The most commonly used content management system all over the world is WordPress. Out of the 37% of the websites built using CMS, more than half are using it as their chosen target and are more vulnerable to security attacks. You contained some basic vulnerabilities, a WordPress site whose security has not been worked on opens the door to hackers wishing to recover your data or simply corrupt your website.
It is necessary to do security
measures from the start, such as choosing a sturdy username and a strong
password so you can easily prevent intruders from taking over your site.
Web Design Company in Pakistan giving you 13 clear best practices to help you and your company battle to educate, protect, and safeguard your WordPress climate.
1. Regularly backup the database
Both sites have a database in which the content is stored, even though it is assumed to be secure. It is really important not to fail to archive this data periodically if anything goes awry with the web. Even if you may be extra safe, it is always nice to have a backup on hand because you will never know when anything is going to go wrong. Are you saying that the biggest sites on the web that spend huge amounts of money on on-site security are sometimes hacked, so why not yours?
Performing regular backups of your site would allow you to restore your site to its original state after correcting the vulnerability if it were to be hacked and corrupted.
"Ideally, we would recommend
doing a weekly backup of this." It is necessary to remember the day the
backup archive is saved in the backup folder. In case of mistake, hacking, or
loss of the web, you will be able to reintegrate it quickly and easily.
There are various extensions for this, allowing you to make automatic backups of your files, extensions, themes, and others. Here are two popular WordPress backup plugins:
Ø UpdraftPlus
WordPress Backup Plugin
Ø BackWPup
These two extensions allow you to
create automatic backups of your database and files, then store them on your
server or the cloud (Dropbox, Azure, Google Drive, etc.), or even by sending
mail containing your backup.
2. Check regularly for updates
To secure your WordPress site or blog, you need to carry out daily updates. As soon as an update is available, we will get you the tools and details you need to update your site before getting the update.
As well as being true to the CMS, the instruction is also applicable for all addons. A new problem is sometimes found every day, which allows the developers to often suggest fixes. The insignificant range that is losing importance is a major challenge.
As for updates to your security plugin, they are more than necessary! These take special account of new viruses or hacking techniques.
3. Install a security plugin
As there are antiviruses to install on your computer, you can also add an antivirus plugin to ensure your WordPress's security. Quite often, these plugins not only protect your site from viruses, but they also monitor the overall security of your WordPress.
A security extension will allow you to manage several aspects of your WordPress security easily and transparently. It is a toolbox grouping together several tools to secure your site. Among these security extensions, we will find:
- Ø WordFence Security
- Ø iThemes Security
- Ø WP fail2ban
- Ø Sucuri Security
- Ø SecuPress
Ø All
In One WP Security & Firewall
For example, WordFence will allow
you to:
Ø Monitor
your site traffic to block malicious traffic
Ø Notify
you of updates available on your WordPress
Ø Protect
your login system from a brute force attack
Ø Check
your files for malware, non-compliant URLs, code injections, bad redirects,
etc.
Ø Check
the integrity of your files
Ø Repair
your files as needed
Ø Scan
your site for known vulnerabilities
Ø Enable
2-step authentication
Ø Block
bots with a CAPTCHA system
Other features are available with WordFence, and most security extensions have similar features. These are very useful and recommended extensions to install. WordFence alone is installed on over 3 million WordPress today.
4. Use official extensions and themes
Using cracked extensions or themes
is bad for the security of your site.
When you install unofficial versions, you are potentially giving access to your site to anyone. Since WordPress does not validate the cracked versions, the people providing these extensions and themes may slip inside malware files, a gateway to your site, or any other malicious code without even you. You realized it.
v Warning
As a result, you could have your
data stolen and offer malicious people access without even knowing it!
You should never install software hacks because it can lead to severe problems caused by WordPress viruses and never go through the addition of plugins and official WordPress themes or for which you have purchased from a business or organization.
5. Remove unused extensions and themes
Sometimes we install themes and extensions to test them or, for a short time, then deactivate them (in the best case) or forget them and leave them aside.
Even more so, if you don't update them or if they are out of date, there is a problem because these unused extensions and themes are potential additional entry points for hackers and unnecessary to your site.
Therefore, the best practice will be to remove any extension or theme that you no longer use to reduce the risk of your website being hacked.
6. Modify the connection addresses
To make it a little harder for a hacker to intrude, we suggested updating your login address. By default, WordPress offers you my-site.com/wp-admin. That once again facilitates the work of hackers!
