The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Security: Protect Your Site from Hackers

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world. WordPress has the versatility and user-friendliness to help make any type of website-business, e-commerce, or hobby blog to make it a smashing success. Over 43.2% of all websites running on its Software. Unfortunately, its popularity attracts all sorts of cybercriminals who take advantage of its security flaws.

So, WordPress Security is become a topic of huge importance for every Website owner. If you are serious about your website then you need to follow WordPress security best practices. Otherwise, Google can add your website to its daily list of 10,000+ malicious and phishing websites.

In this guide, we will share the top WordPress security tips that helps you to protect your website against hackers and malware.

Table of Contents

What is WordPress Security?

WordPress security is the collection of procedures, instruments, and setups that guard WordPress websites from malware, hacking, and other online dangers. Securing WordPress is crucial for website owners because of its popularity as a content management system (CMS) and its high vulnerability to hackers.

Important WordPress Security Factors

1. User authentication: Using strong passwords and two-factor authentication (2FA), you can make sure that only authorized users may access the WordPress dashboard.
2. Core Updates: WordPress core, themes, and plugins should all be updated often to correct security flaws and lower the likelihood of exploitation.
3. Web application firewalls (WAF): It can be used to stop harmful traffic before it even reaches your website.
4. Malware Scanning: Using security plugins, check the website for viruses, malware, and malicious code.
5. Access Control: Limiting who has the proper user roles and file permissions to access databases, files, and the WordPress admin area.
6. Data encryption: It protects sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers by using SSL certificates to secure data transmission between users and the website.

Why Secure a WordPress Website

Securing a WordPress website is essential for a variety of reasons, including the protection of sensitive data, maintaining user trust, and ensuring business continuity. Here are the key reasons why securing a WordPress website is crucial:

Google prefers secure websites

Google prioritizes security and user experience, ranking websites higher with HTTPS-capable, SSL-certified, and encrypted data for better organic traffic and user safety.

It Protects Brand Information and Reputation

A secure website can build and protect the brand’s reputation and customer information. WordPress website data breaches could potentially cause loss of private client information, damaging customer confidence. Preserving the website against cyberattacks is crucial for brand reputation protection.

It stops income loss

What happens if your website is compromised? Even your most loyal consumers will migrate to the nearest rival. Customer attrition can have a significant influence on your company’s sales and, eventually, revenue. This is especially true for an eCommerce company, which can quickly lose sales and money if clients are unable to finish their online orders.

Safeguard Customers Sensitive Data & Information

Sensitive customer data or information is a major reason why security is important for WordPress sites. Many WordPress sites handle sensitive information like:

• User credentials: If these are compromised, hackers can gain unauthorized access to your website or steal user accounts.
• Payment Information: Online shops should ensure secure systems that will prevent users from having their account details stolen when processing payments.
• Personal Data: Your identity or personal details are stolen or misused.

Tips to Secure your WordPress Site from Hackers

1. Keep WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins Updated

One of the easiest ways to protect your WordPress website is by regularly updating your WordPress core, themes, and plugins.Hackers frequently exploit flaws in outdated software. Fortunately, WordPress provides frequent updates that solve security problems. Here’s how to keep things updated:

• Enable auto-updates: You can enable auto-updates for WordPress core and plugins in your dashboard.
• Manually evaluate major updates: Before implementing large theme and plugin updates, test them on a staging site to avoid breaking your website.

WordPress is open-source software and is regularly maintained and updated. By default, WordPress automatically installs minor updates.

For major releases, you need to manually initiate the update.

2. Choose Reliable Themes and Plugins

Not all themes and plugins are created equal. Some may have security holes that a hacker will be able to exploit. Choose with the following best practices in mind:

• Download from trusted sources: Download only from the official WordPress repository or reputable developers.
• Check reviews and ratings: Choose extensions rated highly and having many good comments from other users.
• Limit the number of plugins: The fewer plugins you use, the smaller your attack surface.

3. Use Strong Passwords and User Permissions

4. Regularly Back Up Your Website

• UpdraftPlus: Allows scheduled backups to various cloud storage solutions.
• BackupBuddy: Provides complete backups, restoration, and migration features

5. Install a Reputable WordPress Security Plugin

After backups, the next thing we need to do is set up an auditing and monitoring system that keeps track of everything that happens on your website. Security plugins can provide an extra layer of protection. This includes file integrity monitoring, failed login attempts, malware scanning, and more. You can easily take care of this by installing one of the best WordPress security plugins, such as Sucuri Security, it provides security auditing, malware scanning, and website monitoring.

