When something is famous, it is attractive. And it attracts every person, negative or positive. There are more than 700 million websites on the internet and statistics indicate that 18.9% of them are powered by WordPress.
WordPress is a famous free and open source blogging and content management system website. Its popularity on the internet makes it a fine target for hackers.
People with a WordPress site are prone to the security attacks by such hackers. If you are one of them then it is advisable that you take some extra precautions in order to protect your website's data from the visiting traffic.
The coming lines will provide you a WordPress security tutorial with which you can ensure your website's security.
image source: pwtthemes.com
To avoid the security attacks on your WordPress site, you must be vigil and updated. By educating yourself and learning, you can have a safe and secure platform. Given below are some smart Wordpress security tips that will help you secure your Wordpress site from unwanted security attacks.
- Update Your WordPress Site and Plug-ins
- Secure Your WordPress Site with WordPress Hosting
- Lock your Administrator Area
- Use Password of Good Strength
- Make Certain Your Computer is Virus Free
1. Update Your WordPress Site and Plugins
By updating the core files of your WordPress site and updating all of its plug-ins to their most recent version, you can increase the security of your website.
The latest version of WordPress files and plug-ins have security patches in them. These patches have codes that make them more defensive against the cyber attacks than their previous versions.
2. Secure Your WordPress Site With WordPress Hosting
A web hosting account allows an individual or organization to make its website accessible through the World Wide Web. That means your website is as secure as your web hosting account.
If a hacker can get into your hosting account easily then an update to the latest version of WordPress will not be of any help. Therefore, it is necessary that you create a hosting platform with a company which provides a secure premise.
The company that is hosting you should provide:
- the latest versions of MySQL and PHP
- the isolation of your web hosting account
- the firewall for Web Application
- the system for the detection of intrusion
3. Lock Your Administrator Area
By locking your administrator area and restricting its access to only a few people who actually need it, you can increase the security of your WordPress site.
If your site is a visitor-only website and no registration or content creation at front end is supported then the visitors must not be able to access the wp-admin folder or the files in it.
What you can do is add the following lines to .htaccess file in your wp-admin folder and replace xx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your home IP address.
< Files wp-login.php >
order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from < your home IP address instead of xx.xxx.xxx.xxx >
</Files>
If you want to have multiple access from different computers then do the following
< Files wp-login.php >
order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from < your home IP address instead of xx.xxx.xxx.xxx >
Allow from < your office IP address instead of xx.xxx.xxx.xxx >
Allow from < your laptop IP address instead of xx.xxx.xxx.xxx >
</Files>
If you want that the admin area of your WordPress site can be accessed from any IP address then doing the above can bring inconvenience to you. In such case, the best you can do is that limit the incorrect login attempts to your website. Like this, you will be able to secure your WordPress site from visitors and will also be able to access admin area from anywhere. For this purpose, you can use a plug-in called 'Limit Login Attempts'
4. Use Password Of Good Strength
A good password has following characteristics:
- It cannot be easily guessed
- It is long
- It is composed of alphabets, numerics and symbols
- It must not relate to anything
- It must not make any sense
Some common passwords that are used by thousand of people are their mobile numbers or "12345" or even "password". As you can see, the use of such passwords makes the work of a hacker much easier. Therefore, it is important that you must have a good password for your admin login.
A tip for this is that you can use a jumbled string which when written together, does not makes any sense. Like writing a sentence, which only makes sense to you, can be a good password. These passwords are much better than single phrase passwords.
5. Make Certain Your Computer Is Virus Free
The infection of viruses and malwares in your computer can leak the important details of your WordPress site to potential hackers. These viruses and malwares are programmed to store and send almost every user detail that are important and can help the hackers to get into the user's personal account(s). In such cases, the important details of your WordPress site can be easily accessed by a hacker.
When such information gets to a hacker, s/he can get into your website by making an authorized login and acquiring full-access to the website.
That is why it is so crucial to have good and updated anti-virus software in all the computers you use to gain access to your WordPress website. This will protect your computer data from harm and will also provide security for your WordPress website.
These are some best practices that can be followed for securing a WordPress website. One thing to be noted is that no measures can guarantee your website's full security. And a website with 100% security index cannot exist. Every website on the internet is prone to security attacks, but by being cautious and careful, you can avoid major attacks on your website.