You can easily modify this URL to something custom with a .htaccess file, or you can do so with an extension like Custom Login URL. This second solution works well for people who don't know much about code, i.e., that type of person.
7. Delete the admin account
To find out how to connect to your WordPress admin framework, "enter admin" should be your username. It is also heavily used by hackers to access your site.
It would help if you did not make it simple to build the administrator account and send them a hard to guess personal identification number.
8. Enable 2-step authentication
This security option offered by
various extensions makes your connection system almost 100% secure!
In most cases, the 2nd login step will be a code sent via SMS, a phone call, or a required login via a mobile app. Therefore, the hacker will need to know both your password and have access to the device used for the second connection step, which is almost impossible.
Among the extensions offering
two-factor authentication, we can find:
Ø Two
Factor Authentication
Ø Google
Authenticator
Ø Two-Factor
Authentication Duo
Most of these extensions work in pair with their mobile application allowing you to manage the two-step authentication system and authorize the connection when a connection is initiated with this same system.
9. Hide the version of WordPress used
For every version of WordPress, there are loopholes that hackers will be happy to exploit. To complicate these intruders' task a bit, consider hiding the version of WordPress you are using.
Changes are effected at two levels: updating the function.php file and another by changing the readme.html file. The vital and crucial root of WordPress is located at /admin and must be removed before fixing the problem.
10. Prevent browsing through folders
On a WordPress site, by default, the folders are accessible to everyone. As a result, it is imperative to block the gang member's access to better protect them.
To change the access conditions on a specific web page, you can do it by your .htaccess or opt for the Hide My WordPress plugin.
11. Choose a secure host
Security breaches will not necessarily come from your site. They can sometimes come from your host. Many WordPress sites have been hacked because of a security breach on their host's side and not the security of the sites themselves.
As a consequence, it is necessary
to choose the appropriate host.
For that, you can already analyze the offers of the hosts according to 3 criteria:
Ø Do
the host's servers have a firewall and antivirus?
Ø Are
automatic backups regularly performed?
Ø In the case of shared hosting, is each account isolated from other users so that an infected user does not infect others?
v Warning
If your current or future host does not respect these three key points, you can go your way and change to another host.
12. Protect the connection to your site with an SSL certificate (HTTPS)
You will surely have already seen the little padlock next to the URL of a site and this URL preceded by "HTTPS". That is possible because the site in question holds an SSL certificate. This SSL certificate enables the HTTPS protocol to be activated, ensuring a secure connection between the browser (client) and the webserver.
This certificate is known to be important when the site offers a payment system directly on the site. However, it is also useful for other reasons:
Ø In
HTTP, the data transferred between the server and the browser are not hidden
and are transmitted in the clear. It is not right to say that there is a
problem of security danger when using the HTTPS protocol.
Ø The
SSL certificate has an impact on your SEO. Google says it's a (slightly)
determining factor for your search positioning.
Ø With
digital education, which is common, people have become accustomed to checking
that the small padlock is present on the sites because they have often heard
that it is a guarantee of security. Having an SSL certificate improves the
trust people have in your website.
Ø In
connection with the previous point, some web browsers like Chrome now display
an " Unsecured " statement in front of the URL sites
that do not have an SSL certificate. Worse, sometimes they can display a
prevention page before accessing the site, which can potentially frighten many
visitors.
Ø For technical reasons, the HTTPS protocol is intended to be faster than HTTP. You can improve the speed of your WordPress site simply by integrating an SSL certificate.
13. Protect yourself against DDoS
The DDOS is a denial-of-service attack; it makes a system (or website) inaccessible by the target with several systems simultaneously. Concretely, several systems (computers or servers) will try to carry out actions at the same time on a specific target (a website, for example) so that this one finds itself overloaded with requests until it can no longer manage them and " crash" rendering the target disabled.
To prevent this kind of attack, some services (including a plugin) configure on your WordPress site, which will mitigate denial of service attacks thanks to their anti-DDoS protection.
Among these security services, you can find Cloudflare or the WordPress Sucuri Security extension.
Conclusion
Security is an important part that
should not be overlooked when creating and maintaining your WordPress site. An
intrusion into your database or files by a hacker, and your website goes down
quickly ... which can easily cost several hundred or even several thousand
dollars if your site is a source of income.
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