Anyone serious with their website should pay attention to every best practice that will help to protect the WordPress site from malicious and Brut force attacks.
This post covers 15 simple yet very practical and actionable security measures to help you secure your WordPress site.
Backup your site
Always remember to back up your site before you make any kind of changes. This is very crucial in preserving your current site. Backing up your site helps you to prevent the loss of important data in case of any accidental deletion or alteration.
This will also help you to handle the compatibility issue after a new installation. Backing up a website or a blog is the most important and the most often recommended piece of advice when it comes to things like digital security.
WordPress website can be backed up using some great plugins like:
- BackupBuddy. …
- VaultPress (with Jetpack) …
- BackWPUp. ..
Protect with a strong password
Strong passwords are crucial for protecting sites from brute force attacks where hackers try to access your admin area using different password-user combination. A high strength password make it extremely difficult for such brute attackers to guess your password combination
A strong password should include: ?
- combination of upper case and lower case letters
- combination of special characters like ! @ #
Try Secure Password Generator to generate a strong password combination.??
Do not use the same password for all your sites and blogs. Try different combination for different sites.
Use quality and trusted WordPress themes
WordPress theme quality depends on the quality of code and design. A poorly coded theme can always pose a security risk. It is very important to look for the theme quality, trust level and updates before using them.
It is recommended to use premium quality and supported themes from a market place like ThemeForest and Template Monster.
Update themes and plugins
Not updating themes and plugins regularly means you are neglecting new features and improvements. This will increase the risk of being hacked.
When you update your site regularly you will be able to: ?
- Keep your website safe and secure from different malware attacks
- protect your valuable data
- increase the functionality of your site
- keep you site bug-free and maintain fast load time
- get access to upgraded features and functions
Change your site login page URL
yoursite.com/wp-admin is the default login URL of a WordPress site. Leaving the default login URL means making it easier for the hackers to attempt brute force attacks. You can change this default URL to a custom made URL and stop lots of attempts from the hackers.
iThemes Security is an amazing security plugin that can help your deploy a custom URL to protect the login area.
Restrict File editing
A user with admin access can easily edit the theme and plugin files. You can disallow the file editing, your files cannot be edited even if someone gets access to your dashboard.
In order to restrict the file editing directly from your WordPress dashboard you should add the following line of code to your wp-config.php:
define( 'DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true );Use two-factor authentication
enabling the two-factor authentication on the login area is a great measure to implement WordPress security. With this, you need to provide two details for two different modules and you can decide what it two-component can be.
You can make a selection of components like a secret code, some special character, a security question or an authenticator code which is followed by your regular password. The Google Authenticator plugin can be used to implement two-factor authentication for your login page.
Use a trusted hosting provider
Be careful when you choose to host service providers. Low priced hosting can be good for your pocket but often affordable and cheap hosting can bring serious security issues to your site. Before you choose a hosting provider simply based on the pricing, make sure you compare the features and reviews of the provider.
Some of the best WordPress hosts are:
? Sitrground
? BlueHost
? Wpengine
? HostGator Hosting
?Kinsta Hosting
Here is a link to compare and find the Best WordPress hosting service
Protect your database
Your website database is the most valuable source of information t has the record of everything ever happened within your website. Hackers often try to access database information through SQL injection to hack your information.
It is not good to run multiple WordPress installations on the same database. If you have multiple installations on the same database, it becomes easier for hackers to access multiple sites by accessing the single database.
Use WordPress security plugins
WP-admin area is the most powerful section in your whole installation. The login page is available to all the user by default and this makes it easier for spammer and attackers to attempt unauthorised logins.
You can implement extra security measures to protect your login page by installing a few security plugins like itheme security, Sucuri and Malcare
Use Private SSl plugin Really Simple SSL to make your login area, post and pages more secure. This plugin will help you encrypt your login session making it difficult to intercept the password.
Hide your WordPress version
Hiding the version of WordPress is a simple and effective way to add more security to your WordPress site. Hackers often get to know the loopholes of your WordPress security just by knowing the version of WordPress you are using. You can remover the generator meta which shows the version of your current website.
Install theme and plugin from official source
Often we look to bypass the official purchase of the themes and plugins just because we find it somewhere else at a cheap price. But, doing this can cost you a lot in terms of security.
The themes and plugins that are pirated or sold at a cheap price are often tweaked and altered in the code structure. WordPress repository is the most secured and trusted place for downloading themes and plugins. You need to strictly stay away from the pirated and wavering site if you are seriously concerned about your website security.
Do not reuse the password
You should never reuse a password that has been already used. Using the same password again and again for different sites may sound easy but in terms of security, it proves to be critical on many levels.
Read More on The best password manager
You can use password manager tools to create an advanced combination for password and manage theme securely. When it comes to securing a WordPress site, password strength plays a prominent role.
Setup and enable Google search console
Google search console helps you to make sure your website is kept clean of malware. It advises you and notifies for any kind of malicious files.
Sing up Google search console
Disable PHP execution
Hackers often execute PHP within the directory when they get access to your WordPress site. Enabling the PHP execution will halt hackers from making an attempt to take control over your website.
you can make the change through your .htaccess files. Add the code below to your .htaccess file in you WordPress root directory
<Files *.php>
Order Allow, Deny
Deny from all
</Files>Conclusion:?♂️?♂️
That’s all we have for today. We hope this post helped you to understand and learn better on securing your wordpress website.
Do not forget to share the article if you find it useful. Also, please leave your thoughts in the comment below. We would love to know what measures you have been taking to protect your WordPress site.