The lack of built-in WordPress security is a sheer misconception. WordPress websites are far safer and secure than its other competitors. Here are some tips that can help you build the security level of your WordPress website. Following and implementing these tips and tricks will help you to secure your WordPress website for good.
Protect Your WordPress Website By Working With Safe Hosts
1. Choose excellent hosts: While working on WordPress, one should work with authentic, dependable, and safe hosts. In the long run, everyone considers their hosting to be great until some malfunctions occur for the first time. While choosing a host, factors such as hosting setup, reliability, and speed should be considered. It is essential to make sure that your host is taking your website security seriously. Issues such as hacker attacks, low performance might be a result of improper security mechanisms. Taking budget into consideration, choose a host who would prioritize security for your website.
2. Set directory permissions attentively: Your directory permissions should be set correctly, especially if you are working in a shared hosting setup. To protect the website at the hosting level, set the directory permissions to “755” and files to “644”. This tactic safeguards the whole file system, including sub-directories, directories and individual files
3. Defuse directory listing with .htacces: In case you create a new directory and do not include an index.html file in it, you will find out that your visitors can secure an entire directory listing of everything present in that particular directory. You can prevent this by adding this specific line of code in your .htaccess file.
4. Understand and shield against DDoS attacks: A DDoS attack refers to a certain kind of strike against your server bandwidth, under which various programs and systems are used to overload your server. DDoS attacks are intended to crashing your website for an extended period. Such DDoS attacks are carried out by cyber-terrorists. If DDoS is a matter of concern for you, signing up for SitePatrol or Cloudflare’s premium plans might turn out to be useful for you.
Protect Your WordPress Website By Safeguarding The Login Page And Obstructing Brute Force Attacks
5. Set up a website lockdown feature: Problem of continuous brute force attempts can be solved by setting up a lockdown feature for failed login attempts. Whenever a hacker puts in constant wrong passwords, this feature lets you lock down your website and get informed of this illegal activity.
6. Use two-factor authentication: Using two-factor authentication (2FA) modules on the login page can be an effective measure to ensure your WordPress security. It is a method by which the website owner puts login details for two different elements. For instance, it can be a password followed by a specific question such as, “What is the name of your favorite teacher ?”
7. Modify your passwords: Play around with your passwords and change them from time to time. Use different sorts of additional words, assemble upper and lower case letters to build up the strength, so they are challenging to crack. Using long phrases can be helpful too
8. Use a password manager: Sometimes, we do not have adequate time to modify our passwords from time to time. It is when some quality password managers come to our advantage. Besides generating a safe password, these password managers store them in a vault. It saves us from the inconvenience of having to remember them.
Protect Your WordPress Website Through Admin Dashboard
9. Protect the wp-admin directory: If your wp-admin directory gets ruptured, then the entire website gets damaged. It is because the wp-admin directory is the core of any website. One popular way to safeguard this directory is for password protection. The user can enable two passwords- One to safeguard the login page and others to protect the WordPress admin area.
10. Use Secure Socket Layer to implement data: Implementing a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate helps secure the admin panel. SSL is good at ensuring safe data transfer between the user browsers and server, posing difficulty to the hackers. To receive an SSL certificate, you need to purchase it from a third party company. However, sometimes the hosting companies may provide them for free.
11. Add user accounts carefully: If your Word Press website is a multi-author blog, several people can access your admin panel. It can pose a threat to your website security. However, this issue can be solved by using a plugin like Force Strong Passwords. This plugin makes sure that whatever passwords users opt for are secure.
PROTECT YOUR WordPress WEBSITE THROUGH DATABASE
12. Make regular backups: Keeping an off-site backup of your WordPress website is always recommended. Keeping a backup helps you to put back your site to working state anytime you want. Plugins like VaultPress by Automatic will help you in this regard. Also, VaultPress keeps a check of malware too.
13. Set strong passwords for database: Setting a strong password for your database is essential to ensure your WordPress security. Use a unique combination of upper case and lower case letters and special characters to the password difficult to guess. Strong passwords make your website more secure.
14. Keep track of your audit logs: While using WordPress multi-site, you may not want your contributors to change your website’s theme and widgets. When you check the audit log, you can ensure that your contributors are not breaking something on your site without your prior permission. You can use the WP Security Audit Log to keep track of malicious activity from your users.
Conclusion
Regularly updating your themes and plugins is essential, as it fixes bugs and poses a threat to the hackers. Often, when hackers know which version of WordPress you are using, it is easier for them to build the perfect attack. These tips and tricks will undoubtedly prove beneficial for maintaining your WordPress security in the long run, making it harder for hackers to break in.