How to Secure Your WordPress Site? Five Ways to Keep it Safe and Sound
WordPress is a CMS platform that is flawlessly crafted for both bloggers and e-commerce players. However, for any Internet technology, security is a major issue. Irrespective of its bespoke features, WordPress isn't without imperfections. The CMS has its own set of flaws which are hard to ignore.
While WordPress is gaining immense popularity, it
should come as no surprise that these websites are popular target for hackers
and some pesky users. The advancement of hacking tools has also made it easy
for hackers to gain backdoor to a WordPress site and cripple its legitimacy.
WordPress sites are lagging behind when it comes to security, often due to the
lack of vigilance and knowledge among its users. A staggering amount of
WordPress sites are becoming victims of unpleasant cyber attacks, compelling
lots of users to come forward and protect their site from potential threats.
This post discusses some general tips and tricks
that you can implement to safeguard your WordPress site against hacking,
malware, or spam attacks. The tips mentioned below are quite easy to follow and
will surely help you steer clear bad guys to a great extent.
Let's know about them in detail.
1. Embrace WordPress Updates
Running the latest version of WordPress is the
most basic and obvious security measure that users can implement very easily.
Running an outdated version will never help you when it comes to security as
hackers are quick to attack these websites. When you update a software, you not
only make it secure, but you also get a gift of better features, bug fixes, and
other improvements. This is important to ensure a sustainable future of your
website.
2. Use Plugins and Themes That Encourage Trust
With the help of a technique called
plugin enumeration, hackers can easily find out the number of plugins
your WordPress site is currently using. The technique can be used to break into
your site and make it vulnerable to security attacks. To avoid this, make sure
you reduce the plugin installation to the minimum. Choose only those themes and
plugins that are actually required and simply get rid of the ones that are no
longer useful. Be selective, before installation, read all the instructions and
check when your chosen theme or plugin is last updated.
3. Move Over With Default Username
The “admin” username that's created by
WordPress during installation contain security vulnerabilities, so make sure
you change it immediately if you are still using it. Hackers are smart enough
to know about the default WordPress user name and they quickly burst into those
websites which do not change it.
If you change your username to
something else, then it would protect you from becoming the next victim. There
are two methods using which you can easily change the “admin” username.
First way is, just create another
admin user and assign then give it some admin permissions. Now, you can login
with a new username and delete the old one.
The second way is, if your user is
assigned with multiple pages and posts and you don't want to assign them again,
you can change the username through PHPMyAdmin. For this, just sign in to your
cPanel and go to PHPMyAdmin. Click on the WordPress database and look for
WP_users. Select the “admin” user, and change the user_login field with the
name you want to change.
4. Limit the Power of Inactive Users
Administrators, who have the authority
to edit content, assign roles, and assign roles are more exposed to the
possibility of being harmed. And, if you have multiple users under you, keeping
a track of everyone activities is quite daunting. In fact, out of them, there
are so many users who end up choosing weak passwords, and thus become victim to
malicious or other cyber attacks. If you have a list of inactive users in your
WordPress database, just switch their role to 'subscriber'. This will limit
their powers and authorities for making any change within your website.
5. Switch to Complex Security Keys
Just like passwords, security keys are
yet another important aspect of a WordPress site. These keys help you to keep
vandals away and augment the security level of your website. You site should
use unique, random, and lengthy security keys. You can make use of special
characters and several other random combinations to make it as complicated as
possible.
To Conclude
Strengthening the security of a
WordPress site shouldn't scare you. It's indeed very easy, all you need is to
have a strong knowledge about some handy facts that help you uplift the
security bar of your website.
Author Biography:
Jack Calder is a exploring expert in
Markupcloud Ltd, a nice company involved in the process of convert psd to html in few
time. Jack is a lover of web development languages, he uses to develop
various things in it. Connect with Jack