Admin.
3. Require Strong Passwords
To make sure your account is safe, you need to create strong passwords that are difficult for anyone to guess.
Make sure passwords are strong, and don't let anyone else create passwords that are easy to guess.
Everyone who can Log In to your WordPress site should use strong passwords. Even users who don't have high website privileges, like subscribers, can be vulnerable to attacks. So, it's important to make sure passwords are strong for everyone who can log in.
The popular iThemes Security WordPress plugin helps you make sure that your login passwords are strong as it offers login password strength enforcement, and it also offers two-factor authentication.
4. Update Your Plugins And Themes
To keep your WordPress site safe, you can update the plugins and themes you use. This will help make sure that any vulnerabilities that are discovered are fixed.
Check updates for plugins, themes, and the core WordPress installation that will fix vulnerabilities.
Failure to update the software can compromise the site.
Most updates work fine. Sometimes, an update might change something in the software, which can clash with another plugin or theme, causing the site to crash.
If something goes wrong, it's easy to go back to an earlier version of the site if it has been saved. (How to backup your website)
The best way to update plugins and themes is to stage the site and check if the site functions as it should with the updated software.
If you don't want to stage your site, you can back up your site and then update it.
Test the site to see if it's working properly. If it doesn't work, use your backup to fix it.
5. Website backup plan.
Backup your WordPress website so you can easily restore it if something goes wrong.
Backing up your website every day is important in case something goes wrong.
There are many things that can go wrong on the website, and a backup will help if something catastrophic happens.
The UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin is a popular and trusted way to keep your WordPress site safe.
We use this tool on all of our websites and we recommend it wholeheartedly.
With websites redesigns, and upgrades, sometimes these redesigns/upgrades don't go well. But we can use our backup's to go back to a previous version of the site.
One way to fix problems is to roll back the WP settings.
WP Rollback is a popular WordPress plugin with over 200,000 installations. The people who created the plugin are experts in the WordPress development community, and they are trusted to provide quality software.
6. Minimize Plugin Usage
There are some plugins that can increase the chance that a vulnerability will be exposed on your website.
There are a few reasons why using lots of plugins is not a great idea,
It can slow down your site and make it more likely that the code between two or more plugins will conflict and crash the site. using too many plugins can impact site performance
Plan ahead which plugins you want to use to accomplish what you need. Let's think about which ones might work best for us.
Some plugins can do multiple tasks, eliminating the need to install a standalone plugin to accomplish that one thing.
7. Install A WordPress Security Plugin
Security plugins can help protect your website from being hacked, by closing any security holes and blocking anyone who tries to use those vulnerabilities to access your wordpress site.
There are two kinds of WordPress security plugins:
- Security hardening and scanning.
- Firewall.
To make your WordPress site more secure, you can add a firewall and security hardening measures.
To make your website more secure, you need to make sure your PHP version is up to date.
PHP is a program that WordPress runs on.
Many old versions of PHP are not as secure as modern versions. This can make your site vulnerable to attacks.
We can check to see if the PHP version we're using is still up-to-date by scanning for online vulnerabilities.
There are three online tools that can help you check if a website is safe or if it has been hacked.
Here are some tools we would recommend.
Some security plugins we recommend available free to our members:
8. Implement Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication is so-called because it takes two forms of identification to log into a WordPress site with this feature turned on.
The first factor is the username and password.
The second factor is a second form of authentication, usually with an app like Authy or Google Authenticator that’s on the user’s cell phone.
So, even if a hacker gains access to the username and password, they won’t be able to log in without the second authentication.
There are many WordPress plugins to choose from to add this feature, including:
- WP 2FA
WP 2FA is a popular choice for adding two-factor authentication.
It supports multiple two-factor authentication methods, including Google Authenticator, Authy, email link, email OTP, and push notification.
There are additional methods such as voice and WhatsApp authentication available with the Pro version.
Wordfence is a trustworthy brand. its standalone two-factor authentication plugin supports Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, and FreeOTP.
Additionally, security plugins like Wordfence and iThemes Security also have options for turning on two-factor authentication.
Every WordPress website owner should take steps to make sure their site is as secure as possible.
