WordPress Security Tips
WordPress gives you the opportunity to build and maintain a fabulous, user-friendly, properly optimized website on time and on a budget.
We all know that a first-class website is the key to a superior online presence, increased revenues and an elevated popularity.
At the same time, not all online businesses are safeguarded from security threats.
Hackers can mess with your website just for fun or to make you lose your competitive edge or go out of business.
Regardless of the reasons that they may have to sabotage your website, you have to invest time and effort in simple preventive measures that could discourage hacking attempts.
Want to strengthen the security of your WordPress website on your own?
If so, just follow the basic tips listed below.
1. Rely on Security Plugins
You can never be too cautious when it comes to implementing, revising and maintaining security-related policies that keep you in business by deterring potential villains.
If you are worried that your website could be targeted by hackers, all you need to do it to use one of the many security plugins that are available at this point.
By using different WordPress plugins, you can decrease the likelihood of a hacking attack by counting on .htaccess, adding a firewall, looking for suspicious codes or scanning your website for malware.
My top pick for WordPress security plugins would be BulletProof Security. Make sure to follow the setup directions and feel free to reach out to me if you need some assistance.
2. Pay Attention to All Updates
Updates often contain fixes and patches that could prevent or at least minimize safety risks.
By using the latest version of WordPress, you basically keep huge threats at bay without lifting a finger.
Also, you may want to make sure that your antivirus software is up-to-date as well.
Scan your servers and computers for malware on a regular basis.
3. Use Hard-to-Guess Passwords
Don’t use your birthday as a password.
Your goal is to come up with a password that you could remember very easily, but at the same time what you really need is a strong combination of characters that is virtually impossible to guess.
If your current password is “password” or “123abc,” now would be a good time to replace it with an alternative that would be more difficult to crack.
Also, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change your username from “admin” to a different option that would be much less obvious.
Admin as username plus a very weak password can be a fatal combination, especially since hackers have become savvier and now know every trick in the malware book.
4. Limit the Number of Login Attempts
As an additional measure of precaution, you could limit the number of failed login attempts to prevent a villain from cracking your password.
By utilizing Limit Login Attempts, you could actually set up the maximum number of retries that you feel comfortable with and also specify for how much time you’d want the IP to be locked out after exceeding the number of login attempts.
5. Try to Avoid Free Themes, If Possible
Who doesn’t love free stuff?
To be honest, there are quite a few templates that may raise your interest, due to their accessibility and excellent design.
But even so, it is recommended to stay away from templates that haven’t been created by reputable developers.
Why?
Recent studies indicate that numerous free themes comprise potentially dangerous elements like Base64 encoding that may be utilized by hackers to insert spammy links or malicious code into your website, causing an endless string of problems.
Basically, to stay in the safe zone, you could either use a theme created by a respectable company or just stick to the ones comprised by the WordPress theme repository.
The same goes for plugins.
Using plugins that are not listed on the WordPress official site is not a very clever move.
Sometimes you just have to steer away from freebies and pay the right price for a template or a plugin that won’t put your website security on the line.
6. Report Vulnerabilities to Keep Things Under Control
If you do manage to identify vulnerabilities or a potential bug on your own, report it in a timely fashion to guarantee a higher level of security for a larger community.
In this case, you would just have to send a detailed report to security@wordpress.org.
However, sometimes it can be pretty difficult to spot a threat in the early stages, especially if you are a novice in this field.
If you don’t know how to use plugins and various other online tools to protect your website and your sensitive data, we can help you deter hackers.
In case you need our expert advice, contact us today and we’ll provide the most effective answer to your website-related problems and concerns.
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