You need to install and activate the free Suruci Security Plugin. To install the free WordPress Plugins-

Now, you can head over to the Sucuri Security » Dashboard to see if the plugin found any immediate issues with your WordPress code.

The next thing you need to do is navigate to the Sucuri Security » Settings page and click on the ‘Hardening’ tab.

The default settings work well for most websites, so you can go ahead and activate them by clicking the ‘Apply Hardening’ button for each option.

This helps you lock down the key areas hackers often use in their attacks.

After the hardening part, the plugin’s other default settings are good enough for most websites and don’t need any changes. The only thing we recommend customizing is email alerts, which can be found in the ‘Alerts’ tab of the settings page.

By default, you will receive a lot of email alerts that can clutter your inbox.

We recommend enabling alerts only for key actions you wish to be notified about, such as plugin changes and new user registrations.

Apart from Suruci there are some other plugins like:

• Wordfence Security: Offers firewall protection, malware scanning, and login security.
• I Themes Security: Focuses on enforcing strong passwords and two-factor authentication.

6. Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of identification. In this method there requires 2 different steps for users to log in:

1. The first step is the username and password.
2. The second step requires you to use a code from a device or app in your possession that hackers can’t access, such as your smartphone.

Most famous websites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, allow you to enable it for your accounts. You can also add the same functionality to your WordPress site.

To enable 2FA first of all you need to install and activate WP 2FA – Two Factor Authentication plugin. A user-friendly wizard will help you set up the plugin and then you will be given a QR code.

You will need to scan the QR code using an authenticator app on your phone, such as Google Authenticator, Authy, and LastPass Authenticator.

7. Consider a Web Application Firewall (WAF)

The easiest way to protect your WordPress site and be confident about your WordPress security is by using a web application firewall (WAF). It acts as a shield between your Website and incoming traffic, blocking malicious requests before they reach your site. Some popular WAF solutions for WordPress-

• A DNS-level website firewall: It routes your website traffic through its cloud proxy servers. This allows it to send only genuine traffic to your web server.
• Cloudflare: It provides a free plan with basic firewall protection and and performance enhancements.
• Suruci Firewall: Offers more advanced protection, including DDoS mitigation and blacklist monitoring.

8. Change default Login URL

The default login URL-yourdomain.com/wp-admin-should be changed, as this is the favorite brute-force attack point. This alone can reduce your risk dramatically. There are several plugins, such as WPS Hide Login, that allow you to customize your login page URL to something completely unique.

9. Limit Login Attempts

Hackers most often use brute-force attacks to guess your login credentials. Restricting how many times a user attempts logging in will stop automated attacks. Plugins such as Limit Login Attempts reloaded prevent the number of failed attempts before locking users out for a period.

10. Move Your WordPress Site to SSL/HTTPS

SSL encrypts the information exchanged between your website and its users, making it extremely difficult for hackers to intercept sensitive information. Google further prioritizes SSL-secured websites in search rankings, thus placing important importance on this aspect both in terms of security and SEO.

• Free SSL Certificate: Free SSL is also offered, mostly by hosting providers with Let’s Encrypt.
• Force HTTPS: Have all pages on your website load over HTTPS in one of the following ways; Configure your server Really Simple SSL.

11. Disable XML-RPC

XML-RPC is a function to make communication of your WordPress site on a remote server, but it’s often compromised by hackers for brute-force attacks. If you do not need to use XML-RPC then it’s a good idea to deactivate it with a plugin like Disable XML-RPC.

12. Secure Your wp-config.php File

The wp-config.php file contains critical information about your WordPress installation. To secure it:

• Move it: Place it one directory level up from your WordPress root directory.
• Set Permissions: Limit permissions to this file to prevent unauthorized access.

13. Monitor Your Site’s Activity

Keep an eye out for any unusual activity on your website. While some security plugins provide monitoring capabilities, you can also use tools like Google Search Console to find any anomalies.

Conclusion

WordPress security is a continuous activity rather than a one-time event. By putting these tactics into practice, you may drastically lower the likelihood that hackers will target your website. Always remember that the best defense is a solid attack, so continue to be watchful and proactive when it comes to website security. Maintain a safe online presence, and your website will prosper in the wide world of the internet.