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A Guide To Securing Your WordPress Website

by / Wednesday, 31 May 2017 / Published in Blog, Tech

secure wp

Time and again WordPress has been recognized as one of the most reliable content management systems. It is extremely developer friendly. This is exactly what makes it a preferred platform for most. Putting across content to the world via WordPress is super easy.

WordPress offers options to customize the content in a variety of ways. This leads to immense ease of usage. But like every coin, this has another side too. WordPress too has its own set of demerits.

A look at what makes WordPress vulnerability

If one does not change his default configuration it can easily get hacked. This has been recognized as the top issue. The reason behind this is fairly simple. It is super easy to navigate oneself to the login page for a WordPress account.

One just has to press domain.com/wp-admin. After that, the task of cracking the password is executed equally easily via brute force. This is a tried and tested method used by most hackers. Once they have gained access to the account, what follows is easy to comprehend.

Little steps towards a safer WordPress account

WordPress getting hacked is the worst. It is a medium used extensively by small and medium sized businesses too. Hence, expensive methods to save the day are not the answer. We have tried to put together a bunch of small measures that can be taken.

  • Backing up the content on your website

    website-backup

A weekly backup serves the purpose more often than not. Currently, there are a lot of vendors available in the market providing this service. At a pretty nominal price; one can secure the website within minutes now. Some free plug-ins have also made a cameo which has made work easy.

  • Limiting the number of login attempts

    lockedoutlogin

Brute force attacks are used by most hackers. It’s done by trying a variety of different logical combinations. Installing a plug-in can limit the number of log-ins. It will even ban the IP address for a specified number of hours if suspicious activity is detected.

  • Omitting the use of “admin” as the username

    url-settings-in-wordpress-dashboard

Changing the username immediately saves you from an entire category of hackers. In case if you have already chosen “admin” as your username you can still alter it. It can be done by creating another admin user. You can then give the permission to this username. One can always delete the previous admin username. PHPMyAdmin also offers an easy way by which this can be altered.

  • Avoiding easy passwords.

    password-generator

This is probably the easiest and yet the most useful piece of advice. The thumb rule is to avoid anything closely related to the username or the name of the website. One should even avoid having a password in the same realm. Keeping complex password combinations is the right way to go.

  • Installing a two-factor authentication login

    duo-security

They go a long way in adding an extra layer of security. In most cases, a personal message is sent to a mobile phone or another device marked secure. Without the same, it is impossible to get through to the website. Secret questions definitely go a long way in saving the day in this case.

  • Password Protecting the WP-Admin Directory

    cpanel_enable_directory_password_protection_create_new_user

It is the most important directory of a WordPress account. Hence it makes complete sense to protect it via a password.

  • Actively monitoring the WordPress files

    daily monitoring

If any of the files were hacked, one can quickly find out from the tampered files. The step forward is to minimize whatever damage has been caused. There are several plug-ins available for this. They aid in monitoring the changes made to the file and notify accordingly.

As useful as WordPress is, it is equally vital to battle the issues that arise because of it. Keeping the account and the plug-ins updated is the best way forward.

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