Six Ways to Secure Your WordPress Website
Tags: wordpress, security, strategy
Published: 2019-10-22 14:56:00

<p align="justify">Cyber attacks are real, frequent, and often very painful, so keeping your WordPress website is enormously important. More and more attempts are launched against websites every year, so the question of security remains critical for everyone. As we know, size doesn’t matter to cyber criminals, so when it comes to targeting victims, everyone is a fair game, from large international corporations to small businesses.</p> 
<p><a href=https://www.symantec.com/security-center/threat-report>2018 Internet Security Threat Report</a> informed that 2017 was the year of cyber attacks, with their number peaking at 27.7 million per month.</p>
![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/6estissb4dh8rpn0y6ja.png)
<p align="center">Source: <a href=https://www.symantec.com/security-center/threat-report>2018 Internet Security Threat Report</a>, Symantec</p>
<p align="justify">Since the best way to deal with cyber threats is to prevent them, check out the six ways to secure your WordPress website below.</p>
<h2>1. Update, Update, Update </h2>
<p align="justify">Many owners of WordPress websites avoid installing updates because they think they can disrupt the performance of their platforms. However, avoiding updates is a really bad idea because they may contain the latest protection tools from developers.</p>
<p align="justify">The risk arising from the lack of protection is high. For example, <a href=https://sucuri.net/reports/Sucuri-Hacked-Report-2017.pdf>Sucuri’s Hacked Website report</a> found that 39.3 percent of hacked WordPress sites in 2017 had an outdated </p> 
![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/92n035itvnvopxjcnv8d.png)
<p align="center">Source: <a href=https://sucuri.net/reports/Sucuri-Hacked-Report-2017.pdf>Sucuri’s Hacked Website report</a> </p>
<p align="justify">So check whether you have the latest version of WordPress, back up your site, and update it when updates are available. Or insert the following code in wp-config.php to enable auto updates:
define( 'AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', false );
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true );</p>
<h2>2. Create a Super Strong Password</h2>
<p align="justify">Some WordPress websites have pretty weak passwords, which puts them at an increased risk of being hacked. In fact, according to <a href=https://wpsmackdown.com/wordpress-hack-statistics-2013/>WPSmackdown</a>, 8 percent of WordPress websites get hacked because of this reason.</p>
![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/6hugh06mv4hjyv200bth.png)
<p align="justify">Source: <a href=https://wpsmackdown.com/wordpress-hack-statistics-2013/>WPSmackdown</a> </p>
<p>The same source also informed that the most common passwords that are being tried include:
<li>Password</li>
<li>12345678</li>
<li>123admin</li>
<li>123abc</li>
<li>Qwerty
<p align="justify">While you can come up with your own passwords (it has to be long, at least 12 characters, and contain a string of random letters and digits), feel free to check these tools:
    <li>Strong Password Generator
    <li> Strong Random Password Generator
<p align="justify">While you can come up with your own passwords (it has to be long, at least 12 characters, and contain a string of random letters and digits), feel free to check these tools:
    <li>Strong Password Generator
    <li>Strong Random Password Generator.
<p align="justify">Also, I recommend changing your password every couple of months for maximum protection so the user of the site can focus on writing blog posts and avoid distraction by security measures. Also, for increasing the efficiency of writing and proofreading posts, safe and reliable tools such as
<a href=http://hemingwayapp.com>Hemingway Editor</a>, <a href=https://essayhilfe.de/>Essayhilfe</a> and <a href=https://studhilfe.de/>Studhilfe</a>, and recommended.</p>
<h2>3. Carefully Review New Plugins and Themes before Installing (and Update Those You Have)</h2>
<p align="justify">Here’s an alarming fact: 18 percent of the hacked WordPress websites in 2016 were breached because they had outdated versions of just three plugins: GravityForms, RevSllider, and TimThumb (source: Sucuri’s Hacked Website Report 2016 – Q3).</p>
![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/dk71o9c1gqdx83delk3o.png)
Source: <a href=https://sucuri.net/reports/2016-q3-hacked-website-report/>Sucuri’s Hacked Website Report 2016</a> – Q3
<p align="justify">A strong correlation between outdated plugins and the hacked sites suggests that updates are critical here as well. 
Another key consideration is plugins’ reliability. You should be very careful selecting them because some of them may be vulnerable to hackers. For example, some developers using poor coding practices may allow them to exploit plugins and undermine every website it gets installed on.</p> 
<p>To avoid such plugins, follow these tips:</p>
   <li> Check if the plugin is updated regularly
   <li> Check user ratings and reviews (try to install those that have at least 4-star rating)
   <li> Get your plugins from well-known trustworthy sources such as WordPress.org (there are more than 56,000 of them on this site!)
<h2> 4. Limit Login Attempts</h2>
<p>WordPress doesn’t impose any limits on the amount of times one can try and login into your website. The lack of limits, of course, provides hackers with all chances they need to force their way into your admin panel. To change that and reduce the risk of getting hacked, you can limit login attempts.</p>
<p>For that, you can use a plugin called Login LockDown. If it detects a certain customizable number of failed attempt from the same IP range within a short period of time, then it disables the login function for all requests from that range. As the result, you can prevent brute force password discovery.</p> 
<h2> 5. Implement an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate </h2>
This security measure is very popular one for securing the admin panel because:
   <li> Gain visitors’ trust. SSL certificates can help you to build credibility and gain trust of your visitors. 
   <li> Increasing website security. The most significant benefit of SSL certificates is that they protect the sensitive data transmitted from and to your site.
   <li> SEO benefit. Google recommends getting an SSL certificate for websites and prioritizes those that have it because the search engine strives to give its users a safe browsing experience.
<h2> 6. Back up Regularly </h2>
<p>You may think that your website is safe if you implement all these tips above but there’s still some room for improvement. Remember to always make backups because they’re the best way to keep your data safe. If you have it, you can restore it to a working state anytime. 
UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular backup plugins, so you can start with it.</p>

<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Cyber attacks remain a huge problem for website owners, so seeking additional ways to secure yours is something that you need to do. As you can see, these ways don’t require some extraordinary skills from you but they’ll go a long way in helping you to reduce the chances of getting your site hacked.</p> 

<b>Dorothea Oppelland</b> is a marketing specialist, business consultant and helps people to turn their dreams into the profitable business . Currently she works at  <a href=https://ghostwriterpreise.com/>Ghostwriterpreise.com</a>. She graduated from the Hamburg University. Now she is writing for marketing and business resources. Also Dorothea works at <a href=https://www.ghostwritingerfahrungen.com/>GhostwritingErfahrungen</a> and you can easily contact her.