WordPress Website Security | How To Protect Your WordPress Website

Posted by MichealH Alexander on February 4th, 2021

Your website security is just as important as your website’s revenue, why? Because getting hacked is the fastest way of losing your hard-earned customer trust and reputation.

So, is your site secure? Don’t be so sure, statistics shows that an average of 30,000 websites are hacked every day, and also a report by FBI says there is a 300% increase in the number of cybercrime cases during Covid 19.

Are you scared? Don’t be, in this article I am going to teach you everything you need to know about wordpress website security and how to protect your wordpress website. eCommerce web solutions

Is WordPress Secure?

WordPress is as secure as any CMS, it is managed by hundreds of professional developers, as long as you make your website’s security a priority by covering all the important aspects such as using an original copy of theme, plugins and templates, regular updating, and make use of wordpress security checklist, you will have a secure wordpress website.

One thing to keep in mind is that your website will never be immune against cyber attack, no matter which CMS you use, but following the best security practices will significantly reduce your chance of getting hacked.

Why WordPress Security Is Important

Every business location has some level of security, if you own a physical store you probably have some CCTV cameras installed, maybe even more than that, because you obviously need to protect your business.

Same goes for your website, especially if your website is more than just a hobby, furthermore, if you plan to get traffic from google through search engine optimization, website security is a necessity, to avoid your website getting blacklisted by google.

WordPress Security Vulnerabilities

WordPress in itself is secure, but not all its users follow the best website security practices.

Below are the 5 common wordpress security vulnerabilities:

1. Brute Force Attack

This is an act of submitting multiple login details, over and over until the correct combination is found.

This is the easiest method of getting unauthorized access to your website, as wordpress by default doesn’t have any login attempt limit, this makes it vulnerable to both hackers and bots.

2. Remote File Inclusion

File inclusion attack occurs when someone exploit the referencing function in your wordpress website’s PHP code, and upload a remote file (malware) from a remote location, which will give them access to your wp-config.php file.

3. SQL Injection

Every wordpress website uses MySQL database to operate, SQL injection is a code injection technique that occurs when an attacker gain access to your wordpress database and insert a malicious SQL statement.

4. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-site scripting is the most common wordpress vulnerability that is caused by wordpress plugins.

This is an attack that happens when someone load a webpage with insecure javascript scripts, and the script will be used to hijacked a user’s information.

5. Malware

Malware is an unauthorized use of code to gain access to a website, which is commonly caused by recent changes on some files on a website, and it can be fixed by identifying the malicious files and removing them or by restoring a backup, if you take a regular wordpress backups.

10 WordPress Website Security Checklist

The following are 10 wordpress website security checklist to help you secure your website, and be protected from hackers.

1. Enable WordPress Two-Factor Authentication

By default, only username and password are required to login to wordpress dashboard, which is easier to break, using two-factor authentication will require additional verification to login, such as mobile phone or other devices.

2. Limit The Number Of Failed Login Attempt Per User

To protect your site against brute force attack, you need to lock down your login page when incorrect login details are submitted a multiple time. That means if someone is trying to guess your password they will be locked out after a repetitive login attempt.

3. Hide Admin Login Page

Every wordpress website use wp-admin as the administrator’s login page by default, to make brute force attack close to impossible on your site change the default wp-admin login url in to something unique, that will give the attackers no clue on where to start.

4. Enable Away Mode

Make your wordpress dashboard inaccessible during the hours you will not be making any changes to your site, that means nobody can access your dashboard during the hours you are away, even if they have the correct login combination.

5. Disable The REST API On WordPress

Although WP REST API is useful to some wordpress developers, some websites doesn’t require the feature at all, in this case disabling the feature will reduce the risk of DDoS attacks on your site.

6. Keep WordPress Updated

WordPress release an update regularly, which helps in better compatibility, new features, bug fixes, and new security updates. To keep your website protected you need to have an up-to-date version of wordpress at all times.

7. Use SSL Certificates

SSL Certificate helps in protecting your information, as well as your website visitor’s information from getting hijacked, failure to use SSL certificate will put you and your website visitor’s information at risk of getting compromised.

8. Secure Themes And Plugins

Most wordpress vulnerabilities occurs through themes and plugins.

Make sure to use only a genuine copy of a theme and plugins, keep your theme and all your plugins up-to-date at all times, and also delete and remove any inactive theme or plugins on your site.

Plugins are so cool, they add extra functionalities to your site, but you need to remember using too many plugins will make your site vulnerable, it is also easy to get plugin conflict which can break your site, not to mention how too many plugins will slow down your website speed.

That is why you need to use the minimum number of plugins on your site.

9. Use A Secure Hosting

While there are tons of hosting providers to choose from, do some research about a hosting provider before you signup with them, check their reliability, features, and most importantly customer reviews.

Your hosting provider play an important role on your website security, therefore, make sure to host your website on a reliable and reputable hosting provider. Personal Website Design

10. Schedule Automatic Backups

Schedule an automatic backup of your site and save it in the cloud, this will guarantee your website safety incase of unfortunate event, if for whatever reason your site breaks you can restore it back to normal with a few clicks.