Protect your assets
Being the most popular blogging platform in the internet, WordPress faces a number of security challenges which if not addressed at the right time, might lead to serious repercussions for the website owners. However, most of these concerns can be addressed by taking proactive measures to reduce the potential vulnerabilities that your website could be having. Outlined here are tips you can use to enhance the safety of your WordPress website and to never lose your sleep that a hacker might penetrate your site at any time:
Create strong passwords
The password is the most overlooked aspect of your WordPress security. A majority of people use either the default WordPress passwords or very simple password combinations that a hacker doesn’t need to crack their knuckles to discover. A good password should not be easy to guess and should have a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters, symbols and numbers. In this manner, hackers won’t find it easy to gain access to your website by using the normal and obvious password combinations.
Keep the platform and all plugins up to date
The main reason for releasing WordPress updates is to address security vulnerabilities, add new features and fix bugs. It is therefore imperative that you never overlook any update notification since doing so will only be making your website be more susceptible to attacks by hackers.
In addition to updating the platform, you also need to update the plugins as well as the theme. This implies that you should get your plugins from reliable source who will continue to support and release updates for their plugins and themes. Having a deprecated plugin in your site is a reason enough for hackers to find vulnerable points to gain access to your website.
Keep your website clean
Maintaining a clean website is another useful tip for enhancing your website security. By being clean, you need to retain only the components you use and delete every other thing you no longer have use for. This includes plugins, themes and user accounts. As the admin, you may have a super strong password but if one of your inactive users had an account with a very weak password, hackers can use this to hack into your website and perform whatever they want.
Having a clean site also further engraves the need to get your themes and plugins only from reputable sources. It may be possible that you have a lean and clean site but if the plugins are from untrustworthy sources, they may still present a potential security breach to your entire website.
Use reliable and trusted hosting companies
Your hosting company plays a very big role in the security of your website. The ideal host needs to scan for malware and clean your files on a regular basis. A good host will also implement adequate security features for their client sites to protect them against the ever evolving nature of online threats.
Depending on the type of business you have, getting your own VPS host would be the very best option but due to cost constraints, you may opt for shared hosting. But even with a shared hosting, choose a reputable company with a record of ensuring the safety of all of their client’s sites. The last thing you want if for you income generating website is to get hacked due to the negligence of the hosting company. Be cautious about this and choose the right web hosting company.
Regular backups
Regular backup is a sure way to get your site up and running in the shortest time possible following a hacking incidence. A good hosting company will provide automatic daily backups for your site but also it doesn’t hurt to backup the site on your own on a regular basis. There are a number of WordPress plugins you could use to ensure that you site is backed up at all times and worry less about the consequences should the site get attacked.
Enable Login attempts
Hackers and botnets will try to login into your WordPress site a number of times using different username and password combinations. The easiest and the simplest way to block them dead on their tracks is to enable Login Attempt where they will be barred from trying to log in after they make a certain number of unsuccessful attempts. Again, there are a number of themes and plugins you can easily use to limit the number of login attempts.
Configure .htaccess file
This simple looking file is the one responsible for controlling the entire directory of all your WordPress files. The recommended configurations for this file include: protecting wp-config.php file, locking down the WordPress admin access, preventing directory browsing, disabling hotlinking and protecting the htaccess file itself. Though it sounds simple, configuring this file will make a big difference to the overall security of your website and make it less prone to hackers and malware.
Restrict access to your plugins and other directories
Many webmasters forget to protect or conceal access to their plugins directory without knowing that this can offer a safe passage for hackers to do damages to their sites. The way to protect the directories is by using .htaccess file or by simply uploading a blank “index.html” to those directories. With this, the site will return a blank index page if a request for the directories is made.
Be careful with what you upload to your website
It calls for caution when uploading any script, be it a theme or a plugin. You need to start exercising vigilance right from the source of the plugin or theme since some of them may be injected with malicious code that might end up compromising your website. Only upload themes and plugins for trusted and reputable sources and vendors.
At Pixelate, we take the security of your site seriously. Allow us the pleasure of giving you the peace of mind by taking care of your site’s security needs with our advanced and robust web design services.
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