How To Secure Your WordPress Site?

Is your WordPress site secure? Are your customers’ and visitors’ passwords, credit cards, and other sensitive information safe from the growing number of cyberattacks?

Security must be your priority if you have an online presence. Overall, WordPress is a secure content management system, but due to its open-source nature, it has some serious security vulnerabilities. Fortunately, achieving WordPress security is easy if you take the appropriate measures.

Reputable web hosts ensure impeccable security for your website. Feel free to check the Hostinger vs. GoDaddy comparison on HostAdvice to better grasp what security features to expect. If, however, you want to take matters into your own hands, here’s what you can do.

Why Does WordPress Security Matter?

It’s essential to understand why WordPress security is so crucial before we look at the security checklist. You’ll feel more at ease because you’ll understand why you took the time to secure your website.

• WordPress is popular – Approximately 43% of the Internet utilizes WordPress because of how smoothly the system functions. However, this indicates that even hackers can recognize the UI.
• You’ll have failsafes before issues arise – There is a possibility that a compromised WordPress site crashes or performs poorly. Failsafes like offsite backup storage and rapid backup mean you can stop the attacks even after they happen.
• It has a login section – The brute-force attack, which includes a bot or human trying numerous usernames and passwords to get access to your website, is one of the most popular types of hacking today. WordPress provides a login module; therefore, you must take every precaution to secure the login page and fortify passwords.
• WordPress has moving parts – These components include third-party plugins, themes, hosting providers, and the core software itself. With all these moving parts, vulnerabilities can develop; for example, say you install a plugin with suspicious code or forget to update your WordPress theme.

7 Best Security Measures To Implement

Now that you know why WordPress security matters let’s see what measures you can implement to secure your site.

#1: Strong Login Credentials Are A Must

Using and requiring strong passwords for all of your logins is one of the first steps you can take to secure your site. Although it may be alluring, using or reusing a well-known or simple-to-remember password puts you, your visitors, and your business at risk.

The risk of being hacked is decreased by strengthening and securing your passwords.

#2: Limit The Login Attempts

By default, WordPress allows users to attempt to log in as many times as they like. This leaves your WordPress website vulnerable to brute-force attacks. In an effort to crack passwords, hackers experiment with different login combinations.

Limiting the number of unsuccessful login attempts a person can make will quickly fix this; this is handled automatically if you’re utilizing the web application firewall.

#3: Update Your WordPress Version

Hackers frequently target outdated WordPress software versions. Make sure you regularly check and install WordPress updates to fix vulnerabilities detected in older versions.

Do a backup of your website and ensure all of your plugins are compatible with the latest version of WordPress before updating.

#4: Implement An SSL Certificate

At first, SSL was required to secure a website for a specific task, such as handling payments. However, Google has now acknowledged its importance and gives websites with an SSL certificate a higher ranking in its search results.

All data sent between a user’s web browser and your web server without an SSL certificate is sent in plain text. Hackers may be able to read this. With an SSL, sensitive is encrypted to make it harder to read and increase your website’s security. So, an SSL is mandatory for any website processing sensitive data, such as passwords or credit card numbers.

#5: Install A Security Plugin

Frequently checking your website’s security for malware takes time, and except if you keep up with the latest coding techniques, you may not be aware that you have malware embedded in the code.

It’s great that other people have realized not everyone has the necessary expertise and have developed WordPress security plugins to help. A security plugin takes care of the safety, checks it for malware, and constantly monitors your site to see what is happening there.

#6: Turn Off File Editing

As you are establishing your WordPress site using the code editor feature in your dashboard, you can update your plugins and theme. Turning off this function as soon as your website is live is preferable.

Hackers who get into your WordPress services admin panel can install malicious code into your theme and plugin. The code is usually so subtle that you might not realize anything is off until it is too late.

#7: Run Regular Backups

Regularly backing your website and key files is another way to safeguard your WordPress site. The last thing you want is for your website to experience a problem while you haven’t done a backup.

Make regular backups of your website so you can easily recover an earlier version and get it up and running again if something happens to it.

The Final Verdict

If your site is not secure, you risk exposing yourself to great damage. Fortunately, as long as you have the appropriate tools and a hosting plan that meets your requirements, safeguarding a WordPress site doesn’t require a lot of technical knowledge.

You should continuously protect your site to avoid security flaws rather than waiting to react to threats after they occur. In this way, you are ready to minimize the risk and continue operating as usual rather than desperately looking for a recent backup.