Even though it is one of the most widely used content management systems, WordPress is still subject to online threats. Therefore, you need to find ways of securing your WordPress website against them. So, how can you protect your WordPress site from the ever-increasing online threats? This post seeks to answer this question by revealing and discussing eleven top ways of doing it. For instance, you can buy SSL certificates, use secure passwords, and back up your data regularly. So, remain with me as I walk you through this discovery journey.
1. Back Up Your Data Regularly
It does not matter how much secure you think your WordPress site is. The fact is that disaster and attacks can strike any time. To protect your site, you have to back up its data, theme settings, databases, and plugin settings. But why would you need to do backup when a responsible hosting provider ought to do it? The reason is that the provider does not do so daily. So, this means that you could lose your data in between your hosting company’s backup intervals. Therefore, it is prudent to take responsibility for your website’s security. For example, you can back up your information on online platforms such as Google Drive and Dropbox. Moreover, you can optimize some of the plugins WordPress provides, for example, BackUpWordPress and BackupBuddy.
2. Change Your Admin Login URL
To secure your website, it is also necessary to keep changing its admin login URL. After setting up your WordPress site, you have to change its default URL. But, what is wrong with the default login that ends in wp-login.php or mylogin.php? Simple: it is very predictable, and hence, it gives hackers a head start to hack your site. This way, you will protect your website against brute force attacks that target default admin URL pages.
3. Use a Two-Factor Authentication
Using a two-factor authentication is another way of securing your WP site. With this measure in place and use, it will be necessary for all users to undergo an extra step of verifying their credentials after filling in their passwords. This verification will require them to enter a special code they receive via email or SMS. This way, you will be safe from brute-force attacks and other hacking and social engineering attacks.
4. Implement Login Limits
Do you still want to protect your WP site against attacks? Then you have to pay attention to this point. By limiting the number of times a user can try logging into your site, you minimize the possibility of hackers logging into the system. This way, it becomes easier to prevent brute-force attacks. To achieve this, you can use any of the readily available plugins for this purpose.
5. Use an SSL Certificate
If you have one site or several, you can buy SSL certificates and install them to protect your WP websites. With an SSL certificate installed on your site, it becomes easy to secure your users’ sensitive information as they transact on your website. For example, it will protect your customers’ credit card details by encrypting them from end to end. This way, it becomes impossible for hackers to intercept uncoded information to decode and use it for their malicious ends. When you add an SSL certificate to your WP site, search engines will display a green padlock on its URL. This padlock in turn will boost your user’s confidence in your site. Instead of seeing an HTTP display, they will see an HTTPS, with the “s” standing for secure.
6. Use Strong Passwords
Even though passwords are a primary layer of defense for all online transactions, it is important to use the right type of passwords—secure and strong. Therefore, it is necessary to use passwords that hackers will find impossible to guess. For example, all secure passwords should feature a mix of lower and upper case letters. They should also include digits and symbols such as %, &, and #. Moreover, it is prudent to keep updating them regularly.
7. Activate a Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is another way of securing your WP site against attacks. With this wall in place, you can protect your website by preventing all malicious traffic from wreaking havoc even before reaching your site. Moreover, the market has several options you can optimize. For example, you can use Cloudflare to protect your site against attacks. But if you are not a Cloudflare fan, then you can make the best of Sucuri WAF. This firewall has a malware cleanup and blacklist removal guarantee. If you install this firewall, the company guarantees to fix your site irrespective of how many pages it has.
Moreover, its repair package is affordable compared to what an average security expert would charge you to repair a broken website. For example, an average security office will charge you $250 per hour to fix and patch up a ravaged website. However, Sucuri can repair a whole site for $199 per annum.
8. Use Anti-spam Protection
Using anti-spam protection is another sure shot at the online threats that confront your WP website. Many people may consider spamming a harmless way of expressing someone’s ideas. However, the facts are that spamming is one of the worst and stealthiest ways hackers use to attack websites of unsuspecting owners. Hackers are smart enough to abuse such methods to investigate your site’s submission forms to detect any vulnerable links and points in them. Should they find a single weak point in your servers, they can exploit it to send spam messages to other people. The worst part of this conspiracy is that you will take responsibility for this spamming because the spamming will be originating from your site.
To protect your website, use reliable scripts for your contact forms. For example, they should include field validation to stop malicious bots from filling out forms automatically. Moreover, enabling CAPTCHA will ensure that only humans fill forms.
9. Be Careful How You Upload Files to Your Site
Being careful how you upload your WP site files is another way of securing it. For instance, you can upload your information using FTP, which stands for File Transfer Protocol. However, you can secure it more by using SFTP. This method has an extra “s” before it, which stands for “secure.” This means the second method is safer than the first. The method encrypts the data you transfer to and from your servers. This way, you enjoy greater security. To enjoy this extra security layer, it is important to ensure your host provides it.
10. Track Your Files
Lastly, you can protect your WP site against attacks by tracking your file movements. It is beneficial to install WP plugins that enable you to monitor all activities on it. With such measures in place, it is easy to spot any illegal access and activities on your website and stem them before growing into full-blown disaster. It is also wise to install plugins that will show you such movements and a summary of any modification made on files. These plugins will monitor all this and send you email alerts.
Closing Remarks
All online platforms, including WordPress, are vulnerable to threats and attacks, unless site owners take precaution to secure them. Therefore, it is necessary to take early and adequate measures to prevent them. This post showed you how to protect your WordPress website against varied threats. For example, site owners can buy SSL certificates and install them to boost the security of their user details in between servers and browser. Also, frequent information update is another measure that protects your WP website. Other safety measures include tracking file movements on your site, migrating to HTTPS, using anti-spam plugins, and changing your admin login URL. With these metrics and practice, you and your users will be able to securely perform transactions on your WP site.