Web Security – 11 Tips to Protect Your WordPress Website

After making your website with WordPress and making it live, the most important thing to think about is its security. As hacking is increasing day by day, providing strong security to your website has become a must-do thing nowadays. Follow these 11 steps to protect your WordPress website from any security breaches.

What is Web Security?

Website security indicates the action or application that protect any website’s data from hackers and prevent exploitations. Besides, if you secure your website properly, your website will be safe from:

• DDoS attacks
• Malware
• Defacement
• Vulnerability exploits
• Backlisting

Moreover, web security will also protect your visitors from:

• Stolen data
• Session hijacking
• Phishing schemes
• Malicious redirects
• SEO spam

So, you should now understand how important it is to give your website proper security to protect both your website and your visitors.

Why Do You Need Website Security?

We want to mention 4 main reasons to give security to your WordPress Website.

1. Security Breach Harm Your Customers: When a website is hacked, the hackers get access to your site, redirect the visitors/traffic, and infect your visitors with various malicious software.

2. Hamper Business Reputation: If your site gets hacked, your visitors will face interruption entering and browsing your website. Besides, your website may become offline until you fix it. And the most dangerously, search engines will drop your rank and sometimes remove your website from their databases.  So, you will lose your reputation, and your revenue will be dropped.

3. Security Threats Are Rising Rapidly: Day by day, hackers become active, and the number of hacked websites rises. If you do not take precautions from the beginning, you might face a great loss and troubles.

4. Prevention is Better Than Cure: If your website gets hacked, you need to spend a lot of money to clean up and get back your website. But it can save you a lot of money if you buy a security plugin and take some precautions.

Tips to Protect Your WordPress Website

1. Keep Everything Up to Date

It may seem a simple thing, but keeping your WordPress themes, and all the plugins always up to date are vital for keeping your website secure. All the plugins and theme companies give updated periodically, and it is your duty to keep all the software updated. Otherwise, if any security holes are found on your website or the software you are using, hackers attempt to abuse them very quickly. Updates are always helpful to avoid any bugs, security breaches, and any vulnerabilities.

The same goes for WordPress. With every new release, they improve security and other things. Lots of bugs and security issues are fixed every time you update your current WordPress version.

2. Don’t Use Nulled Theme

As you all know, WordPress is loaded with plugins and themes, which make it a super user-friendly and a wide range of convenient customization. However, a premium theme can give your website a more professional look and customizable options. Expert developers code premium WordPress themes, and you will get continuous updates from the owner or the agency. So, there also will be no risk of any security issues.

But to use a premium theme you have to spend some money. So, many people tend to use nulled or crack themes. It may save them some penny initially, but in the long run, they will suffer. Hackers can easily break into cracked themes. There are many hidden malicious codes inside the nulled theme, which can destroy your website as well as the database. Besides, using a nulled or cracked theme is also illegal.

3. Install SSL Certificate

SSL is now an essential part of any website for some reason. Previously SSL was required to secure your site for some specific factors, such as performing secure transactions. But in recent days, Google has recognized its necessity and made the SSL certificate mandatory for every website.

However, an SSL does not only secure transactions, credit cards but also protects both of you and your user’s data. Without an SSL, all the data will show in plain text in the user’s browser and your web server. So, it will be easier for hackers to hack your website or steal sensitive data.

If your website is very big and there are a lot of transactions through your website, you need to buy a premium SSL based on your business type and size. If you have a simple blog site, a free SSL will be enough for you.

If your website is very big and there are a lot of transactions through your website, you need to buy a premium SSL based on your business type and size. However, you do not need to pay a high price to buy an SSL certificate as you can start the journey of purchasing the cheapest SSL certificates at great discount prices with CheapSSLShop – one of the pioneer SSL certificate providers. You can choose any SSL certificate based on your domains and budget to secure your website.

4. Choose a Good Hosting Company

The right choice of hosting service can minimize most of your headaches regarding WordPress security. Many hosting companies offer free site checks, automatic updates, and some site protection features. So, choosing a good hosting company sometimes eases your worries about security.

5. Disable File Editing

Once your site becomes live, it is recommended to disable the file editing feature. If it remains open or not disabled, hackers can get access to your WordPress dashboard or admin panel. To disable this feature, go to Appearance>Editor. You also need to disable the plugin editor by going Plugins>Editor.

6. Limit Dashboard Accessibility

To make your WordPress security strong, you should give access to your WordPress dashboard only to the persons you trust. The easiest procedure is: whitelist the specific IP address. It will reduce any hacking attempts. However, to do this, go to your wp-admin folder and add a new .htaccess file then add this code:

7. Hide wp-config.php and .htaccess files

This is an advanced method to secure your website more. If you are too serious about the security of your WordPress website, it is a good practice to hide the .htaccess and the wp-config.php files. We strongly suggest hiring a developer to implement this option. If you are confident enough, make sure you take a full backup of your site before proceeding to this method. 

To hide this file, you need to do two things. First, open your wp-config.php file and add the below code:

<Files wp-config.php>
 order allow, deny 
 deny from all 
</Files> 

Same way, add the following code to your .htaccess file,

<Files .htaccess>
 order allow,deny 
 deny from all 
</Files> 

8. Be Alert from Error Message

Always be careful what you are displaying in your error message. If the error message contains too much details information, it might tell a potential hacker where exactly your website is having issues or vulnerabilities. Make the error messages such a way that your visitor will get benefited, but at the same time, it will not reveal too much of your website issues.

9. Limit Login Attempts

Don’t keep your login attempts unlimited because it helps hackers a lot. If they get the opportunity to try an infinite number of login attempts, they will somehow discover your login data. You can use plugins like Login LockDown, and WP Limit Login Attempts to limit login attempts.

Besides, you can change your passwords often (2-3 times in a month) to decrease the hacker’s chance of breaching into your WordPress website.

10. Use WordPress Security Plugin

The things we were describing above were the manual approaches. If you want a hassle-free procedure, you can install a premium WordPress security plugin and let it guard for you.

If you want a recommendation from us, we would like to mention Sucuri, which is a great security plugin for WordPress. It offers malware scanning, security activity auditing, blacklist monitoring, file integrity monitoring, effective security acclimatization, post-hack security actions, and many more. We strongly recommend you to try this plugin if you are running your business and e-commerce site with WordPress.

11. Backup Your Site Regularly

And finally, a regular backup of your site may sometimes helpful to get your hacked or lost data back. You can use plugins like Backup buddy, VaultPress to have a regular automatic backup done for you.

That’s all for today. By performing all the tasks we have discussed above, you can make your website’s security strong and keep your site safe from any exploits and hackers.