Security has become one of the most grave concerns that online business owners are facing these days. Today, almost every website is built on WordPress platform and there is a strong reasons for that (a) it is one of the best content management systems available on the market, (b) it is free and easy to operate, and you can do almost anything with the WordPress. Due to these reasons, companies are frequently adopting to WordPress web development services to effectively manage and edit their content.
But, instead of all these powerful features, WordPress like any another website can be easily targeted and hit by the hackers. Hackers have always been around, looking for some good opportunities to exhibit their mischievous acts of making your website absolutely powerless and useless.
Fortunately, there are some means through which you can easily protect your WordPress. As it is rightly said that “Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear”.
1. Delete the User Name “admin”
When you create a WordPress based site, you get a default username i.e admin. Most people keep this username, which makes it extremely easy for hackers to enter your website, as they can easily guess it.
So, it’s important to delete this default username and create a one that is more secure and complex enough to be guessed easily.
2. Strengthen your Password
It’s important to take this step seriously. As hackers with the help of a software check each and every word in Wikipedia and try to match it against your password. So, anything that’s too common like your name, date of birth, or name in any language should not be used. Instead, you can create a password consists of some random arrangement of numbers, special characters and alphabets to maintain a level of complexity.
3. Update Your WordPress Regularly
WordPress has earned a bad image of being “insecure” among its users. In fact, it is often an overlooked solution to keep your WordPress site safe from being invited some “unwanted guests”. A WordPress site only becomes insecure if it is not regularly updated or fail to keep itself in tune with the latest plugins or customization processes. Therefore, any part of your website which is failing to get updated with latest versions becomes more vulnerable as hackers can destroy it by performing some undesirable activities.
You can go through the following updates by installing:
- The latest version of WordPress
- The latest version of all plugins you’ve already installed
- The latest version of all installed themes
In addition to this, it’s good to delete those plugins and themes which you don’t need in the future. As these are likely to become obsolete and can increase the risk of being hacked.
4. Install an Encrypted Log in Plugin
As the name suggests, the plug in protects your password at the log in time, using the method of encryption. As, WordPress doesn’t have this security by default, your website is vulnerable to packet sniffers that are prawling around the wireless networks. A plugin like Chap Secure Log, which uses SHA256 algorithms to give high level of protection to your username and password. On the other hand, another plug in like
Login Lockdown provides a useful method to block IPs which keeps a record of repeat failure attempts of accessing your website.
Conclusion:
All the above mentioned recommendations are not the sure recipes to protect your site at all times. However, they do raise your website’s level of security to a great extent. There is a tendency among hackers to target the Achillies heels i.e the weakest part of our website. So, by following these basic suggestions, you can find ways to take your website security to a level that’s close to impenetrable.
Author Bio
Ben Wilson is a web developer by profession and a writer by hobby and works for WordPrax a custom WordPress development company. He loves sharing information regarding WordPress development tips & tricks. For more details you can get in touch with him at Facebook & Twitter.